Team Building Portfilio

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TEAMBUILDING

PURPOSES

1. TO OPEN AND ENHANCE LINES OF COMMUNICATION 2. A FORUM FOR INCREASING PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS 3. TO EXAMINE EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY 4. TO DEVELOP A WORKING PLAN TO_________________

Two Truths and a Lie

Time Required: 15-30 minutes

Start out by having every team member secretly write down two truths about themselves and one lie on a small piece of paper – Do not reveal to anyone what you wrote down! Once each person has completed this step, allow 10-15 minutes for open conversation – much like a cocktail party – where everyone quizzes each other on their three questions. The idea is to convince others that your lie is actually a truth, while on the other hand, you try to guess other people’s truths/lies by asking them questions. Don’t reveal your truths or lie to anyone – even if the majority of the office already has it figured out! After the conversational period, gather in a circle and one by one repeat each one of your three statements and have the group vote on which one they think is the lie. You can play this game competitively and award points for each lie you guess or for stumping other players on your own lie. This game helps to encourage better communication in the office, as well as it lets you get to know your coworkers better.

Classification Game


The classification game can be a quick icebreaker or a more complex activity. For the purposes of this example, we will treat this activity as a quick icebreaker. Before splitting the room into teams of four, explain the concept of “pigeon-holing someone,” which means classifying someone as something or stereotyping someone. It should be made clear that this type of classification is subjective and unhelpfully judgmental. Instruct the participants to introduce themselves to those in their team and quickly discuss some of their likes, dislikes, etc. After the introductions, reveal to the teams that it will be their job to discover how they should classify themselves- as a team- into two or three subgroups by using criteria that contains no negative, prejudicial, or discriminatory judgments. Examples of these subgroups can include night owls and morning people, pineapple pizza lovers and sushi lovers, etc. This activity encourages coworkers to get to know each other better and enables them to collectively consider the nature of all individuals within the team.

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Sneak a Peek Game

Time Required: 10 minutes

This problem solving activity requires little more than a couple of sets of children’s building blocks. The instructor will build a small sculpture with some of the building blocks and hide it from the group. The participants should then be divided into small teams of four. Each team should be given enough building material so that they can duplicate the structure you’ve already created. The instructor should then place their sculpture in an area that is an equal distance from all the groups. One member from each team can come up at the same time to look at the sculpture for ten seconds and try to memorize it before returning to their team. After they return to their teams, they have twenty-five seconds to instruct their teams about how to build an exact replica of the instructor’s sculpture. After one minute of trying to recreate the sculpture, another member from each team can come up for a “sneak a peek” before returning to their team and trying to recreate the sculpture. The game should be continued in this pattern until one of the team’s successfully duplicates the original sculpture. This game will teach participants how to problem solve in a group and communicate effectively.

Coin Logo


Begin by asking all participants to empty their pockets, purses, and wallets of any coins they may have and place them on the table in front of them. If someone doesn’t have any coins or only has very few, others in the room can share their coins with them. Instruct each person to create their own personal logo using the coins in front of them in just one minute. Other materials they may have on them, such as pens, notebooks, wallets, etc. can also be used in creation of the logo. If there is a particularly large group, people can be broken up into teams of 3-6 people and instructed to create a logo that represents them as a team or the whole room can gather to use the coins to create a logo for the organization/group/department/etc. Each solitary participant can explain their logo to the group or if the room was split into groups, the leader can have each group discuss what led to the team logo and what it says about them. Not only does this activity promote self and mutual awareness, but it also enables participants to get to know each other on a more personal level.

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Paper Tearing Exercise

Time Allocation: 5 minutes

Materials: Blank 8 ½-by-11-inch sheets of paper for each participant

Instructions:

1. Tell the participants the following: “We are going to play a game that will show us some important things about communication. Pick up your sheet of paper and hold it in front of you. Now, close your eyes and follow the directions I will give you—and no peeking! Participants cannot ask questions.

2. Give the following directions, carrying them out yourself with your own sheet of paper and pausing after each instruction to give the group time to comply:

The first thing I want you to do is to fold your sheet of paper in half. Now tear off the upper right-hand corner. Fold it in half again and tear off the upper left hand corner of the sheet. Fold it in half again. Now tear off the lower right-hand corner of the sheet.”

3. After the tearing is complete, say something like “Now open your eyes, and let’s see what you have. If I did a good job of communicating and you did a good job of listening, all of our sheets should look the same!” Hold your sheet up for them to see. It is highly unlikely any sheet will match yours exactly.

4. Observe the differences. There will probably be much laughter.

5. Ask the group why no one’s paper matched yours. (You will probably get responses like “You didn’t let us ask questions!” or “Your directions could be interpreted in different ways.”) Then, lead into a presentation on the need for two-way communication in the workplace.

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https://www.huddle.com/blog/team-building-exercises/

Mine Field


This trust exercise requires some setting up before it can be executed. It also requires a large, open area such as a room without furniture or an empty parking lot. The leader must distribute "mines," which they place haphazardly around the area. These “mines” can be balls, bowling pins, cones, etc. This exercise gives coworkers a chance to work on their relationships and trust issues, which is why they are paired into teams of two. One team member will be blindfolded and cannot talk and the other can see and talk, but cannot enter the field or touch their blindfolded teammate. The challenge requires each blind-folded person to walk from one side of the field to the other, avoiding the mines by listening to the verbal instructions of their partners. Penalties can be put in place for each time a blindfolded person hits a mine, but the real idea behind the game is to get the team members to trust their partner’s directions and to teach them to communicate in a more effective way.

Willow in the Wind

Time Required: 20 minutes

This particular trust building exercise goes by different names, but usually illustrates the same idea. This exercise is best suited for coworkers who already know each other fairly well. One participant must volunteer or be chosen to be the “willow.” The willow must stand in the middle of a group with their eyes closed, their feet together, and body upright. They will perform a series of “trust leans” against the other participants, whose job is to hold up the willow and pass them around without allowing them to fall or feel frightened as if they’re going to fall. Before beginning, the instructor should discuss “spotting” techniques to all participants. Those who are not the willow must have one foot in front of the other, have their arms outstretched, elbows locked, and fingers loose, as well as be ready and alert. This will ensure that they will successfully pass the willow around without any troubles. Various co-workers can take turns being the willow. This technique helps coworkers establish and build trust with each other in an open, fun environment.

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The human knot

Time: 10 minutes

Divide participants into small groups of six to eight people. Each group stands in a tight circle. Ask participants to place their hands into the center and close their eyes. Each hand must link with another hand. Once everyone is holding two other hands, they can open their eyes. Now tell the group they have to untie the knot and make a circle without letting go of each other.

4 UP

Time: 10 minutes (dependent on how long the group takes to find a system to solve the

problem)

Equipment: a chair for each participant

The participants all sit in a circle. Explain that you are taking them to a strange planet with a very strange atmosphere. In this atmosphere they cannot speak, as sound does not travel. The planet also has a very weird gravity system. Only four people can stand up at once. It is also impossible to stand for more than ten seconds. The challenge for survival on this planet is for the group to keep four people standing up all of the time, for not more than ten seconds each. The group will need to cooperate using non-verbal communication.

• Explain that this activity has shown that they are able to co-operate with others without even talking…They have the skills; they just need to put things into action…

Drawing twins

Time: 15 minutes

Equipment: pen, paper, simple line-drawn pictures, eg, a kite, a house, a face

Divide participants into pairs. Give one member of the pair a picture which must not be shown to their partner. The person with the picture must give instructions to their partner so that they can draw it, but must not say what it is, eg, ‘draw a circle, draw two more circles inside the circle about half way up’. Compare the drawing with the original. Hand out more pictures and ask participants to swap roles.

• This should illustrate how hard it is to give clear instructions as well as how hard it is to listen, and can also show how things are easily misunderstood and misinterpreted.

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The Worst-Case Scenario

Fabricate a scenario in which students would need to work together and solve problems to succeed, like being stranded on a deserted island or getting lost at sea. Ask them to work together to concoct a solution that ensures everyone arrives safely. You might ask them to come up with a list of 10 must-have items that would help them most, or a creative passage to safety. Encourage them to vote — everyone must agree to the final solution.

It’s a Mystery

Many children (and grown-ups) enjoy a good mystery, so why not design one that must be solved cooperatively? Give each student a numbered clue. In order to solve the mystery — say, the case of the missing mascot — children must work together to solve the clues in order. The “case” might require them to move from one area of the room to the next, uncovering more clues.

Save the Egg

This activity can get messy and may be suitable for older children who can follow safety guidelines when working with raw eggs. Teams must work together to find a way to “save” the egg (Humpty Dumpty for elementary school students?) — in this case an egg dropped from a specific height. That could involve finding the perfect soft landing, or creating a device that guides the egg safely to the ground. Let their creativity work here.

Balloon Balance

The concept of the balloon balance game is very straightforward. You can decide whether you’d like your students to be in pairs or small groups. Each team is responsible for keeping their balloons in the air with each member being allowed to touch one balloon one time for each turn.

At first, with just a few balloons, the game will be fairly easy. Over time, it will become more challenging, forcing students to develop a strategy for keeping their balloons in the air.

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Create Your Own

In this exercise, teams must create their own, brand new, problem-solving activity. This game encourages participants to think about the problem-solving process. It builds skills such as creativity, negotiation and decision making, as well as communication and time management. After the activity, teams should be better equipped to work together, and to think on their feet.

What You'll Need: Ideally four or five people in each team. A large, private room. Paper, pens and flip charts.

Instructions: As the participants arrive, you announce that, rather than spending an hour on a problem-solving team-building activity, they must design an original one of their own. Divide participants into teams and tell them that they have to create a new problem-solving team-building activity that will work well in their organization. The activity must not be one that they have already participated in or heard of. After an hour, each team must present their new activity to everyone else, and outline its key benefits.

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Awareness

“Sitting is more dangerous than smoking, kills more people than HIV and is more treacherous than parachuting. We are sitting ourselves to death.” Another reason the smoking analogy is relevant is that studies have repeatedly shown the effects of long-term sitting are not reversible through exercise or other good habits. Sitting, like smoking, is very clearly bad for our health and the only way to minimize the risk is to limit the time we spend on our butts each day.

Awareness

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IN THE UNITED STATES, EVERY DAY, IT RAINS APPROXIMATELY 4 TRILLIONS GALLONS OF WATER!! HOW MANY GALLONS OF WATER IS THAT PER PERSON IN THE UNITED STATES PER DAY?

FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL IN THE UNITED STATES THAT IS 20,000 GALLONS PER DAY!!!!

OUR NATIONAL DEBT IS 15 TRILLION DOLLARS!!!

IF YOU STACKED $1,000 BILLS ONE ON TOP OF THE OTHER, IT WOULD BE 1083 MILES HIGH!!

IF YOU COUNTED ONE DOLLAR BILLS FOR EACH SECOND, IT WOULD TAKE YOU 437,000 YEARS TO COUNT TO 15 TRILLION!!!

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This is a story about four characters: EVERYBODY, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY and

NOBODY.

There was an important job to be done and EVERYBODY was asked to do it. EVERYBODY was sure SOMEBODY would do it. ANYBODY could have done it, but NOBODY did it. SOMEBODY got angry because it was EVERBODY’S job. EVERBODY thought ANYBODY could do it, but NOBODY realized that EVERYBODY wouldn’t do it. It ended up that EVERYBODY blamed SOMEBODY when actually NOBODY asked ANYBODY.

PEOPLE WHO SET GOALS,

WRITE THEM DOWN, AND

LOOK AT THEM AT LEAST

ONCE A DAY, ACHIEVE

86% OF WHAT THEY SET OUT TO DO

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Subject: lipstick(teachers should like this)

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses). To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror. There are teachers .... and then there are educators.

Team Building Portfilio

Education

Transcript of Team Building Portfilio