Participants move steel balls from Point A to Point B using only the tubes provided. Each ball must go through each person's tube and they may not touch the ball with their bodies. The purpose of this exercise is to physically demonstrate the metaphor that every member of a team or group is an important “link in the chain”. This event is also a good way to examine individual team member’s sense of value and accountability to their team.
Participants must move a plane from one landing pad to another. The art of cooperation is something we are taught as children but sometimes have a hard time accomplishing as adults. The goal here is to have the entire team involved, demonstrate the power of teamwork and show the interdependence teams experience.
This is a complex activity that has many different purposes and reveals many behavior patterns. It develops support (emotional, content and physical) within the group. It helps clarify communication and decision making skills. It helps groups to examine how and why leadership shifts during planning and completion of task It shows how balancing planning activities with execution helps groups solve problems. The exercise is a very good metaphor for a ‘goal’.
Create a perfect square from a rope while the entire group is blindfolded. The focus is on leadership skills and the degree of group participation and the exercise will always reveal interesting dynamics and insights that allow participants to learn from one another. This activity clearly demonstrates interdependence among team members while highlighting how difficult, but important, reaching consensus can be.
Lower a pole the the floor using gravity and maintaining contact with the pole. The power that each person has to influence success is made perfectly clear in this activity. Participants must overcome frustration and resist the temptation to blame each other in order to accomplish the task. They learn that in the face of challenge it is often easier to sacrifice integrity and end up behaving opposite of their intention. This exercise reveals this tendency in a profound manner and helps participants choose healthier ways of reacting.
The application of the Learning Maze is in every area of our lives. The learning each group comes up with is always different. The basic purpose of the maze comes down to identifying how the team is treating its ‘mistakes’ (beeps) and the people who are discovering them. Stepping into the unknown is necessary for any team to grow and move ahead, with the only question being how are they doing in the process? This event will shed some light one the teams’ process.
As a group, decide if there IS or IS NOT a knot in a pile of rope. Most of our jobs involve a heavy amount of decision making. Many of us make decisions that affect one person to thousands of people everyday. As most of us make decisions we tend to decide based on our own personal perceptions.
Become a complete circle from a web of tangled participants. This exercise will bring group members closer together as it involves close physical proximity as well as interdependence among participants. Being physically close creates the setting for cohesiveness and teamwork and helps to break down the invisible walls people build around themselves.
Pass an increasing number of products among the group without drop any of them. This team building activity simulates a working environment where chaos rules, people are going many different directions, and lots of energy and resources are used to keep all the plates spinning. Participants identify what is needed to break through self-imposed limitations, think creatively, and focus on the most efficient way to complete tasks. Most of our jobs involve heavy amounts of juggling. We also come up against significant barriers, which must be broken through in order to increase performance. In this event participants will juggle as many items, as fast as possible, without dropping them.
Participants must coach partners into a course blindfolded to retrieve objects. The purpose of this exercise is to practice clear communication and develop keys to trust during challenging and confusing times. In organizations, workers are often considered students and administrators are often coaches. This event will remind people in each position what the other role feels like and lend insights to improving relations between the two.