How to create team building activities

Team building exercises can make any organization run more effectively.

Team building can serve many purposes in any organization or company. Helping people learn to work together more successfully can teach employees listening skills, create more-effective interoffice communication and help boost morale. People who work together well are more likely to trust each other and less likely to leave the company or organization. An organization that has employees or volunteers who know how to work together well is likely to be an organization with low turnover. Lower levels of employee turnover lead to fewer labor costs and much greater effectiveness at meeting all goals.

Instructions

1. Help members get to know each other. People may have worked together for years but still know very little about their co-workers. Allowing people to find out aspects of another person's personality can help them see their fellow employees as members of a community rather than as mere acquaintances. Use games and exercises designed to allow every member of the group to reveal something essential about themselves. Hand out sheets of paper. Write six questions on a large bulletin board. Sample questions may include asking a person's favorite color, her preferred vacation destination as well as the names of her children and where they were born. Tell people not to put their names on the sheet of paper. Hand out a new sheet of paper to other members of the group. Have the person guess who wrote the answers to the questions.

2. Engage in active listening. Active listening helps people truly learn to understand each other. When people believe they are being heard they are more likely to want to work with other team members. Ask team members to sit in a circle. Hand out a line to a potential story. Ask the first person sitting to your left to add two lines to the story. Ask the second member to repeat the first person's words and then add words of their own. Repeat this process until all members of the group have spoken.

3. Focus on building trust. Trust is vital to team building. People who do not trust each other cannot work effectively as teammates. Have one stand in front of another. Ask the person in front to lean back and gently fall into the second person's arms. Ask all members of the group to take turns falling and catching each other.

4. Make it fun. Team building should not be a chore. Invite members to participate in exercises at a resort if you have the funds. Hand out gifts for participants such as personalized baskets and raffle tickets. Hold a catered lunch afterward at company expense and allow employees to invite family members to join them.

References

• State University of California at Pomona: Team Building Exercises
• Oak Harbor Cheer: Team Building Games