15 Fun Team Building Exercises That Breed Cooperative Excellence  by marrywarner on October 6th, 2013 

The word TEAM has literally transpired into a buzz word in the corporate world. There are countless books and articles written about the importance of teams while each year, management consultants, scholars and researchers continue presenting theories and research that debate over various aspects of team building. But the million dollar question is; What is a TEAM and why does the world of business accentuate so much upon it?

When individuals with similar interests, attitudes, and tastes come together to work towards a common objective, a team is formed! If there is no common goal there is no team. Team members strive hard to live up to the expectations of each other and successfully accomplish the assigned task. A team must synergize and achieve excellence or as the acronym goes, T.EA.M. Together Everyone Achieves More.

A team cannot do well or achieve more than the individual unless and until each and every member is focused and understands his or her responsibilities.

Every individual must feel motivated to perform at his or her  best. For best performance, whenever possible, avoid imposing tasks on team members; instead, allow the individuals to take initiative on their own. Optimally, team members come forward and accept challenges with resilience and spirit. This is where team building comes in.

Team Building

Team building refers to various activities undertaken to motivate team members and increase overall performance of the team. A motivating factor is a must. Team Building activities consist of various tasks undertaken to groom team members and motivate them to perform to the best of their ability.

Team Leaders can and must undertake fun team building activities that help their team gel. These activities can be specially planned, for instance, corporate picnics, movie days, scavenger  hunts, sport matches, holiday/vacation/travelling together or themed events.

Alternatively, team building can be integrated into daily tasks like meeting openers, presentations, , conferences and work lunches. Various activities can be undertaken to address different team issues but ensuring the element of fun will increase the effectiveness of the activity.

15 Team Buiding Exercises

Fun team building exercises that nurture team spirit and breed excellence include:

1. Helium Stick – Deceptively simple teamwork activity.  Form two lines facing each other.  Lay a long, thin rod on group’s index fingers.  Goal: Lower to ground.  Reality: It goes up!
2. Toxic Waste – A popular, engaging small group activity.  Equipped with a bungee cord and rope, a group must work out how to transport a bucket of “Toxic Waste” and tip it into the neutralization bucket.  This activity can be used to highlight almost any aspect of teamwork or leadership.
3. Mine Field – Objects are scattered in an indoor or outdoor place.  In pairs, one person verbally guides his/her partner, a blindfolded person, through the minefield.
4. Zoom – A group tries to create a unified story from a set of sequential pictures.  The pictures are randomly ordered and handed out.  Each person has a picture but cannot show it to others. This activity requires patience, communication, and trying to understand from another’s point of view in order to recreate the story’s sequence.
5. Pipeline/Gutter Ball – A fast paced activity that can be modified to suit age and setting. Each participant gets one gutter or half pipe tubing. The object is to move a marble or assorted size balls using lengths of guttering from point A to point B without dropping them.
6. Keypunch – A powerful teambuilding exercise for medium sized groups. Participants must touch the randomly placed numbers, in sequence, within a given time frame in multiple attempts.
7. Warp Speed – A team building exercise based on the icebreaker “Group Juggle”.  Groups are challenged to juggle as fast as possible.  Invite group to “tender” a time they can deliver.
8. Balloon Activities – Group activities that can be done with balloons.Promotes gentle, fun physical movement, people getting to know one another, trust and working together.
9. Multi-Way Tug-of-War – Fun, physically demanding, competitive team activity.  Several teams pull against each other, requiring communication and tactics as well as strength to out manoeuvre and win.
10. All Aboard! – A classic teambuilding activity in which a group is challenged to physically support one another in an endeavor to occupy an ever diminishing space.
11. Survival Scenarios – “Your plane crashed…your group needs to choose the 12 most useful items to survive…”
12. Great Egg Drop – Small groups design an egg package to save an egg from breaking when dropped.  Plus a 30 second jingle to sell their package.  Followed by the Great Egg Drop-Off.
13. Amoeba Race – A simple, close physical contact group cooperation activity.  The group forms the three parts of an Amoeba: protoplasm, cell wall and nucleus.  Then the group travels, splits into two amoebas, and the amoeba have a race.
14. Group Mandala – Group dynamics exercise.  Each person is represented by an object.  The objects are “caste” like dice and group members share their feelings and re-arrange the objects.
15. Create Your Own Group Activity – Involves small groups in designing and presenting a new group activity.  A challenging exercise which requires all the elements of teamwork – communication, goal-setting, planning, cooperation, creativity, task orientation, etc.

Sucesssful team building

No matter which activity is selected for team building, the success of your activity will be influenced in no small part by:

• Congruence between the activity and the required learning outcomes.
• The environment and the atmosphere the facilitator creates.
• Enthusiasm shown by and created by the facilitator
• Acknowledgement that some people are more comfortable than others in undertaking activities.
• How the teams are made-up(mix, size and method)
• The quality and way the debrief is run.
• The post activity follow-up

Perhaps by adopting a few of these activities for  your unique team building situations, you’ll be a step closer to providing  an environment that promotes team spirit and breeds corporate excellence within your company.

Original Article:  

http://tweakyourbiz.com/management/2013/10/06/15-fun-team-building-exercises-cooperative-excellence/

by marrywarner on October 6th, 2013 

5 Reasons Why Team Building is Very Important

Just recently, our facilitators facilitating a Team Building activity of one of the big organizations in Zamboanga City and during the said activity we discover more deeply that Team Building activity is very important for all organizations.

One of the participant told us after the activity that he realize how luck he is to be a part of a company/organization where leaders values team building.

Team Building and special planned activities will not only boost morale of employees, but it can also increase the success of an organization.

Here are some of the few reasons why team building is important in the workplace.

1.  Facilitates Better Communication - activities that create discussion enable open communication among employees, and between employees and management.  This can improve office relationships and in turn, the quality of work done.

2.  Motivates Employees - Team leadership and team building go hand in hand.  The more comfortable your employees are to express their ideas and opinions, the more confident they will become.  This will motivate them to take on new challenges.

3.  Promotes Creativity - Taking a team outside of an office setting and exposing them to experiences will force them to think outside of their normal routine.  Working together with other team members can ignite creativity and fresh ideas, which are great qualities to bring back to the office.

4.  Develops Problem-Solving Skills - In public relations a crisis can happen at any time.  team building activities that require co-workers to work together to solve problems can improve the ability to think rationally and strategically.  Teams that are able to determine when a problem arises and know what they can do about it, can effectively take charge when real crisis occurs.

5.  Break the Barrier - Team building increases the trust factor with your employees.  Often in corporate settings there is a disconnect between the leadership team and employees sense too large of a gap between the two.  Team building exercises give leadership the opportunity to be seen a s a colleague rather than a boss, which can do wonders for employee morale.

Overall, team building in the workplace enables better communication, better relationships and ultimately increases productivity.

Original Article:  http://redshoespr.com/5-reasons-why-team-building-is-important/

This group is from Sangali National High School of Zamboanga City.  They (43 participants) travel from Zamboanga City to Cagayan de Oro City then crossed Balingoan Port to Benoni Port of Camiguin Island.

Their activities lasted for 3days and 2nights with various activities like countryside tours, visiting popular destinations in the island, island hop in Mantigue and White Island.  In between we designed and facilitated their Team Building activity.

As we can see in their faces.. each one made a unforgetable experience.

Evaluation says, they are more open to one another in opinions, suggestions, criticisms and discussions.

Team building works!

Join our call in building STRONGER, UNITED teams!