subject: Group Activities For Team Building Techniques [print this page] Are you curious about team building? Team building has been attracting a lot of attention from businesses and employers in recent years as new techniques that are designed to help groups of workers become more productive together have come to the forefront. Activities for team building create bonds through mutual experiences and common goals that help people work more efficiently together and achieve better results.
What are some activities for team building? Most begin with icebreakers. These include name memory games, storytelling, call and response games, and more. These are made to assist your group get to know one another and put them in a happy, cooperative mood.
Once your initial icebreakers are finished, it's time to continue the activities for team building. These include a variety of physical and mental games that teach concepts such as cooperation, empathy, communication, group problem solving, friendly competition, and many others. By overcoming these challenges as a group, your audience will learn the pleasure of achieving a goal in which everyone works as a team and no one person is singled out.
Some examples of some physical games for team building include parachute games, the human knot game, relay races, group tag, and many others. There are programs that also include trust building games, such as letting the group catch an individual who is blindfolded. While this can be a touching, inspiring activity, it's best not to include it until your team has truly bonded. Otherwise you run the risk of not only embarrassing the person being caught, but actually causing physical injury as well.
Other activities for team building include bonding games. These include activities where members of a group tell stories about their favorite childhood memories or confess their biggest fear. Other communication based exercises include the telephone game, word association games, memory games, verbal problem solving, and more. These activities for team building help build communication skills, empathy, and create a healthy bond between team members.
Activities for team building can be effectively designed to accommodate groups of virtually any size; as small as four or as many as thirty. There are activities that are appropriate for any type of cooperation. Team building skills are important and applicable to people of any age. Children benefit from learning how to interact within groups, and workers can develop habits that result in increased sensitivity, cooperation, productivity and efficiency. Likewise, such techniques can increase trust and understanding among coworkers. There are too many people across the country who feel uncomfortable in large groups, as if everyone there is plotted against them. These exercises will help them learn to trust again. Team building activities can successfully change an uncomfortable office dynamic and can be a valuable tool for increased productivity in any situation.
