Success of any teambuilding intervention is directly dependent on how clear the organization is about what the team is to accomplish. My first question when asked to work with any leadership group is, "What is the purpose of this team?" If the group exists to produce an actual product (e.g., a mission statement, a strategic plan, a community service event, a launch of a new organization wide system, a strategy to address or avoid a current or potential crisis, etc.), I treat it as a team and ask to conduct some diagnostic activities. One activity is to interview members for the purpose of identifying general impressions of the team and what could be done to improve it, using questions such as those listed in table 24. In such an interview, all responses must be kept confidential and anonymous. The themes that emerge should be reported later at a special session, where all members must be present and make decisions regarding what to do about the results.
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If members are committed to collectively producing something and are willing to share decision-making power in some manner and establish a system of mutual accountability, then I suggest turning the group into a functioning team. Subsequent steps for developing a true leadership team are discussed later in this chapter. But first let's look at some other reasons underlying requests by leaders for teambuilding.