Tyler Hayden

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. 28 New Spring Team Ideas! I was working on a forthcoming book on virtual and 24/7 team design and thought you may be interested in some new & fresh ideas for team building (in fact they are so new they are even unedited and formatted :) LOL... Hope they will help out as you start to plan your spring events. Spring is here and its time to get your team to do the same.  Here is a list of 25 cool things that you can do to energize your team. Coffee Bar - Shut your office door, put garbage bags up on your windows and bring in your table lamps from home (shag carpet if you have it) to make a groovy atmosphere for a coffee house.  Set up a stool in the corner and invite in your team.  Pass out some “fancy coffees” and invite each person to take the stool and answer the “groovy question” - ie “What are you most excited about for this quarter? or What was your biggest success so far this year?” Wiilympics - Set up a Wii or other game console in your staff room.  Invite team members in to have a bit of an Olympic competition.  Pick a game every day that everyone gets to play once and track peoples scores.  Have a medal ceremony at the end of the week. Coffee Talk - Take each member of your team out for coffee and a “taulk”.  Use our Coffee Talk game book to help frame some fun and off the wall chats... Totally fun way to get to know your team without breaking the bank. Egg Hunt -  Inform your team to meet you at the office for a very important meeting at 8:30am sharp.  Set up a chocolate egg hunt around your office, before you leave the night before the said meeting.  Then put up crime scene tape on the door so no one enters in the morning.  When they all arrive tell them there has been a reverse robbery and 100 chocolate eggs were hidden in the office, and they need to be found before then melt.  Once they have found all the eggs team members tell one interesting fact about themselves for every egg they found. Charity Chase -  Pick one of your clients or local charities.  Have a “volunteer day” and have your team work to help improve that clients position or service delivery.  Help them by doing things on their “to do list” like painting rooms, building gardens or installing shelving.  Or volunteer your teams expertise -- i.e. in building a strategic plan or doing some accounting for an NFP. Mobile Car Wash - Hire a mobile car wash to come and clean all your teams cars while they are at work.  Leave a hand written note in an envelope under their windshield washer thanking them for their help and great work. Tail Gate Lunchbox - Bring in a pick up truck, bb-q and some root beers on ice.  Set up in the parking lot crank some tunes, set out some lawn chairs and have a long lunch together.  Eat some burgers, hot dogs and chips and celebrate your winning team or use the event to “open” up a new quarter of game (business) play. Monet’s Canvas - Bring in some small canvasses, latex paint and some brushes and get each member of your team to paint a picture based on your “key question.”  Some key questions you could use include: “Paint a picture of the strength you bring to the team, or paint a picture of where we will be as an organization in 5 years.”  Combine those paintings together to form a patchwork quilt of your teams vision and hang it in your office. Business of Sport - Take your team out to a semi pro or pro sporting event... After the game talk to your team about what they saw the teams doing right, what it took to win, and how that applies to your upcoming business pursuits.  Use the game as a metaphor for business and continue the investment by sending cards with the game ball on it, make jerseys for team events, play a “team” theme song, etc. Ice Cream Bar -  Remember how you used to lose it when the ice cream truck came driving into town.  Pick a hot summer day and wheel up a table with all the makings of a sundae bar... invite the team to shinny up to the bar and make a decadent treat. Dunker Rooney - Throughout the week deliver a baseball to each of your team members and tell them that they are super important.  Rent a dunk tank and have it delivered and covered in your company parking lot.  Put a poster/sign on the target of one your your team goals for the quarter.  Send a group email or text and have the group meet you down in the parking lot with their baseballs.  Then, with you sitting on the dunk seat tell your team that you want them to hit the stated goal (aka target) so bad that you dare them to do it.  When everyone has thrown their allotted balls talk about what it will take for the team to hit their goal.   Full Value Contract - Take out a piece of bristol board and markers and put them in the center of the group.  Ask them to draw an icon of something that metaphors a group behavior that “we” need to do to make our team successful (i.e. ears for listening, weights for working hard, etc.)  After each icon is drawn get the group to agree that that is something that they agree that their group needs to be successful.  Once everyone has drawn and explained their drawing you will have an agreed to behavioral contract. Business is a Gong Show - Set up a metal gong in the center of your sales team.  Every time they make a sale they get to go up and hit the gong.  You can support their success either by everyone else clapping and cheering or hand out kazoos or harmonicas and have everyone else join in a chorus of cacophony. Scavenger Hunter - Compile a list of things that your team might be able to find on their person.  At your meeting break the team into equal parts (3 to a team is great) and have them see how many of each item they can find in 5 minutes.  Teams get a point for each item they find -- i.e. penny, cell phone, tissue, etc.  Winning team gets a prize or just bragging rights. Literature Group - Set up a book group at your work.  Read professional writings and have discussion groups around the content of the book. DJ’s Top 10 - Have a lunch and share of team members favorite music.  Get one person every Friday to host the DJ’s Top 10 - where they share the top songs of their lifetime.  Play snips of these songs together and send each member of the group an iTunes list of the songs or come up with another “imaginative way” of sharing the music without breaking copyright of course -- nudge nudge wink wink. iDepth Tour - Have a different member of your team start your meeting by sharing their favorite “out of the way place” in cyberspace or their favorite App.  The presenter gets 5 minutes to show why they love this cyberspacious place or the functionality/fun of the App.  Sumorama - Rent some inflatable sumo suits and have a bit of a battle royale.  Teams that play together stay together. Ahoy Mate - Set up a day to go sailing.  You can learn allot about team work from the runnings of a sailing vessel... or for some more passive fun set up a treasure hunt and hire a sail boat to help you find the treasure.  Make stations along the way with challenges that the team has to complete and make the “treasure” an outdoor bb-q on the beach.  Fun in the sun. Retro bowl - Get some really tacky bowling shirts made with your company logo and  peoples names.  Rent out the local bowling alley and hike down for a retro bowling tournament.  Serve hot dogs and beer, crank a little Twisted Sister, and turn on the black lights to give this party a little “charm.” Lanyard Bedazzling - Set your team apart from the others in your cubical nation by bedazzling your lanyards with plastic jewels and other bling.  Make this the treasure at the end of a measurable business outcome and lock the bedazzler in a treasure chest for all to see.  When you hit the goal crack it open and bedazzle each other! Real Face Book - Take some photos of your team at a retreat, on the job, from their past, etc and compile a photo book of each other.  Include some data about each team member like where they are from, what they do for the company and even quirky things.  You can grab this information by sending out a quick “survey” before you start putting the book together.  These are particularly good for teams working virtually... in fact it doesn’t even have to be printed now does it. Tour de Trike - Grab a couple of trikes from the local bike shop and set up either a obstacle course in your parking lot or map out a route around the block for a race (make sure you ensure safe riding).  Break the group up in teams and ride in the Tour de Trike.   I like you because... - Write those very simple words on the top of a piece of paper and photocopy enough for everyone in your team.  Tape the paper on the backs of every person in your team.  Pass out some markers and have people move from back to back answering the statement about why they like that individual.   Pot Luck - It works for churches, and associations why not your team?  I like to ramp up the “traditional pot luck” and give some constraints for the dish they bring, i.e. must be from your country of origin, must use only 4 ingredients, has to contain all food groups, etc.   Bored Olympics - Go on line and find a site that has really easy to play games like bored.com.  Then, invite your team to have a Olympic Game challenge by breaking into countries and tracking scores.  Give out medals if you like or just dish out bragging rights.  This is a great adaptation for virtual teams, just pick your favorite social networking site to post scores. Intranet Hunt - Deposit some clues inside “client files” or other “shared work spaces” inside your intranet.  Give team members clues as to where to find them.  Then set them loose... first person to complete the intranet hunt wins. Internet Hunt - Set up a challenge for your team to find a list of obscure items online... compile their findings in a PowerPoint or keynote presentation rip to PDF and send it to you... The person who finds the most wins.  Great fun for virtual teams. New Site! We launched our new website at www.tylerhayden.com - check it out if you haven't already.  We are also working on www.folkartnovascotia.com to showcase some of my art... fun. Team Tip Team building is what you do with people not to people. Try kicking off your next meeting with this little icebreaker.  Set up a scavenger hunt for obscure things that people can find without getting up from their seat. You'll be interested to see what people bring with them in their brief cases, purses and pockets ; ) Socialize! Want up to the minute info on team building, leadership, and livin' life large!  Then let's connect and socialize.... Twitter- @livinlifelarge Facebook- Tyler Hayden Fan Page Skype- tylerhayden Email- tyler@tylerhayden.com   Our mailing address is: tyler@tylerhayden.com Copyright (C) 2010 Adventure Wave Consultants All rights reserved.

Sent to tyler64.nanoteams@blogger.com: unsubscribe | update profile | forward to a friend