A Magical Team Building Activity

Picture this. I'd been asked to lead the final team building activity of the day before drinks and dinner. The audience will have been in meetings since eight in the morning. The attendees would be police officers who are experts at making what they call "cop faces," expressionless faces that don't provide much information or feedback for the facilitator.

I had to come up with a prize winning team building activity. I think I did; if it worked with them - and it did - it will work with your teams, too. Take a look at the team building activity I developed for them: Your Personal Best: A Magical Team Building Activity. It's magical because it was a huge success with a tough-to-please and hard-to-involve audience.

For the same group, I started the day with a flight - not them - planes - really. Their first task of the morning after meet and greet was to individually build an aerodynamic airplane from the materials I provided: paper, tape and popcicle sticks. They then competed to see whose plane flew the furthest and I awarded prizes based on length of flight.

This was truly a fun ice breaker, not a method of segueing the group into their topic, although their actions made for lots of conversation in the debrief.

The funniest part of the morning? They cheated. They used materials I didn't supply. They flew their planes from positions over the line I had drawn; they bribed their opponents, and they appealed my decisions. Hilarious. Make your team building activities fun.

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More About Team Building Activities

• Keys to Team Building Success: Make Team Building Activities Successful
• Twelve Tips for Team Building: How to Build Successful Work Teams
• Team Building Activity: Radio-controlled Cars
• Team Building, Team Work, Team Quotes

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