Posted: 11/25/2012 4:22:34 PM EDT
| Looking for team building exercises for an office. Around 5 people, give/take. Nothing too lame/boring/stupid/etc. I've found a lot of generic ideas online, but are there any you've been part of that have actually been worthwhile? ~5 people, up to an hour. |
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are there any you've been part of that have actually been worthwhile?
No. Feel-good crap shoved on employees by some upper management who got the suggestion from a consultant. Almost as much fun as kaizans. "we're going to do this exercise and oh by the way, you still need to do everything else by yesterday" If you want employee participation, perhaps a pinata of the CEO or HR veep would be a starting point. 
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Someone has said it already, but all the "team building" I've ever been forced to participate in was an absolute waste of my time and the company's money. I'm sure it sounds like a great idea to upper management muckity-mucks, but no amount of feel-good crap is going to make under-paid, over-worked employees enjoy their jobs. They're trying to address a "morale problem" where I work. They're spending money everywhere but employee payroll. I don't know about you, buy my morale directly correlates to how full my wallet is.
Go after work and drink yourselves into oblivion on the company credit card. |
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Quoted:
are there any you've been part of that have actually been worthwhile?
No. Feel-good crap shoved on employees by some upper management who got the suggestion from a consultant. Almost as much fun as kaizans. "we're going to do this exercise and oh by the way, you still need to do everything else by yesterday" If you want employee participation, perhaps a pinata of the CEO or HR veep would be a starting point. Also this, all it takes is one person who isn't interested to make it very difficult. |
| Line them up, go down the line kicking them in the jimmy/punching them in the tit. The first one to fight back is assigned team leader, the others look up to him/her for standing up for them. If nobody fights back fuck 'em then, fire them all and try again, coffee is for closers. |
lol....sarcastic recommendations are gladly accepted, but I am also looking for something remotely serious as well. I meet up with my team members quarterly, and rather than sit and stare at each other for an hour or so, figured it might be worthwhile to try something constructive. I could always go over the boring office policies, documents, etc. Or... I could try to lighten it up a little, and have some fun.
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Quoted:
Line them up, go down the line kicking them in the jimmy/punching them in the tit. The first one to fight back is assigned team leader, the others look up to him/her for standing up for them. If nobody fights back fuck 'em then, fire them all and try again, coffee is for closers. Well, I could probably pony up for a set of steak knives, but the Eldorado isn't in the budget. 
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Quoted:
Someone has said it already, but all the "team building" I've ever been forced to participate in was an absolute waste of my time and the company's money. I'm sure it sounds like a great idea to upper management muckity-mucks, but no amount of feel-good crap is going to make under-paid, over-worked employees enjoy their jobs. They're trying to address a "morale problem" where I work. They're spending money everywhere but employee payroll. I don't know about you, buy my morale directly correlates to how full my wallet is. Go after work and drink yourselves into oblivion on the company credit card. I agree. However, I have yet to go through any teambuilding exercises administered by an arfcommer.
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Quoted:
Looking for team building exercises for an office. Around 5 people, give/take. Nothing too lame/boring/stupid/etc. I've found a lot of generic ideas online, but are there any you've been part of that have actually been worthwhile? ~5 people, up to an hour. Call me crazy, but try "Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game". It's ideal at five players, and is a 'cooperative' game where the players attempt to survive constant crises. Two of the players, however, are Cylons, who try to secretly sabotage things. Players have to learn not only to not screw up, but to work with others to show they really are doing the best they can, and how to detect people who are unconsciously or deliberately lagging or outright sabotaging. |
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Quoted: are there any you've been part of that have actually been worthwhile? "we're going to do this exercise and oh by the way, you still need to do everything else by yesterday" Or "You finish up your workweek at 1am Thursday morning, should be no problem to be back here at 8am Thursday morning for team building." Typical of the No Think, Can Do! management mentality.  |
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Do the one where you fall backwards off a chair and let your coworkers catch you. But, let the first guy fall and not catch him, then have a good laugh and tell him that will teach him to trust you. Laughter builds comradery. lol...incur physical injury to a subordinate on company time? I'm game. lol......
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Do the one where you fall backwards off a chair and let your coworkers catch you. But, let the first guy fall and not catch him, then have a good laugh and tell him that will teach him to trust you. Laughter builds comradery. I did the trustfall thing at Boy Scout camp, a truck pulled up and the driver honked just as I went over backwards off a picnic table. Everybody turned to look and I slammed into the ground. It was supposed to get us to trust our belayers for a treetop obstacle course... didn't work. |
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If you want to build the team, you must suffer together through some insane challenges that you aren't sure you can complete before you embark on them.
Suffering together is the key, to a point where others haven't suffered together like you. The challenge is how to bring in new team members and make them suffer, without everyone having to suffer again through the same stakes they already have done. SFAS is the best model I can think of, but interpreting and executing that in an office environment will be difficult. |
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I did the trustfall thing at Boy Scout camp, a truck pulled up and the driver honked just as I went over backwards off a picnic table. Everybody turned to look and I slammed into the ground. It was supposed to get us to trust our belayers for a treetop obstacle course... didn't work.
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Having participated in mandatory fun in the Army and team building in the corporate world I can’t say I see the value in either. My favorite part is getting to play games intended for 5 year olds because that’s how old the boss’s kids are. Oh I got plenty of that same shit in the Air Force. Hence my reason for soliciting arfcom. Looking for something that's not your standard HR hand holding exercise. |
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Whatever it is, make sure it's on the clock and does not go beyond normal working hours. Nothing sucks more than wasting your own time being force-fed some corporate koolaid. Oh I have no plans of that at all. I have to commute a bit, so I'll be long gone before closing time. |