I’m not a fan of The Apprentice – my children are. For me it’s all got a bit silly. In the office we have a sweepstake as to who will win and the winner walks off with around £100 (last year the winner said thanks, and didn’t buy so much as a box of Maltesers...), so it provides some reason for watching, but even then I would rather watch re-runs of Shaun the Sheep who incidentally, knows more about team building than all the Apprentice candidates put together.The point is, that for organisations to succeed there needs to be a collective responsibility for getting work done, and therefore there is a big onus on teamwork. Often this needs to include teams from other organisations because they are integral to the organisation's success.
At lloydmasters we spend a lot of time developing the concept of 'team' with clients and trying to help them understand that it’s not just going to happen but that it needs to be worked at. We have developed a model, derived from work at MIT, which focuses on what makes high performing teams. The model provides a framework to:
- Self-awareness (know thyself)
- Learning as a team
- Avoiding defensive routines
- Developing process
Practice is the hardest part to get right. Lots of organisations think that going on a team building day is all it takes but it needs more than a collective go-karting event for a team to understand its strengths and weaknesses and what it can achieve.
As for The Apprentice? Well it seems to focus on the rise of the individual, often at the expense of the team, which talented managers know is very dangerous. Ask Sir Alex Ferguson; he was brave enough to throw out David Beckham, Jaap Stam and Christiano Ronaldo.
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