Langevin Blog

In a previous blog, we provided 5 tips to help you use icebreakers successfully. What if you are asked to design team building activities that are more experiential in nature? Do these same tips apply? Yes! And I have a few more suggestions!

Years ago I was a sales professional at a large company. The sales department trainer always conducted some type of team building activity once a year. I want to share a tale of two team building activities where I was a participant, one good and one bad, to show the importance of planning and execution.

First, here is my great team building experience. At the start of one of our annual sales meetings we were divided into teams. Each team received a box of toothpicks and some Styrofoam at our tables. The facilitator told us to build the tallest structure possible with only the materials on the table. The team with the tallest structure at the end of 20 minutes would win.

This activity was successful for several reasons. First, it was short. We were busy salespeople who wanted to get in and out of our sales meeting so we could get out on the road and make money. Second, the facilitator observed each group closely to see how we were working together as a team. Finally, at the end of the activity, the facilitator helped us process our experience by asking specific questions designed to ensure that we came away from the experience learning key things about our communication skills and our ability to work as a team. After the activity our Vice President kicked off our sales meeting and discussed how communication and teamwork were going to play a large role in our department’s success. The activity was fun, safe, simple, relevant, and well executed.

My nightmare team building experience occurred a year later. My colleagues and I volunteered to work at a nearby children’s summer camp located in the woods. Each team received a different project. One team would plant flowers. One team would paint picnic tables. One team would decorate the recreation center. Then there was my team. We were going to clear an area of forest! We spent all morning dragging extremely heavy tree branches towards a wood chipping machine! We did not have safety glasses, gloves, or helmets! At one point a tree branch kicked out from the chipper machine an almost hit one of my colleagues in the head! Many of us experienced cuts and bruises from the heavy labor, not to mention very sore muscles the next day!

This team-building event failed, for my team anyways, because the trainer who coordinated the event ignored the all-important tip:  Know your audience! We were salespeople and not lumberjacks! The activity was not suitable for us and it was downright dangerous!

So if you are asked to conduct and/or coordinate experiential team building exercises for your company, here are some helpful hints:

• Plan, design and setup your team-building activities with care. For example, if you train busy sales people, plan on short team-building activities! Design your activities to ensure they create the type of learning experience you need and allow for full participation so that everyone benefits. Also, make sure you set up the activity to make sure the participants understand your directions and can follow the rules.
• Make sure the team building is relevant to how it will help the employees succeed in their jobs. For example, if you train customer service representatives, the activity should show how using teamwork can lead to the customer receiving timelier, more accurate information.  Otherwise, learners will think the activity is a waste of time.
• Prepare yourself to debrief the activity. Be prepared with questions that will help each team and the group as a whole process their experiences upon completion of the activity. While monitoring, be sure to observe how each team is working together – or not, as the case might be. What does each team do to foster team work? What, if anything, gets in the way? Then, as part of the debriefing process, and without pointing fingers or naming names, you can use some of your observations to encourage further discussion and bring home the point of the activity.
• Last, but not least, if you do not have prior experience designing outdoor experiential activities then I would recommend using a consulting company that specializes in such things. This way your participants will learn from the experience in a safe fashion!

In summary, there is tremendous value in team building experiences. If they are chosen, designed, and facilitated well, they truly bond groups of people together in positive ways. And, they can be fun! Just be sure to make them memorable for the right reasons by being mindful of the tips above!

Do you have any team building stories you’d like to share?

Lynne

Tags: icebreakers, instructional design

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