Team Building: Cultivating Your Greatest Asset

I've said it many times before, but people make or break any company. My "foxhole" post highlighted that teams grow in importance during the tough times. However, team cohesion doesn't just happen, it takes work.

When I first left college as an engineer, I'll admit, team building exercises at IBM seemed hokey and hardly worth the effort. As I grew into management roles and then moved into venture capital, the value of team building became more obvious. As a VC I've had the pleasure of witnessing over 40 different entrepreneurs and senior managers build teams and I can honestly say the most productive teams, after exceeding 10 people, came from concerted senior management attention to build familiarity, values, vision and passion among teammates.

What have you done this year to build team cohesion, and, in particular, what have you done since October, when the economy injected fear and uncertainty into your team? Likewise, as an employee or manager, in small companies and large, what are the best and worst team building activities you've ever seen?