REFLECTIVE THINKING

Team Building

Team Building

Reflective Thinking may be defined as the process of creating and clarifying the meaning of experience (past or present) in terms of self (self in relation to self and self in relation to the world.). Reflective thinking is a part of the critical thinking process referring specifically to the processes of analyzing, evaluating, and making judgments about what has happened (Kim, 2005).

To enhance the ability to make a crucial decision, one needs to reflect on their past and learn from both failures and successes and catalog mentally for later retrieval regarding what has occurred and why. Team work requires that the team members are at par. They do not necessarily have to think in the same way but, each team member has to believe in the goal set by the team. Only then they will be able to work as a team.

Today's world poses many problems to an individual at a given time. These problems are not always as clear as crystal and in some cases are truly mind boggling. For instance, medical professionals face challenging work situations on a daily basis. In certain instances, the patient's condition is so complex that you need to apply reflective thinking skills. Similarly, marketers have the responsibility to constantly stay in touch with the market happenings and devise strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Hence, there is a need for teams to develop reflective thinking skills. Reflective thinking is a skill and can be mastered through exercise and practice. Reflective thinking skills in a work situation that requires difficult decision making is essential, as each member in the team will be contributing towards achieving a definite goal. Hence, there is a need to hold periodic team building exercise sessions for employees of an organization.

It is important to understand that no single exercise, activity or game that aims at enhancing team building skills among its participants can achieve the desired results (Wilson, 2005). It has to be a number of exercises and the exercises have to be fun, so that people do not just have to sit on their workstation and answer a lengthy questionnaire requiring wordy answers. Team building has to be fun!

The team building exercise aims at bringing all its participants at par so that there is cohesion and collaboration in their thinking pattern. I will design a team building workshop for a day where participants engage themselves in multiple games, activities and exercises.

Team building has a psychological aspect to it. When team members have fun with each other, they develop a kind of liking for each other and are motivated and willing to work with each other at the sub-conscious level.

Exercises

The first exercise that can be used to highlight almost any aspect of teambuilding is where I will ask participants to take a bucket full of water from one end of the room to the other without lifting it. They will carry it through a rope. This will help participants enjoy and work in teams ...