TEAM BUILDING - Team-Building Exercises or Activities

by Arnold Anderson, Demand Media

Use team-building exercises to increase productivity.

A cohesive team is able to work more efficiently together. If you would like your employees to learn how to work better together, consider trying some team-building exercises or activities. Effective team-building activities do not take a lot of time and if you choose exercises that are fun, your employees may benefit more from doing them. When you set aside an hour or so a week to improve teamwork with your staff, you are helping your company become more productive and profitable.

Lead the Blind

"Lead the Blind" helps employees develop trust for one another. To complete this exercise, you will need space, so clear out a conference room or large office if possible. Place random objects in the room such as chairs, small tables, piles of books and any other obstacle of a similar size. Blindfold one employee and instruct another to guide the blindfolded employee from one side of the room to the other by providing verbal instructions. The goal is to get the blindfolded employee to touch the wall on the opposite side of the room without running into an obstacle. Make sure you have spotters follow the blindfolded employee so that they do not fall and hurt themselves.

Stand Up

"Stand Up" is a little elaborate and physically demanding, so you may want to avoid asking older employees to try it. Four employees are tied together at the waist by a rope. The group lies on the floor and then have to stand up by working together. If you wrap the employees in a wide cloth, that may help to inhibit their ability to move a bit more. Your employees either learn to work together or they stay lying on the floor.

Finish the Story

"Finish the Story" helps employees improve their communication skills. The manager should start by giving employees the first sentence of a story that the rest of the group has to finish. The story must make sense and it must flow together. Each employee should add one sentence to the story. This helps employees learn to think along the same lines or at least be able to understand how their teammates think and communicate.