The building of work-teams involves a variety of issues; personal differences, stage of team development, conflict resolution, communications and risk taking. Recognizing these issues and dealing effectively with them is essential for successful teams.

There are dozens of books and programs on the concept of work-teams. None provides the degree of knowledge and impact based on extensive experience and research that Total Quality Consulting (TQC) offers through its course "A Tool Kit for Team Building." The program was developed based on the author's fifteen years of experience with team based initiatives in major American manufacturing and service companies.

You may recognize that work-teams are essential for successful quality initiatives. You may need your existing teams or departments to work together better. You may want to create cross-functional teams for projects or process synchronization. Whatever your reasons for starting teams; teams can help make things better.

Group training helps your teams get up and running quickly and effectively. The training helps existing teams sharpen their focus and smooth the rough edges, and it gives individual team members the vision and desire to function as essential contributors. Expecting work teams to just "figure it out by themselves" is an inefficient, costly, and sometimes disastrous approach. Teams benefit from understanding their goals and the roles needed to achieve them. Training from TQC gives teams the procedures and tools they need to perform at their best.

The overriding objective of "A Tool Kit for Team Building," is to prepare individuals to be effective team members by increasing their knowledge of key work-team concepts; and giving them the ability, the tools and the motivation to apply that knowledge:

• Team Goals
• Individual roles
• Implementation plans
• Team communication skills
• Problem solving and decision making
• Course Process

Participants will be engaged in structured developmental exercises that emphasize techniques to ensure successful teams. The course stresses the importance of each technique and explains how they interrelate to ensure improved work focus and customer satisfaction. Multiple job aids are provided. Intact work-teams are encouraged to attend together for maximum benefit.

"A Tool Kit for Team Building" is a step-by-step approach to developing and implementing work-teams. Specifically, participants will learn to:

1. Recognize the impact of personal differences on team members and customers, and how to use personal differences to improve problem solving capabilities
2. Identify the stages of team development and see how team maturity impacts team effectiveness
3. Develop team goals; then define roles and procedures to support them
4. Recognize and use consensus decision making skills
5. Define team conflict and use conflict reduction techniques and team communication skills
6. Define risk and accept the need for it; use risk management skills
7. Use personal and team action-planning systems

Individuals participating in "A Tool Kit for Team Building" learn the skills necessary to establish and function successfully in their own work team.

To implement or improve work teams in your organization, please contact TQC. Our mission is to provide products and services to meet your unique needs.