Team Building Blog

.Faster. Leaner. Every day, teams are challenged to do more with less…and I need it yesterday!

Studies are showing that workplace stress has reached new heights and it’s fairly obvious to recognize that higher stress levels increase the possibility of mistakes at work overall employee burnout.

So what’s an organization to do? Teams have been reaching out to Team Builders Plus for a one-of-a-kind workshop called, Team Samurai. This session allows participants to discover the power of the ancient practice of meditation

In this team building program, team members learn how to re-center themselves after a difficult customer interaction, ground themselves before making a presentation, or re-energizing when that mid-afternoon energy decreases.

For many years, I have been reluctant to combine my more than twenty years of meditation and martial arts experience with my eighteen years of team and leadership training in the classroom. But as I see heightened stress levels, I knew that the time was right.

Despite what is going on with our current economic situation, most corporate groups understand the value of taking part in a team building activity. Goals of the team building activity have gone beyond showing appreciation, boosting morale and improving employee relationships. Many teams are utilizing the time dedicated to a team building activity as an opportunity to make a positive impact on their community.

Wheels for the World is a popular team building activity where the participants build bicycles and take part in challenges to earn the bicycle parts. The bikes are then donated to kids from United Way, Big Brothers Big Sisters and Boys & Girls Club, to name a few, and for many of the kids, its their first bike.

There is a new outdoor philanthropic team building activity called Kindness Wins. This is no ordinary treasure hunt. Instead of searching for hidden clues or caches, teams are let loose to make a positive difference. No good deed is too small and no act of kindness goes unnoticed. Teams earn Good Karma points by holding a door open for a stranger, returning something, such as a shopping cart, to its proper place, or by using a Post-it note to make someone’s day.

There are many more acts of kindness that your team will take part in and participants will also have the opportunity to create their own symbol of generosity and giving that will serve as a reminder back at work of what they experienced on this special day.

Combining a team building program with a philanthropic activity is a win-win for everyone, functionally, spiritually and mentally.

Corporate teams are jumping at the chance to explore next-generation treasure hunts rather than old-fashioned scavenger hunts.

According to Wikipedia, a scavenger hunt is “A game in which individuals or teams seek to find a number of specific items, or perform tasks, as given in a list. The goal is either to complete the list first, or to complete the list in the most creative manner.” Scavenger hunts are easy to organize and are great for school groups and social gatherings. No knowledge of the course area is required, as most of the items on the list can be found just about anywhere.

Treasure hunts are very different from scavenger hunts in that the activity requires much more than retrieving items on a list. Team building companies who arrange treasure hunts should not disturb the area on the course and the points should not interfere with other patrons in the area.

One previously common form of treasure hunt is geocaching. Geocaching is where someone hid containers for groups to locate. Teams open the containers and find cards with varying point values on them or small objects. A common problem with this type of treasure hunt program was that the geocache container was often found by someone not involved in the team building activity and caused undue alarm. It was also not very rewarding or exciting to spend the day looking for small containers.

Team building treasure hunts have come a long way and now include hunts such as: GeoQuest: The High-Tech Treasure Hunt and ClueQuest: The Indoor Treasure Hunt facilitated by Teambuildinginc.com. GeoQuest incorporates hand-held GPS units to help teams locate clues in a town, city, or zoo. Teams of approximately five people receive handheld GPS units pre-programmed with the locations of hidden treasures. The GPS units guide teams to within 20 feet of their goal. After that, they use their wits and determination to decipher written clues to find the hidden answers. GeoQuest gives participants the opportunity to work together to achieve their goals. Teams can learn about history along Boston’s Freedom Trail, discover the jungles at the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium, or explore the sites in historic Charlotte, NC.

Treasure hunts like ClueQuest: The Indoor Treasure Hunt are similar to GeoQuest, but instead of utilizing hand-held GPS units to solve clues outdoors, teams solve an emulator using Braille or sign language to solve clues indoors at locations such as the Field Museum in Chicago, the San Jose Tech Museum, the Atlanta Aquarium, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, or the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC to name a few.

GeoQuest and ClueQuest are perfect team building activities for corporate groups of all sizes. Effective teamwork, strategic thinking, planning, and communication are some of the skills needed to be successful during the treasure hunt activities. Participants learn about a city, zoo and even discover things they never knew about in their own backyards.

Team building treasure hunts continue to evolve past outdated scavenger hunts. Teambuildinginc.com has also created treasure hunt using new themes, such as CSI: On Location, Kindness Wins, and LimoQuest.

Don’t be left in the dark with scavenger hunts. Take your team on a real adventure with a new and exciting kind of treasure hunt.

Team building – every great company swears by it. For decades businesses have sought to provide new and innovative programs to their staff to improve communication, camaraderie and productivity just to name a few. However, many leaders find themselves repeating the same standard teambuilding activities… until now. The newest and most creative Team Building Program pays homage to the CSI movies and television programs that are hugely popular today.

CSI is the perfect framework for building teamwork. What would happen if the forensics team didn’t work well with those who collected DNA and trace evidence? Imagine one CSI agent gathering fingerprints from the crime scene and keeping that data for himself rather than sharing it with a CSI agent from a different department. It truly takes a team to solve a crime, just as it takes a team work through challenges in the workplace.

Picture your team trying to solve a high-profile homicide or running the streets of your home town collecting enough evidence to apprehend a group of notorious felons. These exciting programs not only bring your favorite crime solving dramas to life but will encourage collaboration, teamwork and critical thinking skills from your team members. Forget about the boring boardroom lectures – put your teams to work literally in these stimulating activities.

The numerous benefits from using this style of program include; any size group can be accommodated, the activity can take place indoors or outdoors (or both!) not to mention it’s completely “outside the box”. Outdoor courses can be custom designed for your location and never again will you hear complaints or grumbles of the same old training sessions.

If you’d like to experience the teamwork that real CSI agents practice every day, TeambuildingInc.com expert facilitators can deliver an engaging CSI team building experience that culminates with an in-depth discussion of how CSI teamwork applies to the workplace. The connection between crime solving easily links back to the real world of business and specifically your company.

Your team has three options to experience CSI and a team building adventure:

1. CSI NegativeZero: The Case of Victor Steele (half-day): This indoor CSI program couples your team’s analytical abilities with some of the newest forensic technology. Your team is tasked with identifying the killer of a rising actor from a group of three likely suspects. Will you catch the murdering marauder in time… or will they strike again?

2. CSI: On-location (half-day): This outdoor CSI program allows your city to be the scene of a major crime spree…and you’re the newest member of the CSI team. Your job is to walk the streets of your town, trace the footsteps of the criminals, and collect the evidence that will put them behind bars. Using teamwork and quick-thinking, this high-stakes crime drama will put your sleuthing skills to the test!

3. CSI: Agent for a Day (full-day): Solve a classic murder mystery and then hit the streets of your hometown! This full-day CSI program combines CSI NegativeZero: The Case of Victor Steele and CSI: On-location to offer a dynamic CSI team building experience. Your team will experience both styles of a crime scene investigation in this day long program that doubles the impact of working as a team.

I think this is one of the oldest, yet most effective icebreakers for meetings, training, or team building sessions. The "4 Facts" exercise simply asks people to write down 4 "facts" about themselves, 3 of them true, 1 not true. We encourage participants to think of things about themselves that others don't know. We also give them license to say things that they wouldn't say in normal conversation, such as an award they won, or that they graduated first in their class in high school or college. When they are finished writing their "facts," one person will read his list, and the others in the group will try to guess the lie. When they are finished with the first person, they go on to the next, and so on. You can also give a prize for the person who guessed the most correct answers, however, this is not necessary for the effectiveness of the exercise.

The beauty of this exercise lies in helping people to learn things about each other that they might never find out in normal conversation. Unique skills or talents may also be learned. It almost never fails to surprise people, even those who have worked together for years.

The 1 untruth in the list is intended to force closer listening, and add an element of interest.

Although it is never voiced, I sometimes worry that some participants may view an exercise like this as trivial. So I will share stories of how learning more about someone created a more productive relationship. Artificial barriers to communication exist in relationships like manager-employee, engineer-craftsman, executive-everyone else, white collar-blue collar, sales-operations, and others. Breaking down these barriers is good for the organization, and an exercise like "4 facts" can help.

The intent of the exercise blog category (see the categories in the upper right corner) is to share team building exercises. Yes, we have exercises for sale at our Online Store and Catalog, but this area is for sharing. If you have an exercise that you would like to share here, simply email it to us and we will post it formally. This way, others can comment about the exercise and their experience in using it.