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Team Building Exercises Video

Video Transcript

Learn how to plan effective team-building activities with your people.

Team building exercises can be great for helping teams to develop and communicate better.

Unfortunately, they're often put together without much thought or planning. When this happens, you not only waste people's time, but you risk losing their respect as well.

Also, if the activity is poorly planned, your team might feel awkward about getting involved. Or, some people might not be fit enough, or strong enough, to participate in physical activities like climbing or kayaking. They have to sit out, making them seem like outsiders – this is the opposite of what you want to achieve!

But, here's the good news – your team building exercises don't have to be like this. With some careful thought and planning, you can develop exercises that will actually build your team, and not just give people a day out of the office.

When you start planning, look at the challenges your team members are facing. What do they need to work on? It's important you really take time up front to identify these challenges. If you don't address the core issues your team is facing, your team-building exercises won't do any lasting good.

For instance, maybe people aren't communicating, and they're always arguing with one another as a result. Or, maybe some members are afraid of change, which holds the rest of the group back.

Once you've identified the causes of your team's issues, you can plan exercises that will address each issue specifically.

Now, read the article that accompanies this video to learn more about some specific team-building exercises you can use with your own team.

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Comments (3)
  • Over a month ago Yolande wrote
    Hi all

    Something that is very popular here in South Africa (probably due to our great weather/climate) is all types of outdoors teambuilding 'stuff'. When its executed correctly it usually works fairly well. However, many of those outdoors things are very physical meaning that you always have some people who can't (for health reasons) or won't (fear of heights etc) participate. I went to a team building as a guest early last year and I was shocked at the lack of direction and lack of professionalism by the facilitator. Once again it was a very physical course and only about 50% of the people present actually participated. I really had to force myself to just sit still and watch!! The result really defeated the object!

    I love doing teambuilding exercises where everybody can be involved - even the disabled members of a team (maybe someone in a wheelchair). Something I usually include as part of the exercise is some or another form of story telling; then a fun exercise to randomly select teams; then the main exercise (with a little bit of competitiveness, but not too much and also only if everybody has a fair chance of winning) and then a debriefing and feedback session.

    Regards
    Yolandé
  • Over a month ago udaynayak wrote
    Hi Dianne,

    I am co-ordinating a team building exercise for our in house staff. Browsing on the net i found some exciting projects at Businessballs.com, thought i should share this site for anybody who also would like to get some information on team building exercises.

    Hope it helps ...Uday
  • Over a month ago Dianna wrote
    There are so many great team building exercises out there - and sadly many really bad executions!!! I was at an event that was so poorly organized it was painful to be there. We stood around waiting for exercises to be set up and there was basically no debriefing afterward. It was as if a giant question mark was hanging over our heads the whole day and we left feeling like it was a complete waste of time - an expensive waste of time to boot!!

    Tell us what has and has not worked for you in the past and other memorable team building exercise moments - I think there is much we can learn from one another here.

    Dianna