Team Building: A Structured Learning Approach provides a thorough understanding of team building concepts; what it means to be a member of a team, empowerment, and how teams contribute to continuous quality improvement. Your students will apply these concepts in various exercises throughout the book. A structured learning approach is used where team members rotate roles. Students take turns as leaders and observers. The observer records the interactions which occur in solving an exercise, and reports findings to the team at the end of the exercise. These findings are analyzed by the team thus creating an atmosphere whereby teams learn how to learn. There are numerous exercises so the student is exposed to a diversity of problems. Team concepts such as empowerment, cohesiveness, handling difficult members, and team effectiveness are explained and there are exercises that help students learn more about these concepts, while building their team skills.

Table of Contents:
TEAMWORK AND SYNERGY Synergy Major elements of team synergy Do you need a team? Team size Characteristics of an effective team Should team membership be voluntary? Achieving positive team synergy What have I gotten into? Exercise 1, Knowing your team members CONTRIBUTORS TO CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT Deming's guide to quality improvement Exercise 2, Deming audit Crosby's guide to quality improvement Exercise 3, Crosby audit Juran's guide to quality improvement Exercise 4, Juran audit EMPOWERMENT Knowing your team members Exercise 5, What is empowerment? Exercise 6, Team process control SUPPORTIVE TEAM CULTURE A variety of team-player styles Sample team rules Reaching a consensus Exercise 7, Salesman problem Exercise 8, Secretary problem TEAM BUILDING PHASES Exercise 9, Written team rules Exercise 10, Team assessment Peer feedback Do's and Don'ts when giving feedback Exercise 11, General peer feedback Exercise 12, Detailed peer evaluation Exercise 13, Self-assessment UNDERSTANDING HOW WE THINK Developing trust Colored hat thinking Exercise 14, Norm violation Exercise 15, Future workplace Exercise 16, University President MEMBER SERVICE ROLES Exercise 17, Declining enrollments Exercise 18, QI project Exercise 19, Community leader Exercise 20, Teenage nightowl EXPANDED TEAM MEMBER ROLES Group task functions Exercise 21, Improving schools Exercise 22, Improving services Exercise 23, Good teacher EXPANDING TEAM SKILLS Phases of a meeting Improving performance Exercise 24, General Wainwright Exercise 25, Team assessment Exercise 26, Now what? TYPES, TEAMS AND MORE TEAMS Reason for specialized teams Quality circles Task reams Cross-functional project teams Functional teams Self-directed (self-managed) teams Design teams Quality circles Sustaining continuous quality improvement Index