Thursday, June 10, 2010

Tips on Team Building Activities

Conferences and other such corporate events are an ideal time to hold team building activities. Since you are away from your usual routine you will find it easier to unwind and interact with your colleagues.

To be effective, team building activities must be enjoyable. They could be either physical or cerebral in nature. Here are a few ideas that you can use for team building activities.

You can divide the employees into teams and ask them to make their way through a particular route. Along the way you can set up pit stops where teams will have to solve given clues in order to be allowed to carry on with the race. This activity is great for building teamwork and forging team spirit.

You can ask teams to navigate through an obstacles course while they are blindfolded. This activity would help employees trust each other and also hone their communication skills.

Teams can be asked to answer trivia questions based on general topics like history, music, movies, geography etc. This kind of activity helps employees to interact with each other and builds up team coordination.

A treasure hunt is a great team building exercise where teams need to visit various locations on the basis of clues. Teams will need to decipher clues and may also be asked to collect certain articles as part of the activity. Employees learn to be competitive and to tackle challenges.

As part of team building activities you can host a series of corporate sports such as soccer, hockey, swimming, kayaking, sailing etc. These activities can be used to build leadership and teamwork skills. Instead of individual sports, you should stress on team sports.

Indoor rock climbing is a great physical activity for teams to participate in. This exercise helps in building teamwork and develops strategizing skills.

Golf can be used as a team building activity by dividing the total number of employees into teams that compete against each other.

Getting teams to solve a murder mystery is a great cerebral activity. It fosters strategic thinking and is entertaining at the same time.

Extreme sports may not work for all employees. However if the employees in your organization are game, you could organize team building activities such as white water rafting etc that test a team's endurance and ability to meet a challenge.

Which ever activity you decide to use as a team building exercise, follow safety precautions and make sure the participants are comfortable with what they are doing.

By : Gabriel_Stiller

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