Motivating your team
Featured in the Motivation in Practice training manual
By Eddie Davies
Category: People Management and Motivation
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
This training activity introduces the key features of a highly motivated and effective team. It enables the participants to relate their own teams to the five stages of team development described by Bruce Tuckman and to produce an action plan for motivating their own team, at what ever stage they are currently. The training activity also explores how central the emphasis on team working is to most organisations, discusses the benefits and disadvantages of teamwork and identifies the optimum conditions that will make team working effective. Participants’ ideas are compared with Douglas McGregor’s researched characteristics of effective teams, and they are then given the opportunity to try out the approach discussed in a practical, challenging and fun exercise.
You start the training activity by showing an overhead transparency that confirms how central to most organisations the emphasis on team working is. You follow this with a discussion of the benefits and disadvantages of team work and an identification of the optimum conditions that will make team working effective. You then introduce participants to a model of the five stages that a team works through during its development from coming together to breaking apart. Each of these stages is reviewed, during which process the role of the leader is explored and you then challenge the participants to relate the topic area to their own teams. This section ends with a brief action plan on incorporating the subjects discussed. In the next phase, the participants consider effective and motivated teams of which they have been a member in the past. Their ideas are compared with well-researched characteristics of effective teams and, again, you pose key questions to the participants relating the discussion to their own teams. Having described teamwork in theory, participants are given the opportunity to try out the approach in a practical, challenging and fun exercise. At the end of the training activity, the participants review their team’s performance and complete final action plans for transferring the learning they have gained in the training activity back to their workplace.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to illustrate to the participants the key features of a highly motivated and effective team, and to enable them to produce an action plan for motivating their teams at work.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 03:20:00 |
| No of Pages: | 28 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Additional resources: 1x8ft builder's plank, 2x8ft, 2x5ft, 4x4ft and 2x2ft scaffolding poles, 1 pulley system, 1 ring spanner, 8 scaffolding joints, 1 ball of string, 1 pair of scissors, 2x50ft ropes, 2x20ft ropes, 12 wooden pallets; a hard hat and safety gloves for each parti
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers in any training event that aims to increase participants’ awareness of, and skills in, building a motivated team. It has been used successfully on a number of training programmes, such as an introduction to effective management, building and leading a team, organisational development, and team working skills.
Download the training activity, Motivating your team as featured in the Fenman training manual; Motivation in Practice