Walking blindfolded in the woods. Teetering on a tightrope. Fending off a horde of evil snow trolls. (OK, they're imaginary snow trolls, but evil nonetheless.) Finding yourself in any of these situations, your first thought might not be, "I feel so safe!" Yet that's exactly what participants need to be thinking -- or more precisely, feeling -- to set the stage for an effective team building session.

    In team building, safety isn't just about physical security. In fact, creating a sense of emotional safety is the foundation for realizing meaningful benefits from a team building program.

    That's the philosophy of Creative Energy Options co-founder and CEO Herb Kaufman. This month, Herb shares with PEPtalk readers his thoughts about the essentials of team building, based on his 40 years in the field:

PEPtalk: What is the goal of team building?
HK: What we're looking to do is create honest communication within a team, because the more honest communication there is, the better the team functions. It's all about building trust, because truth can't be told if there's no trust. And so we work hard at creating a "safe space" to work in. Safety opens up the space for trusting, and trusting opens up the space for truth-telling. And that opens up the space to observe, and then the team can make a choice about whether they need to change. Read more

    When it comes to do-it-yourself team building activities, CEO is inclined to echo the warning you see on stunt videos and sports-car commercials: "Trained professional. Do not attempt." The key to effective team building is having an independent, neutral, trained facilitator to lead the team -- someone who can observe the dynamics of the group, notice the group process and coach the team to break through barriers. If you're part of the team or even its leader, it's next to impossible to be truly objective.

    However, team leaders must be skilled at recognizing when a team needs work in the first place. A good guide would be to look at Patrick Lencioni's book Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide. Lencioni's book is a great place to start exploring and observing for yourself how well your team is working together, while asking yourself, "How can we be better?"

The field guide identifies five common team "dysfunctions":

• absence of trust
• fear of conflict
• lack of commitment
• avoidance of accountability
• inattention to results

    Facilitators and team leaders need to be savvy about knowing when to dive into these tough issues, and knowing how to plan for taking the plunge. Chapters in the book give great background on the issues and address many common questions, including objections from participants. The book also suggests appropriate team building activities for addressing various concerns, offering a sort of recipe for corporate off-sites while encouraging leaders to add their own spice to the mix.

    When it comes to spicing it up, the experts at CEO have all the ingredients for growing teams to a transformed stage -- a team that can face stress, change, and conflict with grace and resilience. Through off-sites, low-ropes courses, team assessments and honest dialogue, your team can move from dysfunction to transformation!

    At CEO, one of our mantras is "We're all in this together, and no one wins unless we all do." We've never tried to translate that into Malaysian, and it seems we don't need to -- because the philosophy was so eloquently expressed at a panel discussion on world poverty held last month for students at Singapore Management University. Read more

    CEO is excited to announce that President Sylvia Lafair, Ph.D., has signed a book deal with leading business publisher Jossey-Bass, a subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons whose mission is "to inform and inspire those interested in developing themselves, their communities, and their organizations." Sylvia's book on behavior patterns in the workplace, based on CEO's proprietary Pattern Aware Leadership Model^TM, is due out in early 2009.

    CEO has a page on del.icio.us where you can check out articles and web pages we've come across that are of particular interest to CEO people. Go to http://del.icio.us/PEPtalk any time (you might want to bookmark that link for yourself), and take a look at what's happening out there!

• New this month: "The Hard Truth about Soft Skills" go there