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Several years ago, a trainer posted a request for suggestions on team building activities that required no more than 60 minutes to complete.  One responder wrote back, in part “Sorry to “pop some bubbles,” but THERE ARE NO 30 MINUTE TEAMBUILDING EXERCISES!!! There are no six hour Teambuilding exercises. Anyone who thinks so doesn’t understand anything about what it is to be the member of a “real” team …”

His comment didn’t “pop my bubble,” but it did “get my goat.”  True as far as it goes, but in an effort to be the purist, our commentator was side stepping the real question. While activities don’t “make” a team, they can be very useful for terms by uncovering/making explicit hidden dynamics and as “practice grounds” for learning the skills and processes which are necessary for team success.

Exercises can:

1.  Provide a starting place for participants to meaningfully discuss what is working (or not), what is needed, etc.

2.  Punctuate assessment data concerning group dynamics, especially when the group is having difficulty accepting that “we really are this way.”

3.  Provide reinforcement (practice) of essential interpersonal skills or, alternately, provide the jumping off place for a skills session.

4.  Get the blood flowing from the gluteal sections and other lower parts back up to the brain (you have to take breaks anyway, right?)

5.  Provide an opportunity for participants to see other sides of their peers, thereby increasing understanding and empathy.

6.  Create fresh resource states for the more cerebral work done in visioning, strategic planning, etc.

7.  Add a dose of fun. I can hear the snickers from here, but how many of our programs would improve exponentially if we were able to inject a little more of the Fun into them?

I agree that these activities don’t “make a team,” but they can be useful in supporting a training process designed to further team development. Hearty agreement for the sentiment that any training is only a beginning, or a stimulus to further growth, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think that the backlash against activities is because many of them are done without a clear reason, or they are done in isolation and expected to work magic.  Earlier in my career, I was brought up short during a teambuilding session when a participant asked “When are we going to stop this fluff and get to the real stuff?”  It was then that I “got” the very basic lesson that ALL activity work must be done with a clear learning objective in mind.  Frequently, we now use these activities in a supporting role for other skills training.

To the original question of ‘What activities could be used for team building in a 30 60 minute time frame?” Answer:  any activity that met the time slots that gets the participants talking among themselves and beginning to rely on their own resources. And there are gazillions of them. See Silver Bullets. the Bottomless Bag Again!. and Quicksilver (all bv Karl Rohnke) or Feeding the Zircon Gorilla, Executive Marbles, 50 Ways to Use Your Noodle, or Raptor (Sam Sikes). These books describe activities, many of which have their roots in and are used in conjunction with ropes course programming, but most of the activities can be adapted to indoor classroom settings as well. Most of the activities DON’T require special props that will cost you an arm and a leg because these books were originally written for teachers. And frankly, the activities from most other activity books  those without the ropes course background   don’t have enough gross motor movement and just aren’t that fun. The ones in the books above are useful AND fun.  We also have over thirty detailed “write-ups” on our site, free for your use.

I was talking to a trainer who attended a symposium that my company sponsored a few years ago, and her comments bear repeating. She said that what she saw that day made her painfully aware of how BORING most training is, and how needless that it be this way. If you front load the session with relevant connections to the “real” work, charge in with an activity that’s FUN (try it out on a six year old   if it passes muster here, it’s FUN), keep your game face on (I know what I’m doing, and you’re going to love this), and enjoy yourself, you can have almost anyone loosening up and having a good time … and LEARNING.