TITLE : TEAM BUILDING: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR TRAINERS.

Preface

This is a book for trainers who want to know how to design and provide team building events. Therefore, the amount of theory on teams, team building and organization development is limited to the purely functional, i.e., what a trainer needs to provide this service. Readers with an interest in the academic aspects of these types of learning interventions already have a body of work available to them. (See Bibliography, p. 115).

The major impetus for writing this book has been the work that I have undertaken for HM Customs & Excise in the last few years. Although I have provided team building for other organizations in the same period (in total over 60 such events for 6 different organizations in the last 5 years), the particular demands placed on me as a consultant by HM Customs & Excise have encouraged me to reassess my views and practices. For me, this has proved to be a very good example of a collaborative learning process between a consultant and a client organization.

This period of assessment has been prompted by two particular factors. First, right from the start of my involvement with the Department, team building has been seen as one of the major vehicles for changing the culture of the organization towards the approach advocated in their publication 'Customs & Excise People'. (Among other things, this document advocates a more responsive and open form of management.) This has meant that the behavioural and attitudinal outcomes of team building have been of special interest to both facilitators and managers attending the events. Second, I have also designed and run training programmes for the internal management trainers to enable them to provide team building programmes within the Department. In providing programmes to meet their needs, I found that many of my 'intuitive' decisions about events actually arose from an evolving framework that is described in this book-a clear case of using theory to explain the practice. Therefore, I wish to acknowledge my thanks to HM Customs & Excise for the opportunity to work with them at both these levels. In particular, I wish to thank the Personnel Director, Dennis Battle, and the Assistant Secretary responsible for Training Services Division, May Smith.

I have not been alone on this journey. The internal trainer who has accompanied me every step of the way is Sid Perry, Training Services Division, whose contribution and support I gratefully appreciate. Fortunately, his modesty does not completely disguise his skills and talents as a trainer and consultant. We have worked effectively as a team and havel contributed in turn to the wider team of facilitators working for the Department.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all those teams that have allowed me to work with them. I hope that I have always respected the invitation, however temporary, to be part of the team.

Finally, I am also grateful to the family team of my wife, Sylvia, and our children Simon, Iain and Jenny, who have provided the support and freedom necessary to produce this book.