What are Team Building Exercises and what is their purpose?
Team building exercises consist of a variety of tasks designed to develop group members and their ability to work together effectively. There are many types of team building activities that range from kids games to games that involve novel complex tasks and are designed for specific needs. There are also more complex team building exercises that are composed of multiple exercises such as ropes courses and exercises that last over several days. The purpose of team building exercises is to assist teams in becoming cohesive units of individuals that can effectively work together to complete tasks.
Who can benefit from Team Building Exercises?
Team building exercises are useful for all kinds of teams. Some exercises are designed for smaller teams, some for larger teams. Some are designed for new teams, others to focus on specific areas of an established team to be worked on. In addition to this, team building exercises also are for different age groups. In addition to this, some team building exercises are intended primarily for a specific age group. It is possible that some team building activities designed for younger teams being misused with more mature groups has contributed to the negative stigma frequently associated with team building exercises.
Types of Team Building Exercises
Communication Exercise
This type of team building exercise is exactly what it sounds like. Communications exercises are problem solving activities that are geared towards improving communication skills. The issues teams encounter in these exercises are solved by communicating effectively with each other.
Goal:Create an activity which highlights the importance of good communication in team performance and/or potential problems with communication.
Problem Solving/Decision Making Exercise
Problem Solving/Decision making exercises focus specifically on groups working together to solve difficult problems or make complex decisions. These exercises are some of the most common as they appear to have the most direct link to what employers want their teams to be able to do.
Goal: Give team a problem in which the solution is not easily apparent or requires the team to come up with a creative solution
Planning/Adaptability Exercise
These exercises focus on aspects of planning and being adaptable to change. These are important things for teams to be able to do when they are assigned complex tasks or decisions.
Goal: Show the importance of planning before implementing a solution
Trust Exercise
A trust exercise involves engaging team members in a way that will induce trust between them. They are sometimes difficult exercises to implement as there are varying degrees of trust between individuals and varying degrees of individual comfort trusting others in general.
Goal: Create trust between team membersMethods for Team Building
Team building events often take participants out of their regular work context, and use the new context as an enabler of change and development - allowing team participants to get to learn more about each other in a new (non-work) context.
3 Components of a Team Building Exercise
Part 1: Instructions
This part of a Team Building exercise involves introducing the participants to the instructions for the exercise.
Part 2: Activity
This part of the Team Building exercise is the exercise itself. This is when participants utilize the instructions and begin to participate in the actual activity.
Part 3: Debriefing
This is likely the most important part of a team building exercise. The facilitator will close the exercise with a review of the purpose for the exercise and how the team accomplished it. A debriefing is important to reiterate the purpose of the exercise and to keep participants focused on the positive outcomes from the exercise.
The methods of doing this vary widely, including
- simple social activities - to encourage team members to spend time together
- group bonding sessions - company sponsored fun activities to get to know team members (sometimes intending also to inspire creativity)
- personal development activities - individual programs given to groups (sometimes physically challenging)
- team development activities - group-dynamic games designed to help individuals discover how they approach a problem, how the team works together, and discover better methods
- psychological analysis of team roles, and training in how to work better together (and combination of the above)
Team interaction involves “soft” interpersonal skills including communication, negotiation, leadership, and motivation - in contrast to technical skills directly involved with the job at hand. Depending on the type of team building, the novel tasks can encourage or specifically teach interpersonal team skills to increase team performance.