Play With Your Team: 5 Tips
June 26, 2009 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Business
One of the best ways to create a team atmosphere is to play with your team, and let them play with you. It’ll let them see a more personal side of you, and see you as the fallible human being you are, instead of the robotic machine managers sometimes can be perceived as.
Play requires you to be vulnerable and let your hair down. It may be uncomfortable at first, and it may feel forced.
DO IT ANYWAY!
How can you play with your team?
Trivia Days – Send out a trivia question (no Googling allowed) and give the first correct respondent a coffee beverage of their choice, or a small gift card. Winner asks the question next week (but you still buy the coffee!)
Flashback Friday – Share your favorite song from your childhood, and encourage the rest of the team to share theirs.
Name That Tune – Take Flashback Friday up a note and see who can figure out the title and artist…and let someone go home early for guessing the most right.
Share Your <insert personal tidbit here> – One of the best things my team has every done was during a morning meeting (at 6:30 AM), we shared a personal note about ourselves. Things like what we liked, what we don’t like, where we went to high school, favorite movie, biggest fear, stuff like that. Send out 10 questions and encourage folks to pick 5 they are comfortable answering…and YOU go first!
Two Truths and a Lie – Instead of just sharing information, turn it into two truths and a lie, where folks share 2 odd facts and 1 that SOUNDS close but is a lie, and have folks guess at what the li was.
All of these things are easy to do, but they require you to give up control, to be a little vulnerable, and to let your team take things where they are comfortable.
WARNING: If you’ve never been vulnerable and open with your team before, they may wonder what’s wrong with you. DO THIS ANYWAY!
What’s YOUR best team building tip? Please share it in the comments below.
Photo credit to silwenae
Phil,
A big hit with my group is an occasional Pot Luck Day! I buy a couple of buckets of Chicken and ask the rest of the team to supply sides, desserts, and Pop. Nothing brings a team together like food!! We also learn about each other by seeing some interesting dishes. Great conversation starters.
I will occasionally also do a Trivia question for a Gift Certificate.
This is great if you are all the same age, with similar personalities, similar senses of humor, similar interests, and the same gender.
Otherwise, it’s best just to stick to work-related stuff.
Oh, and if you are a manager who does this and you think your employees like it…. they’re lying.
Scott M.,
I hate to disagree with you, but I do disagree with your statement about the employees lying about liking these activities. Our most recent Pot Luck luncheon was held becuase multiple staff members had asked for when were going to have our next one!
Yes, there may always be a cynical one in the bunch who hates his co-workers and has no desire to bond with them, but overall it is well recieved.
I may have been a bit strong in my reply, but I would say that you have also.
I didn’t imply that most people (or even myself) hate their coworkers. I don’t hate my coworkers. It’s just that they are only that…. coworkers. I don’t need to ‘bond’ with them over lunch. The only reason we are thrown together is because we work for the same company. The only thing we have in common is our job. That’s how I interact with them. Outside of the job, we all have different interests. So conversation with them over lunch either focuses on the job (which we do anyway) or the conversations dies because none of us are interested in the other’s personal lives.
I don’t quite understand this need to create forced social situations with people who work together. If coworkers like each other, then they’ll become friends all on their own.
It’s only when the ‘fun’ is management-directed that these situations become more forced and less fun. What about the few individuals who like to eat alone with their thoughts? What about the harried parent who uses lunch time to run errands or have some ‘me’ time? What about the sports-nut in a team of sports-haters? What about the Republican in a team of Democrats (or vice versa?).
Why can’t social situations be left up to the individual?
Scott,
Sorry, I guess my reply did sound a little to negative toward you, not my intention.
I think I need to emphasize what I see happens from some team building excersises are meant to build. Instead of just being a cold team with no empathy or understanding of the other team members, a manager is hoping to build a bonded team that works better together if there is a common empathy. I feel that a team that has bonded is more willing to pitch in for either the team or another team member.
As a manager I am not trying to get the team to build lifelong friendships, but at least a friendlier, more cooperative team willing to help each other out.
I agree with your sentiments about “Forced” fun. This is why I usually find the “Pot Lucks” to be more interesting. Nobody is forced to bring anything and there is usualy enough food to provide for those who did not bring anything. I even usually invite some teams we interact with on that day to come and have a piece of cake or something. This also helps build bonds with the other teams we interact with.
I think one thing that your points do bring out, there is no “Cookie Cutter” approach to team building. Each team interacts differently.