FREE TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES AND EXERCISES

Team Building Activities that Build Trust

Trust lies at the heart of a functioning, cohesive team. Without it, teamwork is all but impossible. Turnover is high. The number one reason people leave their job is they don’t trust or get along with their boss.

In the context of building a team, trust is the confidence among team members that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no good reason to be protective or careful around the group. In essence, teammates must get comfortable being vulnerable with one another. They must trust that if they are open about weaknesses, skill deficiencies, mistakes, and their need for help, their vulnerabilities will not be used against them.

Vulnerability may seem counter-intuitive. Most of us have spent time advancing ourselves by being competitive with our peers and protective of our reputations. However, high performance teams are comfortable with openness without fear of retribution – this allows them to focus their energy on the job at hand, rather than being political and secretive with one another. It allows them to take risks in asking for or offering help and feedback. There is little or no time spent managing group dynamics.

  1. Share some little known, interesting facts

At a team meeting, pass around a roll of toilet paper and ask people to take as much as they like. After everyone has taken their share, ask them to count the number of squares they took. This will be the number of little known, interesting facts that they will share with the group. Information can be benign – your first job, your worst job, favourite hobbies, number of siblings, etc. This is a safe way for people to relate to each other on a more personal basis. It helps to develop empathy and understanding. It can be amazing how little team members know about each other.

  1. A 3-step team building exercise - Identify a juicy team problem, create public team agreements, create a structure to check in regularly

Step 1: Identify a juicy problem

A juicy problem is one that is long standing, matters, and comes up regularly.

Typical examples:

  • The team leader frequently makes decisions unilaterally that hamper the team members’ commitment, buy-in, or authority.
  • Some team members may not agree with a decision and talk negatively outside the team meeting.
  • Team members avoid healthy conflict and meetings are boring/lack focus.
  • Deadlines are not really deadlines for some.

In a team meeting, have a team member (not the leader) facilitate a discussion about juicy team problems. Create a list, and then decide as a team on the one to tackle for now.

Step 2: Create public team agreements

This may happen in one meeting, or may need to be revisited over the course of several meetings. Don’t drop the ball if it takes a while to craft the agreement.

How to create public team agreements:

  • Clarify and confirm the issues. Check assumptions.
  • Allow for a lively discussion on possible causes/solutions.
  • Focus on the situation, issues, and behaviours, and NOT on the person. Create a safe and courageous environment.
  • At some point, extract the ideas of ALL team members. Ensure that individuals speak without being interrupted – all points of view must be heard and genuinely considered.
  • Craft an agreement that everyone can live with – for now. Not everyone needs to agree with it to be able to live with and support it.
  • The agreement should include how to handle violations in a manner that creates learning, not blame.

Step 3: Create a structure to check in regularly

Teams will be energized, and trust will be elevated, by completing steps 1 and 2. What is also true is that, when all is said and done, a lot is said and not much is done. Trust can quickly be broken if teams perceive that this exercise was merely lip service. Checking in regularly around issues and agreements will keep team trust, energy, and motivation high.

Create a structure to check in regularly:

  • Allow time at the beginning of each meeting to check in. The purpose is to identify instances where the new agreement was kept and where it was violated.
  • CELEBRATE when it is kept. Acknowledge behaviours, shared creativity, the commitment to keeping it alive, and the impact.
  • Refine the agreement, if necessary.
  • When there is a violation, focus on the behviours and issues, not on the person. Maintain the self confidence and self-esteem of others.

This team building exercise is powerful, useful, and maintains organizational integrity.

  1. Team Appreciation/Improvement Exercise

While at first blush, this exercise may seem risky and dangerous, it is remarkable how manageable and useful it can be. It takes about an hour.

Have each team member:

  • Identify the single most important contribution that each of their peers makes to the team.
  • Also identify one area that their peers must either improve upon or eliminate for the good of the team.
  • Focus on the situations, behaviours, or issues, not on the person. It is important that people give this information in a way that maintains constructive relationships and the self-confidence and self-esteem of others.
  • Report their responses, starting with the team leader
  • Debrief the experience, starting with what went well, and then what could be done differently.

TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES AND EXERCISES THAT BUILD SALES COMPETENCIES

1.  DEMO WARS

The purpose of this team building activity is to improve your sales team’s ability to plan, increase their product and customer knowledge, and practice selling skills. Demo wars is a role-play between the leader (who plays the customer) and one sales person, in front of the entire sales team. It works best in an atmosphere of fun and learning.

Instructions:

·  Early in the week, the leader (i.e. president, VP of sales, sales manager) identifies a product or sales situation that will be used in demo wars.

·  Demo wars is scheduled weekly (i.e. 7:30 am Friday mornings for 1 hour)

·  The entire sales team must be present – either in person or on the phone

·  No exceptions

·  Everyone should have prepared, based on the topic or scenario provided

·  There is a lottery system where one sales person is selected to do the role play

·  The leader must make the selection process, and demo wars, fun and safe

·  The role-play takes 10 – 15 minutes. The intent is to provide the sales person with the opportunities to sell. The leader plays a realistic, but not-too-tough customer; the sales person plays herself.

·  At the end of the role-play, conduct a debrief. The sales person starts by identifying what she did well, and what she could have done differently.

·  Debriefing continues from 2 or 3 other team members. Debriefing focuses on 1 area the sales person did well, and one area for improvement.

·  The leader gives the sales person a prize, no matter how it went.

·  The sales person is exempt in the next demo wars.

While this team building exercise may seem intimidating, if it is done in the spirit of fun, lightheartedness, and learning, it helps the entire team improve. Additional benefits are that team members develop empathy for each other (after all, everyone gets to be in the hot seat at some point), and they develop the ability to give feedback that holds all members to high standards.

2.  MANAGING YOUR SALES CYCLE

The purpose of this team building activity is to help salespeople untangle complex customer situations, plan for key events, and get support from other team members. Do this at least once monthly, in a team meeting.

Instructions:

·  Have each team member bring a complex customer situation to the meeting. Select one account to work on.

·  Focus the discussion in the following areas:

·  The status of the account to date

·  Who the key customer contacts are and the strength/weakness of each relationship

·  Are there enough customer contacts?

·  Identify specific steps or events that need to happen. For example:

·  Identify specific customer needs and how you plan to meet them

·  Identify other potential needs

·  Establish/improve relationships and how to do

·  Who in the sales organization can help

·  Demonstrate products

·  Identify post sale events

·  At the end of the discussion, ask the account manager what, exactly, they will do, and by when

·  Set up a buddy for the account manager to work with