Ways To Build A Better Team
Most Americans are accustomed to the idea of working towards individual gain and wealth. Growing up in our society we are exposed to many forms of competition amongst our peers. Who has the highest grades? Whose parents make the most money? Who can run the fastest? However, sometimes team building is more important than each individual's gain. When we work together, we can often accomplish tasks that we ordinarily couldn't accomplish on our own. However, being able to work together as a team with a common goal in mind is more difficult than it may seem. There are four types of team building exercises that can be implemented in order to efficiently use the concept of working together as a team.
1. Communication- Communication may seem obvious, but it's not as easy as it may seem. Naturally, all people are different, so some people have the talent to communicate effectively amongst peers. Yet, other people must learn how to communicate especially in a team. Team building would be impossible without great communication. A fun way you can improve communication is to have each team member write down two truths and one lie about themselves on a small piece of paper without revealing to anyone what they wrote down. For the next ten minutes or so, converse with each other trying to convince that your lie is a truth and trying to detect other people's truths/lies. After the conversational period, each person will reveal their three statements and the group will vote on which one is the lie.
2. Problem Solving- Two brains are better than one. A group brain storming together is not only beneficial but important to team building, because of the amount of ideas that can be bounced around with diverse thinkers. Team building and problem solving go hand in hand. An exercise that can improve the quality of problem solving in your team is to divide a puzzle into four separate bags. Organize the team members into four separate groups. Each group will receive a bag of puzzle pieces. For the first two minutes, each group will take turns putting their puzzle pieces together. For the next two minutes, they will be allowed to touch each other's pieces. For the last five minutes, they are allowed to talk while putting the puzzle together.
3. Planning- Planning is essential to team building, because many tasks require in depth thought before implementing a solution. As was said before, two brains are better than one. A group working together to create a plan is better than a single person thinking alone. An activity to help improve planning is to split the team into two groups and give each group a box of plastic drinking straws, a roll of duct tape, and raw eggs. Each group must plan and then build a structure that will prevent their egg from breaking from a height of ten feet.
4. Trust- Being able to trust others, especially people we are not familiar with, can be difficult and take time. But, when that trust is built, the team will be able to work much more efficiently. A common activity to build trust is to split your team up in pairs.
Each person will close their eyes and fall back into the arms of their partner. Remember to switch people up so that everyone has the chance to fall into each member's arms.
About the Author
Casey Trillbar is the editor of SixSigmaTrainingGuide.com, which is a website aimed at supplying articles, information and resources to people considering undergoing Six Sigma Training. http://www.sixsigmatrainingguide.com
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