The right program for team building is a huge help to improve your company’s overall communication capabilities and morale. The employees can transform from a group of individuals with a self-interested agenda to a cohesive group that takes responsibility for their actions while they seek to achieve the same objective. And not only that, they’ll be more enjoyable doing it after they have gotten to are more acquainted with each other and have developed an increased level of respect and trust. Since we spend the majority of our time working, having a chat with colleagues outside of office hours to get to know the more they know about themselves and their unique talents and capabilities are makes sense. The workplace can be monotonous and boring, so the right group building activity can help colleagues to see each other in a fresh light, and the result is of being able to benefit from working together.
The benefits of doing the exercises are only realized when the appropriate type of team-building exercise is chosen. Therefore, it’s worth taking the time to analyze the employees you have and what their particular strengths and weakness are prior to selecting which team-building exercises will be most useful. It is possible to view team building as a way of helping employees become acquainted better or to improve areas of your company that has traditionally been weaker than others. It’s up to you, but you may even think it’s the ideal way to reinforce an updated corporate image and assist employees in adjusting to working under new leadership or encouraging the application of multi-disciplinary thinking. Whatever the reason is, it’s important to define your objectives and the new abilities and views you wish employees to take away.
Then we get to the issue of what kind of fitness is suitable for your staff, keeping in mind that it’s crucial that everyone participates in every game and activity. Perhaps your company is made up of athletes who frequently exercise and are in good health, and in that case, your concept of a Royal Marines type expedition inside the Arctic Circle in the middle of winter, with just the appropriate swimming attire and a bag filled with Rich Tea biscuits is an excellent idea.
Your staff is made up of Oxbridge qualified members of Mensa, and in that case, your plan for longer periods consisting of Countdown or University Challenge might just work. However, most likely, your team is made up of people of different dimensions and capabilities, and the final thing you want to do is to make them feel they don’t have anything to contribute. There are two options for dealing with this. It is possible to assign distinct segments of your workforce to take part in team-building exercises based on their strengths, or you come up with an exercise that involves everyone.
The rest of the article offers suggestions for team-building exercises that can be used for the athletes of the Arctic circle group and the academic group comprised of Mensa members and exercises that be used by both groups as well as everyone between them.
1. Athletic Arctic Circle Group
There is no doubt that these young men and women are keen to get off their desks and go out in the fresh air to get an exercise session, and this is exactly the plan we’ll take with the youngsters. A weekend away in the country is the right thing to do, as they can exercise their legs and impress their colleagues with their hand/eye coordination, athletic ability, survival skills, as well as their grace under pressure, and general fair playing. The exercises that can help improve such skills include windsurfing, canoeing, rock climbing, yachting, archery, scrambling, clay shooting pigeons, and camping.
In order to increase competition and bring people closer together, consider dividing teams of players and creating a game in which a degree of cooperation is required to win. In the end, brains prevail over brute force. Therefore, you must incorporate a certain amount of planning and strategy, which involves the proper utilization of resources that are limited as well as precise control of time and every member of the team to carry each other’s weight.
2. Mensa Members Group
The group is expected to be challenged in their thinking as well, and the more challenging and more difficult the problem, the more challenging. One good way to test them is to have them write an encapsulated story using the images that are distributed randomly. Each participant has a photo but isn’t allowed to show it, which requires their use of the power to describe and suggest. A good level of communication, as well as the capacity to see things from the perspective of another viewpoint, are required to recreate the story’s plot.
The same scenario can be simulated using the situation in which a family-run restaurant is passed down to the next generation, the company is not well-organized, and recipes are written on ripped pieces of paper. Since the restaurant is scheduled to be relaunched with the grand opening on the same night, the restaurant must go through the pieces of paper to identify the ingredients as well as the instructions for each meal. Again, effective communication and management are essential for achieving a positive outcome. Your employees might be smart; however, do they have the same skill in listening to each other as they are in communicating their ideas?
3. All-Inclusive Team Building Exercises
The games should stimulate genuine participation by the whole group, Not just participation by a few enthusiastic individuals; therefore, the ability to use a variety of skills is required to complete the job. The goals include developing abilities to build teams, such as efficient time management, negotiation, planning assignment of tasks, problem-solving, and communication.
The obvious options for activities that build team spirit include murder mystery weekends, simple adventure orienteering, river crossings, and challenges that involve all members of the group. Another aspect of team building that you should keep in mind is that the absolute value of the exercise will only be felt as long as there is some kind of assessment that is conducted after the event to assess how everyone in the team accomplished the task.
This article should have provided you with an idea of aspects to be aware of and think about when selecting your team-building exercises. All that is left for me to wish you all the best in creating an improved team that is at communicating with each other and being able to get along. In this way, it’s remarkable what even something as simple as charades or musical chairs can accomplish. It’s not how you play it, but the method you use to play it.
