"Team Building" Activities?

[TerriP]

Does anyone here have any experience with "Team Building" activities at work? My staff has been asked to plan our monthly meeting for October and we have to base it on a "team building" activity. We are stumped. We thought of a county wide "treasure hunt" involving all of our schools (we are the service center for all school districts in our county), but it was too much travel for only two hours. Then we thought of taking everyone to a local "corn maze" to break into teams and see who can find their way out of the maze first, but we can't get the maze owners to open up on a weekday for us.

Sooo, anyone here have any experience with this type of activity? We want it to be fun and playful....but can't think of anything creative. And, to be honest, my mind is on WDW right now and I'm pretty useless to my group! Thanks in advance for any ideas you might offer.

 

[jipsy]

Here are two we did at our last team building session.

#1 -Get a very long piece of rope - say 50 feet. If you have a very large group, divide people up (it doesn't matter how many are in each group) into smaller groups and give them each a rope. Each group stands in a circle, with approximately the same distance between each person, and holds onto the rope with both hands. The challenge is to make the rope into a star without anyone letting go of the rope with either hand - all hands must be on the rope at all times. If someone lets go, they must get back in a circle and start over. The idea of this is to force people to work together for a common goal. It can be done, and no group will do it the same way. We had 10 people in our group. Have someone time each group. The one with the shortest time wins a prize.

#2 - Divide people up into two groups. One group are the "seekers", the other group are the "coachers. Have the seekers line up in a row, and about 100 yards out from them put a flattened out beach ball on the ground so they can see it. Have the "coachers" spread around the area. The seekers must close their eyes and find the beach ball - the coachers only job is to not let the seekers hurt themselves by stepping in a hole or running into something. Coachers are NOT to tell them where the ball is. After awhile, once they flounder around forever, have the seekers go back to the same place they started and begin again, eyes closed. This time each coacher takes one seeker and guides them verbally to the beach ball. This teaches them that they need input from other people to reach their goals and cannot do it alone without alot of struggling, if at all.

You should try www.kenblanchard.com and inquire about his Gung Ho strategy - it's what my company employs and it is a good journey.