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Guest post by: Dianne Crampton Become an Author

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Last year I posted a discussion on Linked In regarding team building exercises. Welcomed by some - other "managers" recoiled. They associated the words, "team building exercises", with worthless, touchy-feely team building games that lacked merit and were a waste of money. Sound familiar?

When I lived in Spokane, one of my part time college jobs was facilitating ropes courses and I often joined my female friends for lunch to participate in ad hoc team building activities. Our favorite was laser tag.

My friend, Jenny, who was normally very reserved and composed in her role as a bank manager took the high score in laser tag our first day out.

Once the game set was over, a towering teenage boy thundered into the reception area to demand the identity of "Raven" who had bested his score by 15 points. Jenny, at 5 foot 2 inches, had just changed out of her jeans and tennis shoes and was back in her heels and two-piece business suit. She tossed a glance over her shoulder and said, "That's me." The astounded boy gasped, "Noooooo!"

Later Jenny shared that the event was unbelievably fun as the ladies formed strategies around consistently achieving high scores.

So what separates a fun "team building" game such as playing laser tag with colleagues (whose relationships grew closer) from a team building exercise judged worthless and too touchy feely?

The first step is to identify your team building objective before plunging ahead on a team building exercise. And, unfortunately, many leaders forgo this step thinking that something fun will pull a team together. Then they ponder why there is no return on their team building investment when issues that initially faced the team continue.

In my experience,I have identifiedthree forms of team building activities.

The first is to provide fun and an opportunity for team members to learn more about one another. These events are best scheduled when a team is first forming. The design is to loosen people up and to create some common ground understandings. They are structured for fun.

Examples are barbecues, laser tag, white water rafting, scavenger hunts and problem solving games that break down personal space barriers one small step at a time. Unfortunately the one small step at a time rule is often disregarded leaving reserved managers with the icky feeling that their personal space was violated.

The second form of team building is for fun and discussion over a commonly experienced learning event. Learning about team personalities and how to communicate better with one another is one example. I have been sharing other examples in our TigerTracks Newsletter under the topic of low cost training events that teach leadership principles. In our last issue, I discussed learning outcomes for the movie, Secretariat.

The third form is team building with problem solving where workforce healing or employee engagement and commitment to an outcome is expected. These events follow a retreat format with laser-focused facilitation and clearly defined outcomes. These events include pre-event team discovery so outcomes are well defined.

The TIGERS Team Wheel exercise is an example of the third form of team building exercises and provides measurable performance benchmarks as one of the outcomes. It can also be used for a focused learning outcome and for fun with no icky, touchy-feely after taste.

The bottom line is that not all team building activities are created equal. Knowing the difference is the first step to creating events with games for team building that everyone enjoys.

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