Team building is a collective term for various types of activities used to enhance social relations and define roles within teams, often involving collaborative tasks. It is distinct from team training, which is designed by a combine of business managers, learning and development/OD (Internal or external) and an HR Business Partner (if the role exists) to improve the efficiency, rather than interpersonal relations.
Many team-building exercises aim to expose and address interpersonal problems within the group.[1]
Over time, these activities are intended[by whom?] to improve performance in a team-based environment.[2] Team building is one of the foundations of organizational development that can be applied to groups such as sports teams, school classes, military units or flight crews. The formal definition[which?] of team-building includes:
aligning around goals
building effective working relationships
reducing team members' role ambiguity
finding solutions to team problems
Team building is one of the most widely used group-development activities in organizations.[3]