Team Building Retreat Ideas

Team-building exercises strengthen the bonds between co-workers.

A corporate retreat helps your team get to know each other better on a more personal level, and promotes better teamwork, cooperation and a more productive workplace. You can incorporate a team-building exercise into a retreat that lasts an entire weekend or scheduled for few hours each afternoon.

Appreciation Exercise

Participants sit in a circle. Each person is given a sheet of paper and a pen. Once everyone in the group has written his or her name on the bottom of the page, it is passed to the person to the left. The person to the left writes a sentence or two about what he values in the person named on the sheet. Then, he covers his comment by folding the page down. On cue from the group leader, papers are passed to the left, repeating the process until each paper cycles back to its owner. Allow the participants time to read their pages. Then, invite each person to share their favorite remark.

Common and Unique

Divide participants into small groups of five to nine people. Distribute paper to each group. Then, instruct the group to come up with a list of unusual traits everyone in the group shares. Challenge the group to stay away from the obvious. The goal is to find the intangible traits they may not know about each other.

Part two of the exercise is for each member to list two traits that only he or she possesses in the group. The purpose of the task is to teach the members that while everyone shares many good traits, each person has a unique, valuable place in the group.

Trust Walk

Members of the group are paired up with a partner. One of the partners is blindfolded. The seeing member must guide the blindfolded member by only giving verbal commands. Instruct your team about the responsibility of personal safety. Allow them about five minutes to guide their charge through the room, or if facilities allow, outdoors. After the time is up, instruct each pair to switch; the blindfolded person now becomes the sighted guide. Again, give them about five minutes of time. You can use this activity to open a discussion about the importance of trust.

Amoeba Race

This activity requires a larger group of about 20. Modeled after the single-cell organism, your team will mimic the amoeba. First, the team will choose who will be the nucleus, or in this case, the eyes of the team. This person is hoisted onto another team member's shoulders. Then, about 10 people in the group are designated as the cell membrane, or the outside of the amoeba. They lock arms, facing outward. The rest of the team is the plasma, they stand inside the cell membrane with the nucleus. Set a course for the amoeba to complete. The team will quickly learn they must work together to move together. After the team has practiced, and if you have enough participants, divide into two or more amoebas to have a race.

References

• Work Shop Experiences: Team Building Activities
• Group Games: Trust Walk
• Group Games: Commonalities and Uniquities
• Wilderdom: Amoeba Race

Resources

• Widerdom: Introduction to Team Building Activities