Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Team Building

I have been asked for my process to building teams, and here is the agenda for an initial team building consultation. Games in bold can be googled for their rules. This process was used with outstanding results at St. Mary's school faculty professional development day Oct 21 on Virgin Gorda, BVI

Openers:
Speed Rabbit: silly game to laugh at each other. Person in the middle tells us about themselves.
Mirroring: a good and safe game to foster connection and pay attention to each other
Stop me: line up shoulder to shoulder in two lines, facing each other and about 15 ft apart. One side closes their eyes, the other silently sneaks towards them until the closed eyes hold up hands and say "stop." Discuss the observations.

Discussion: (questions tailored to situation and environment, use the respect communication guidelines)
Why do you do what you do? (teach, preach, minister, play, etc.)
How did you get here to this program, job, position, etc.?
When the career is over and you are on your deathbed looking back over your life, what do you hope to have accomplished in this work?

Changing direction: write on index cards three assets or skill sets you have that could be utilized for the better by one of your co-workers or peers. Then we trade these off, making deals and agreeing to offer ourselves to the other in some way, thus making a covenant of support to each other over the coming months.

Putting it together: (or google "team building games, initiatives" to find new ones)
Human Knot
Alphabet soup
Four Quad

Closing questions:
What did we learn from today?
What are the strengths of our team?
What are three ways our team can improve how we work with each other?

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