The dreaded team building exercise

[Letsnotargue]

Ive been nominated to do a 30 minute team building exercise in a meeting next week. It’s completely non-negotiable.

Group of 10, in a meeting room so no Go Ape or anything like that.

Anyone have any ideas of things that won’t make people hate me?

Can you give us an idea about what you're hoping to get out of the exercise? Is it to break the ice/ get to know each other a little better/ work together to solve problems, etc?

Two teams, give them a pile of newspapers. They have 30 minutes to build the biggest structure without talking. Some chocolates for the winners. Quite an inoffensive one that doesn’t put anyone on the spot.

What sort of things do people normally do? I can think of boring but harmless ones. We did one where you build a structure to drop an egg from. You have newspaper and sellotape to build it. The egg dropped from the highest height wins. You could have 3 or 3 teams but people don't have to do anything embarrassing!

VioletCharlotte it’s a relatively new team - we’ve known each other a few months but only worked together for 2 months and only meet up occasionally for training etc. I’ve been asked (told) to run a team building session at the next meeting. I guess the idea is to foster some team spirit, but I think we’re already doing ok with that.

We’ve done the egg drop one before, but I like the idea of the newspaper tower

Floating stick.... Google it, its inoffensive and generally goes down well :)

I do these, in order help 'team build' and for them to 'accept and respect' each other, I run an exercise called Coloured Hats. I give them a silly and unlikely task that needs planning - say herding 12 cats a mile down a busy street, and they all wear a difference coloured hat. Each colour represents a personality trait - optimists, pessimists, dreamers, organised, disorganised etc etc, and they have to have a conversation but be the personality trait they are wearing. Every five minutes or so, they change colour but continue the conversation.
It is mostly amusing, people don't have to show their true colours so to speak, but it does force you to think and talk from another perspective.

Feedback has always been positive anyway. I have not tested the team three months down the line to see if they are anymore knitted though

This one is good, in so far as any team building exercise could be considered "good"

guideinc.org/2015/09/15/team-building-activity-human-knot/

Thanks for your suggestions - I’ll see what props I can lay my hands on. I quite like the idea of the human knot but not sure how well my colleagues would take to that level of proximity!

Take a game of 'Twister' in! 😂

Ask everyone if they were a breakfast food, what would it be. Then all go to Wetherspoons for a large breakfast with unlimited coffee. That'll do the job and everyone will love you.

This one works with a big team - give everyone an envelope with a paper hat in it. Each hat a picture on it of one half of a famous duo (Ant and Dec, Tom and Jerry, Torvill and Dean, etc). Without looking at the hat, put it on and go round the room asking questions to work out who you are (like the game 'who am i?'. Once you know who you are, you then find out your opposite number.

For a smaller team, you can ask everyone to bring in an object connected with something they do in their free time. Everyone then has to guess who each object belongs to. You find out some people have some really interesting hobbies!

Or Belbin Team Roles is quite interesting and a good way of understanding more about the work styles of individuals in your team

www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles/

Plasticine and spaghetti, which team can build the highest tower.