On The Team

I am contributing to the planning of a leadership retreat for my company and need ideas for activites that realate to team building. HELP.

In my career I’ve done 2 very fun team building activities. Both were day long trips.

1. First one was a city-wide scavenger hunt. Each group is given a camera and a list of items they must get pictures of. To make sure they don’t split up, all team members must be in the picture, (with the exception of the picture taker). Some examples of "tasks" were: A picture of the team doing YMCA with some construction workers, picture with car salesman, picture at a pet shop (posing with animals), picture of team playing a sport, picture with a biker, etc.

We had a 4 hour time limit and were penalized for being late. For additional scoring, the team that came back first got extra points, team that completed most tasks got extra points, most creative got extra points. We also had to come up with a team name and picture/pose.

I did this over 4 years ago so I can’t remember the whole details, but it was a blast! Then we did a team lunch/dinner at the end of the scavenger hunt.

2. The 2nd activity was similar to the first. This one was interesting because we went to San Francisco, CA (which was local for us, you’ll probably need to go somewhere else if SF is not close by). Anyway, again we were put into groups of about 5-6. Each separate group were given a folder with a list of activities they must complete and $300.

Within the group we had to assign the leader, time keeper, accountant, and navigator, etc. The idea was that we had to complete a certain number of tasks and bring back receipts and/or ticket stubs to prove we completed the tasks. We couldn’t go over the $300 limit or we were penalized and we had to meet back at a restaurant for dinner at 5pm.

My group had the assignment of taking a 2 hour city tour on a cable car. We had to have lunch together, bring back 5 postcards, and return to dinner wearing the same tourist t-shirts. There was more to it but I can’t remember.

Some other members had to visit museums and/or take cruises around the SF bay. Some groups had to go on a shopping trip and buy a $20 gift for another team member. It was really fun.

We also had the opportunity to "bribe" the judges by buying them gifts. The money issue came into play because we were all dropped off at a common area and we had to decide if we should take buses, cabs, etc. We also had to budget our money because we had to buy lunch and tickets for our activities, as well as gifts.

The idea was to teach us to work within budget constraints and time constraints while being creative.

Judging was based on who spent the most, who spent the least, who went over. Who came back with the most creative pictures, etc.

Hope this helps.

I’m looking for an answer about the annual spendature in the market for building better teams within companies. Also, what does this translate to in terms of money per employee head per year, and what is the average estimated return of an investment.

Companies are constantly spending money to motivate or reeducate the troops–ever since some of the bosses discovered that their old adage was wrong: "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Team building is the flavor of the month. The same time and energy that used to be spent trying to persuade the rank and file that Six-Sigma was the wave of the future, was the same time and budgetary stuff that was allotted by the previous generation to spout "The customer is always right!"

Team building has been around for a long time, it is the same song, next verse. The ROI is really a factor of the concept’s utility in a specific company. Some can use it, or need it, better than others. This is just as Six-Sigma saved the bacon of some companies and was a colossal waste in others.

Tim and Gareth discussing the problem of getting a fox, a chicken and a bag of grain across a river one at a time from Episode 4 of Series 1 of the UK Version of The Office

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Most of us talk to each other but not everyone talks and it would help a lot more if everyone talked on the field and off the field. andy suggestions on what we could do to build the team communication

First have some team bonding.
Team dinners bring the team together.
Something my team has always wanted to do but hasn’t done it yet is having a team sleep over.
Once everybody on your team becomes friends you guys won’t have any problems communicating because you are all comfortable with each other.
Another fun thing to do is to bring a barbeque after practice one day and make some hot dogs, and play a ton of games
Having a close team is not only really fun, but it’s intimidating to other teams.

I just joined an animal hospital as the practice manager, and I have never worked somewhere where communication and motivation was so pitifully low. I am conducting their first meeting ever next week and I want to get them geared up and excited. Does anyone have any good ideas for games or activities that will build team cohesion?

The first site below gives heaps of ideas and links to other sites. One particular ice breaker I have used with success is to hand out cards to each person on arrival, each card has either half a picture (in your case it could be an animal) or a sentence (eg someone who likes gardneing). when everyone has arrived ask them to mingle and find their matching partner, it gets people talking often leads to better office communication and sets a relaxed mood for the meeting. Another is called SPACE JUMP where you start the topic and each person in the room has to add on to the story, this one is best done with a small group in front of an audience and the person out front can choose someone at random to come up and add on to the storyline. An example is you begin by saying "today to many packets of birdseed came in the order, only problem is we don’t cater for birds!" NEXT PERSON COMES INTO ROOM AND HAS NO IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE SAID BUT MUST SAY something that will keep the story going. they might say "you know I have been having trouble sleeping lately", then the next person enters the room and has to again add their bit without knowing what has been said, by this time the audience is in fits of laughter and everyone is having fun without knowing why. Hope this helps

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I am due to go on a team building day 1 week on monday and I really dont want to go. I am going to phone in sick but need a really good excuse so they are not suspicious. Should I phone in sick on the friday aswell?

No
Go sick mon, tues and weds

John Glenn School of Public Affairs held a team building exercise for its incoming graduate student class.

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I’m trying out for an officer position of my high school’s drill team, and I need to come up with some team building activities to create a stronger team bond and build trust.

The human knot. Also play the game where there is a line and the first three people have to lay down and make an A. then the second three make a B and then they go to the back of the line, so the threes rotate through…. It is fun. and people figure out the threes and strategies to make it go faster. Also with introductions, make people line up in alphabetical order and make them introduce themselves with the first letter of their name and an animal. just the same animal cannot be used twice. like my name is Tara so I would be Tara the tiger or Tara the tarantula or whatever…. i hope that helps and makes sence.

I have 20 employees working for me. I run an accounting office and somebody told me that one way of improving the working relationships between employees is to hire a team building consultant. That way, they can bring about productive output without much worries and without friction. Can team building consultants really help especially in these times of recession?

its good if you engage one who knows how to get into the hearts and change them. Its lousy if u engage a lousy inexperience one. I can get u one who really good from asia. He has corporate experience n design his own training method, therefore it makes a lot of sense to engage this type of consultant.did some foe US companies in Asia and US.