As a manager or leader your biggest challenge is keeping your team energized. It’s the end of 2014 and while it’s a time to enjoy yourself with family and friends, the year end is also about taking stock of life and work. If you feel your team needs a little something to get back on track, our friends at Bruntingthorpe Events suggested these 7 indoor and outdoor team building activities you can use in 2015.
Outdoor team building activity ideas
1. Racing: Off-roading, Go-karting and Hovercrafting
Love driving? You can take your team’s driving ability up for a challenge with the off-road driving experience. If bumpy track is not your forte, just try go-karting or car-racing to cater your team’s need for speed. Need something that is not on wheels? Try hovercrafting for a whole new experience. No specific rule, just drive as fast (and safe!) as you can to the finish line, and be the winner!
2. Rafting
Extreme team sporting can help your team in quick decision making and solid team-working. Go to an event venue that offer challenging water-based team building activities and opt for rafting. Just go down the stream, and have your team figure out how to keep your raft steady and avoid getting flipped over.
3. Archery
What your Robin Hood skills have got to do with team-working skills? To your surprise, archery can give your team members a lot. Just go to a venue that offers archery group activity, and you will learn how to use a bow and arrow, as well as how to aim properly.
Archery is easy to learn but difficult to master, making it a great team activity that teaches your team to focus and use a cool head in solving problems.
Indoor team building activity ideas
4. Group Juggling
Form a circle with every member facing inside, the leader will gently toss an item (say a ball or pencil) to another, that person will catch it and thank the leader addressing him or her by name. The leader will reply saying “thank you” addressing that person by name as well. This will continue until the item has been passed to every member. Once a member has received the item he or she must fold arms and not participate until one round has been completed. In the next round another item can be passed around.
This activity promotes coordination, communication and helps group members to interact informally.
5. Birthday Line Up
This is a nonverbal exercise in which the group is required to form a single straight line, according to birthdays. Those born in January will be at the beginning of the line and this goes on until the line ends with those born in December. If you have two people who share the same birthday then they share the same place in line. Once the line is complete each person calls out his or her birthday.
This exercise is great to facilitate non-verbal communication in a group.
6. Tower Building
This will require some advance preparation wherein you will have to construct a structure out of a combination of art and office supplies and display it in a separate room. Then divide participants into groups of 4-5 and let each member go look at the structure and then report to the group so that they can build the structure.
This helps you to inculcate observation and communication skills while encouraging problem solving and conflict resolution. At the end of the activity some leaders will have emerged as well.
7. Chalkboard sentences
A competitive activity that promotes interpersonal communication and nurtures team spirit chalkboard sentences game requires dividing participants into two teams ideally teams must comprise an even number of members failing which one person may compete twice. The leader sets up a black- board for each team, teams line up a certain distance away from the board and the first person is handed a chalk. The game involves each member writing one word on the board, no one can write anything between or add anything to what has already been written on the board.
The expected result is a sentence with as many words as there are group members. This game is about word power, cohesion, cooperation and thinking ahead.
Takeaway
Office parties are great to celebrate your year’s end, as well as to reward your team for their work throughout the day. But don’t stop there; team building activities in the new year are fantastic in getting your team back on track entering the new year. Doing both will give your business a strong push early on.
Season greetings, and enjoy your parties and activities looking forward to the new year with a new hope!