Training for teams: mandatory or optional?

This topic is a hot button for me, personally, and as one whose role includes being a trainer, I must disclose that I have a professional bias on this topic. I have worked with client organizations that treat it both ways (some make it mandatory, others make it optional). What should you do?

First, let's consider what an initial team training approach might look like:

1. Basic Team Training Content. There are many possibilities here, but in my experience, the minimum basic team training has included topics such as, (a) team member styles (eg, Meyers-Briggs, DISC, Parker Team Player Survey), (b) joint decision making (eg, a survival exercises such as offered by Human Synergistics), (c) a module on trust (eg, with emphasis on the Reina model), and (d) conflict resolution (there are many models and tools in the market, I especially like using Assessing Behavior in Conflict from Alex Hiam). These topics will consume at least one full 8-hour training day. Additional topics would include creative problem solving, listening skills, decision making, and negotiation skills.

2. Delivery of the Training.
a. Group or solo? Topics such as these, in my opinion, should be instructor-led and interactive with others. I have seen several basic team member training offerings, such as by Defense Acquisition University, that are online - which strikes me as an oxymoron! How can someone experience what it's like to make a difficult joint-member team decision when sitting alone at a computer terminal? This type of training needs to be experienced with a group of people, at least four persons in a setting.
b. With home team or not? In other words, should an intact team go through training together? Ideally, yes. However, not always practical, because not all teams are co-located, and more commonly, members are always being added, dropped, and replaced. New and replacement members will almost always, by necessity, have initial team training with people who are not on their team, since their team members have already had training.
c. When? How soon after forming or joining the team? No matter what I would like to suggest, practical considerations are that team members have real work to do, and training is not always high on their list of priorities. In the recent past, my experience for long-term teams has been to allow teams and their members to have 90 days after joining the team to complete their basic team member training. Of course, there has to be training available for them, and not just one event during those 90 days. This kind of time period gives them plenty of slack and undercuts any "I couldn't find the time" excuse, while also getting them early enough in the existence of a long-term team (one that will be in place for a year or more). Shorter duration teams (say, 6 months or less) should shorten this grace period.

So if you've decided what your team's training should consist of, you expect that everyone will readily sign up and get it done, right? Not so fast!!! If it's optional, and members are left to make their own decisions, and are not held accountable to complete it, I have found that up to 80% of any given team population will NOT complete team training during the first six months of their team participation. The "build it and they will come" model simply does not work. Even for those persons who are interested in attending, finding the time can be difficult, and without something to force them to attend, there are too many other distractions and interrupting priorities. Making training mandatory gives team members the impetus to attend, and also gives them a ready rationale to make the time ("Boss, I've got to go to this training, I cannot make the [ever-exciting] staff meeting tomorrow").

The bottom line? If you're serious about building a genuine team, and a real team oriented culture and organizational environment, then you're going to have to make team member training mandatory. This decision is a reflection of your organization's team commitment - would you make ethics training optional? I doubt it, so if you're forming teams to execute a project or manage an operation, get serious and put a mandatory training program in place.