ExcerptPlaying Around: The Role of Games in Creating World-Class Workplace TeamsBasketball great Michael Jordon once said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Jordan might have been referring to basketball, but it’s no less true of teams put together to produce champion results for businesses large and small. And while Jordan’s team was all about playing games, businesses sometimes need the help of games to mold and cement effective work teams. “Team building games are designed to help team leaders transform a group of loosely connected employees into a dynamic and productive team—a process that seldom occurs naturally,” according to John Newstrom and Edward Scannel, authors of The Big Book of Team Building Games. Games are certainly not the only way to build high-performance teams. Classroom training, role-playing, profile testing and other structures all play a positive role. But when team members go away from the office, dress informally and get outside their “business as usual” selves, what tends to happen is that “positions” are forgotten and people show more of their true nature. In this way, games create understanding. And when this understanding is in place, synergy can happen, that magic that makes ideas and results much greater than the sum of their parts.
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