The concept of "team building" means different things to different people. Over the past 9 years I have spent a ton of time with hundreds of clients and thousands of people creating successful team building programs. Our shorter programs may span only four to eight hours in duration, and our programs focused on helping teams make a significant shift in how they collaborate may last over 9 months.

Regardless of how long the program is, I have always defined team building in three ways:

1. It is a tool to help accelerate team formation.

I have written quite a bit in the past about the importance of providing feedback to team members. In fact, in a recent blog post, I termed feedback as "the glue that holds alignment together."

But what happens when feedback just doesn't work?

When performance isn't meeting expectations, and a team member has been provided with consistent and transparent feedback, the next step in trying to help a team member make behavioral change is constructive discipline.

I moved this past weekend into a new home with my wonderful fiance. I couldn't bear to ask my friends for help as I know that by this point in time in our lives we have just helped others move way too many times. So, I decided to hire 4 college students from the University of Colorado in Boulder. Three showed-up and here's what I got.

Interested in learning more about the latest and greatest Everything DiSC Application Library Programs? Then join me for an upcoming virtual showcase led by publisher Inscape Publishing.

The showcases involve taking the profile (Everything DiSC Sales, Everything DiSC Management, or Everything DiSC Workplace) as pre-work, and then participating in an interactive 90-minute webinar.

Here are some upcoming showcases:

I am going through two major transitions in my personal life right now - (1) getting married in October 2010, and (2) selling and buying a new home.

Both are amazing changes that will have a significant and profound impact on who I am as a person. And as I reflect on these changes, I am constantly reminded that change itself is inevitable in this life, but how we handle it is a choice.

This is a book that is having a profound impact on my life. I referred to The Work in a recent email newsletter entitled Overcoming Overwhelm.

This book will challenge you to "Notice When Your Thoughts Argue with Reality"

"The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want."

One of the costliest mistakes senior leaders make is drawing a clear line in the sand between what is personal and professional.

The challenge that this presents is that when leaders don't know their people at an individual level (a personal level), they never truly understand how to "lead" them.

Ahhh overwhelm. It's that moment in time where you feel stuck. Where there is so much going on you don't know where to start.

The stories that play inside our heads are ones that sound like:

"I have too much to do. I'll do it (the important thing) tomorrow."

"There are no jobs out there."

"I don't have time to develop knowledge about new topics, ideas, and legislation"

"I'm not experienced enough for that role"

"It's faster to do things than to train others to do it"

So, you want to take your management team off site and work on building cohesion? After having conducted management team retreats for over 9 years, I have learned a few things. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1. Identify your objectives. If you want maximum focus from your management team off site, get clear on what outcomes you want to achieve. Also identify what challenges will stop the team from achieving the expected results and what will be different when those challenges are overcome.

One of the costliest mistakes senior leaders make is spending too much time IN the business instead of ON the business.

When senior leaders focus too much time on the technical and tactical aspects of the business, and playing the role of project managers, they fail to look at the strategic aspects of the business and the longer term plan.

This typically results in ambiguity of roles and responsibilities and a lack of alignment.

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