Groups Into Team (G2T) Alignment Exercise

We have often been asked to help with this question:  How does a company build a winning culture?  In pursuing the answer to this question, we have noticed the stark cultural differences between a group and a team. If culture eats strategy for breakfast than a team eats a group’s lunch.  What is a group, and what is a team? For definition purposes here are some of the fully researched differences between a group and a team: 

• When in a group, you seek out the authority to address conflict.
• On a team conflict is handled member to member with a common language. 
• Groups of people often do not share a common goal while Team’s create common goals. 
• Groups are independent while Teams are interdependent.  

We have written extensively on our 'G2T' (Groups to Teams) concept in newsletters and in white papers.  More recently has been success implementing some of these ideas with clients and helping to shape their company culture.  

Companies hire people from different walks of life, with different strengths and different personalities. These differences can be obvious and group dynamics can take over if the leadership doesn’t take an active role in helping people understand how they are aligned and the things they have in common. A great way to do this is the admiration exercise which takes about 60 minutes for a group of 15.   

• With a facilitator or leader at the white board and this template in front of everyone. 
• Ask them to write down the names of three people they admire. 
• Then ask them to write down three traits that they admire about those three people. 
• Then ask them to rank the nine traits they have come up with top to bottom.

For the rest of the exercise in more detail and to continue developing team culture read our white paper:  Groups Into Teams Part I.

---