CONTENTS





Acknowledgments xi
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

Part 1. PERSPECTIVES ON BUILDING TEAM SPIRIT 15

1. Spirit in High-Performing Teams and the Team Spirit Spiral 17
Explores a model for team development called the Team Spirit Spiral. The stages of team spirit development are: Initiating, Visioning, Claiming, Celebrating, Letting Go, and a sixth integrating component at the heart of team spirit service.

2. The Harmonics of Team Spirit 25
Examines the values of team spirit and how conflict and harmony appear in each phase of the Team Spirit Spiral.

Part 2. LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR NURTURING TEAM SPIRIT 37

3. Initiating Strong Team Relationships 39
Provides learning activities that support the development of team relationships and create an environment that fosters belonging and a sense of trust.

Activity -- Personal Mandala 43
Activity -- Personal Spiral 49
Activity -- Spirit Walk 55
Activity -- Personal Pathways 59
Activity -- Mountaintop Stories 65
Activity -- Play Your Own Kind Of Music 69
Activity -- Team Wish List 73
Activity -- Yin/Yang Analysis: Examining Productive and Counterproductive Traits 75

4. Visioning the Future
Helps team members create a compelling, shared vision of customer service that inspires the team's work and relationships.

Activity -- Creating a Personal Vision: Dialogue with a Wisdom Figure 83
Activity -- Fostering Consonant Values to Achieve Extraordinary Team Relationships 93
Activity -- Celebrating Where We Are and Going Beyond 97
Activity -- Achieving a Spirit Leap in Enhancing Customer Service 99
Activity -- Team Mandala 105
Activity -- Team Obituary: Reflecting on the End to Create the Future 113
Activity -- A Values Activity: Rites of Passage 117
Activity -- Flight of Fancy 119

5. Claiming Goals and Roles 121
Shows that team members can take ownership of their roles and goals as well as develop the abilities and resources to relate their vision.

Activity -- Sharing Individual and Team Goals 125
Activity -- Claiming the Mandala: Individual/Team Goals 131
Activity -- Manifest Destiny 135
Activity -- Spirited Role Clarification 137
Activity -- Spirited Team Accountability 139
Activity -- Core Competencies of Team Members 141
Activity -- Identifying Team Member Skill Sets and Mind-Sets 149
Activity -- Claiming Organization Support 151

6. Celebrating Team Accomplishment 153
High-performing teams regularly and unselfconsciously acknowledge their accomplishment as a team and as individual members. This chapter provides activities that nurture celebration and the spirit of the team at its best.

Activity -- Fostering Celebration: An Interview and Discussion Process 157
Activity -- Team Creation Stories 161
Activity -- Honoring Team Accomplishments: A Retrospective 163
Activity -- Celebrating: Past and Present Stories of Team Success 165
Activity -- Celebration Letter 167
Activity -- Honoring Team Members 169
Activity -- Celebration Teams 171
Activity -- Spirit Award 175

7. Letting Go of Frustrations, Conflicts, and Disappointments 177
Provides learning activities that promote open, honest communication and constructive feedback.

Activity -- Getting Out of the Box 181
Activity -- Letting Go through Constructive Feedback 187

Activity -- Insights from Athletic, Religious, Entertainment, and World Figures 207
Activity -- A Letting Go Ritual 213
Activity -- Team Norms 215
Activity -- Identifying and Responding to Team Dissonances 217
Activity -- Dialogue with an Imaginary Guru 223
Activity -- Molding Clay: A Letting go Metaphor 231

8. Serving Customers and Teams 233
Describes experiences and interventions that enable teams to generate heightened service to customers.

Activity -- Service Circle 237
Activity -- Symbolizing Service 247
Activity -- Meeting Your Inner Servant 251
Activity -- Revealing the Spirit of Service-Individual 257
Activity -- Revealing the Spirit of Service-Team 263
Activity -- The Keys to the Kingdom 269
Activity -- Finding the Ground the Team Stands On 275
Activity -- Miracle Worker 279
Activity -- Archetypes for Service 289

PART 3. APPENDICES 303

A. Guidelines for Using the Team Spirit Assessment and Facilitating the Feedback and Action Planning Session 305
Guides facilitators in the use of the Team Spirit Assessment and provides instruction on how to facilitate a Team Spirit Feedback and Action planning Session.

B. Guidelines for Conducting Effective Team Interviews 311
Describes how to conduct interviews with team members, especially for mature teams, for the purpose of sequencing and planning the use of Building Team Spirit activities.

C. Lecturettes 315
Provides lecturettes on team spirit themes that are referenced in Chapter 3 and Appendix D experiential learning activities.

D. Facilitating Awareness about the Team Spirit Spiral 321
Provides learning activities designed to create awareness about team spirit and the Team Spirit Spiral, as a prelude to a comprehensive and systematic use of the learningactivess in Chapters 3 through 8.

Activity -- Spirit Savings 323
Activity -- Characteristics of Spirited Teams 329
Activity -- How to Kill Spirit 333
Activity -- Walk in Nature: Discovering the Phases of the Spiral 335
Activity -- The Seasons of a Team's Life Establishing Team Climate 339
Activity -- Discovering the Harmonics that Underlie Spirit 345
Activity -- Discovering Individual Spirit 351

E. The Spirit of the Facilitator 361
The facilitation of team spirit requires more than compelling learning activities. It requires a facilitator who models the qualities of spirit that these experiences and interventions are designed to support in the team. Appendix E provides a series of activities that nurture the spirit and that prepare and focus the work of the facilitator.

Activity -- Embracing and Coaching Facilitator Dissonance 367
Activity -- Initiating: Developing a Powerful Cofacilitator Relationship 371
Activity -- Visioning the Potential of the Team: Dialogue with a Wisdom Figure 373
Activity -- Claiming: Briefing and Debriefing with Your Cofacilitator 375
Activity -- Celebrating: Stories of Effective Team Facilitation 377
Activity -- Letting Go: Completion Exercise 379
Activity -- Serving as a Team Spirit Facilitator: Choosing a Symbol 381
Activity -- Service: Assessing Team Spirit Needs and Choosing Activities for Teams 383