Tower Building and Organization Management

  Hi All,

In today's blog I will discuss “Tower Building”, Dr. Mandi's unique way of discussing the step by step development of organization. In this exercise Dr. Mandi handed us small wooden cubes. Then he asked anyone to make as tall a tower as one can with these cubes. Obviously, there was a limit to which one can create the tower alone. Then he explained that few people can not constitute an organization and that a team of people with proper role allocation and responsibilities is required for proper organization management. He quoted the examples of small shoemakers and apparel manufacturers where there is little organization management because they follow the process which is been followed for years with little or no change in their method of organizing.

Then there was another activity in class where a team of students was supposed to make the tower by collaborating with each other. As it turned out, a team of eight was formed and they had no clue how to allocate the tasks! Dr. Mandi explained that the idea of organization starts with one and gradually one's inductive effect can create a well structured organization.
You can watch this video for tower building to learn organization development.

In this Team Building Challenge, teams must construct the tallest free-standing tower possible from the limited resources provided. The team will be confronted with many challenges during this Team Building exercise, mainly due to the dynamics of their team. They are:-
    1. Limited resources
    2. The tower must be free standing
    3. Time is restricted
    4. Can only build one tower
    5. Must stay standing for over 10 seconds

With this exercise I realized how important in organization it is to utilize everyone's potential to realize overall goals. For example to actually build a "Toy Tower", you need a person to place the cubes, one to looking at vertically alignment, one to analyze wind speed and another one to hold the  

cubes in case they tumble. team dynamic here is important and so in any organization.
When assembling a team it is very important to consider the overall dynamic of the team. 

The team members: Successful teams are made up of a collection of effective individuals. These are people who are experienced, have problem solving ability, are open to addressing the problem, and are action oriented.

1. Team relationships: For a team to be successful the members of the team must be able to give and receive feedback.
2. Team problem solving: An effective team depends on how focused and clear the goal of the team is. A relaxed, comfortable and accepting environment and finally, open and honest communication are required.
3. Team leadership: Effective team leadership depends on leadership competencies. A competent leader is: focused on the goal, ensures a collaborative climate, builds confidence of team members, sets priorities, demonstrates sufficient “know-how” and manages performance through feedback.
4. Organizational environment: The climate and culture of the organization must be conducive to team behavior. Competitiveness should be discouraged and uniformity should be encouraged - this will eliminate conflict and discord among team members.

Goals:The overall goals of team building are to increase the teams understanding of team dynamics and improve how the team works together. Unlike working as a group, working as a team incorporates group accountability rather than individual accountability and results in a collective work product.Team building encourages the team approach to working on a project. There are many advantages to this approach. These advantages include the following:

1. Increased flexibility in skills and abilities
2. More productive than work groups with individual mindset
3. More beneficial in times of organizational change
4. Encourage both individual and team development and improvement
5. Focuses on group goals to accomplish more beneficial tasks
6. Improved range of team building objectives such as collaboration, communication and increased creative or flexible thinking

So this was the learning from the playful tower building activity in class. Do give your valuable feedback.