Team Building

Team Journaling

The very effective tool of keeping a journal can be used in your workplace as well as at home. It is a powerful tool that can enhance our lives and support our personal and work well-being. Whether you journal your personal work experiences and goals, or use team journaling, journaling can easily be applied to your work environment.

The idea of team journaling is to incorporate journaling as a means to assess and track past, current, or future projects and goals. To get started, pick a team moderator, the person(s) who all journaled information will pass through. They will coordinate and monitor the journaling process to keep it on track, and moving in the team's designated direction and purpose.

As a group decide the purpose and goals of the team journal. Then date and write those down. Next decide what vehicle you will use to record your journaling in. You can use a blank book, and pass it from person to person or keep it in a designated place. You can journal on the Internet via a group list, at http://www.yahoo.com, or on a web log, called a blog, see http://www.blogger.com. You can also create a private message board on your company's website. Any of these systems allow an exchange of ideas, feelings, thoughts, and experiences of the goals and directions you have already determined.

You will want to set some boundaries that will need to be respected and adhered to during this process. Date these and write them right under your purpose and goals. For example, there should be no personal attacks regarding ideas or personalities. Keep what is a fact separate from what is a feeling. Having feelings is OK, just don't confuse what is a fact and what is a feeling. At all times agree that respectful expression and disagreement is adhered to. You may want to limit the amount of content anyone can journal at any one time, say a paragraph, or a page. Set any other project guidelines that the team decides to incorporate.

As you begin your team journaling project you may find that the original purpose and goal changes or evolves. You may also find your guidelines need to be added to or modified. In your journaling process meeting in person or via conference can be added to update and relate how the journaling process is working or being effective toward the team goal.

Creating a series of questions related to the team goal and purpose can be an effective way to start the journal process. These questions can focus and motivate individuals, and inspire the creative writing and thinking process. Or making statements and asking if these are agreed to or not is another way to start the process.

The team journal can become an integral part of any companies process to achieve greater clarity and focus about purpose, goals and intentions. The process of team journaling also can create new relationships with the people involved.

Doreene Clement is the creator of, The 5 Year Journal, a journal where you can journal your life in one book for 5 years. You can tour the book at http://www.the5yearjournal.com

dkcomni@aol.com 480.423.8095

Feel free to pass this along to your friends. If you want to see my column, About Journaling, to subscribe http://www.the5yearjournal.com

MORE RESOURCES:

Return to Team Building Home Page

RELATED ARTICLES

Go On, Be A Tiger
From the moment he putted with Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas Show at age two, Tiger Woods appeared destined for fame. After an unprecedented junior and amateur career, his entry into the professional ranks in 1996 received tremendous publicity - and one of the largest sponsorship contracts in history.

In 2005 Collaboration is Key
Perhaps you're a small business owner wondering how you and your employees managed to make it through the last year. You vow to make this year the year your business grows.

Effective Brainstorming
Most managers simply herd some people in a room with a flip chart and call it a brainstorming session. Yet there is a definite process that maximizes the size and quality of the idea pool.

High Performing Teams: 10 Things You Want To Know About Building A High Performing Team
"Conflict becomes politics, commitment becomes 'Only if it's in my best interest', accountability becomes 'Only when it serves me,' and results just fall by the wayside."- Patrick Lencioni, author of "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team", speaking about dysfunctional teamsBased on my experience as a manager, a member of many teams, an HR professional, and a coach, below are 10 things you want to know about high performing teams.

General Patton and Leadership
No figure in history is like General Patton. He was colorful, hard core and got the job done.

How to Align Your Team through Change
Eight Principles for Purposeful AlignmentEffective teamwork requires individual members of the team to be connected by, and aligned to a common purpose, values and sense of identity. Sometimes individuals can drift away from the team as a result of the mental limitations they create about their work and role.

5 Reason Why Team Has A 4 Figure Income
You are new to Internet Marketing, you join one Affiliate programs, you have your promotion tips, marketing tips, also the affiliate will provide you with the commission plan, and they will give you a personal website just like they are. Now the big question is "Where am I heading??? ""People already know how to heading no where" what you need is a "team to guide you to heading somewhere""Why TEAM Has a 4 figure income"1.

Characteristics of High Performance Teams
Abstract: Based on significant research, Entelechy has defined characteristics of effective teams.Entelechy reviewed over 50 studies on high performance teams and compiled a list of high performance team characteristics.

The Magic and Mystery of Teams
As the world of manufacturing has become increasingly competitive, managers have diligently searched out new and innovative ways to increase productivity, multiply the power of every employee, and better utilize every resource in order to positively impact the bottom line.For more than a decade one of the most popular "Hot Trend" innovations has been the idea of "Team".

Effective Team Building For Organizational Success
"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives.

Secrets of Successful Teams
To be a success is not always to be a success individually. In fact, most of the time we achieve our successes as part of a team.

How To Lead Your Team To Success
Today, most of us have been involved in a team project, either as the leader or a contributor. The team concept, if structured properly, can be a very successful option for any company or organization.

Workplace Fitness: Tongue-In-Cheek
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English, to speak with one's tongue in one's cheek is to speak insincerely or ironically. This phrase dates back to 1748 when it was cool to show disdain or disrespect for someone by putting your tongue inside your cheek to make it stick out.

Working as a Winning Team
It's a great sunny day so it's time to get out and enjoy the weather. Many of us would like to, but we have projects due, tasks that need to be done, people that we need to see, and money that needs to be made.

Building a Successful Team
Once you've set a goal for yourself as a leader - whether it is to create your own enterprise, energize your organization, build a church, or excel in sports - the challenge is to find good people to help you accomplish that goal. Gathering a successful team of people is not only helpful, it's necessary.

WIIFM - Making the Whats In It for Me? Question Work for You
In the constantly changing world of Call Centers, asking agents to adapt to ever increasing demands, responsibilities and performance can be a challenge to even the most involved of managers. Being able to create buy in is always challenging, but if you can answer the WIIFM question you will be ahead of the game.

Safety First - Five Reasons to Hold a Routine Safety Meeting
Workplace safety is important to all businesses for ethical, legal and financial reasons. Keeping employees safe from injury is the right thing to do, it also keeps a business away from civil litigation and can lower costly compensation claims.

Why Is Teamwork Training Important?
"When teamwork kicks in, nobody can beat you."Don Shula, Head Coach, Miami Dolphins Only NFL team to attain a perfect 17-0 seasonWhether it's two people, a department, or an organization, teams are the means by which great things get done.

Motivation - Dont Make Your Team Uncomfortable
The people in your team may feel a bit uncomfortable whenyou sit down and spend time with them, particularly ifthey're not used to it. They might not be used to you doingit or perhaps a previous manager didn't do it.

Communication between franchisees in a franchise system
If you own a franchise you would be wise to stay in constant communication with your fellow and local franchisee counterparts. You should call up once a week and simply say; Hi.