This weeks team building exercise has a very special place in my heart because it helps you tie in customer service. If a business wants to be successful it needs to help their teams become successful with customers. In today's world where everyone wants it bigger, faster and better; our customers have access to a virtual 31 flavors of providing customer reviews and feedback. You cant move two clicks without seeing a customer review. Smart companies will make time to focus on how their employees are performing in customer relations and will invest in the learning and support their teams need to succeed. This weeks exercise, emphasizes the need for our teams to explain themselves when communicating with customers. Our customers need to know the how, who, what, why , when and where. We are the experts in our fields and we know why we are asking "the questions" but our customers do not. It is an easy skill to forget as we are all weighed down with more work and more deadlines, but a simple reminder of how uncomfortable a poor exchange between a company representative and a customer can be when things are not explained may be all your teams needs to jump start their engines. Please enjoy this weeks team builder!

​Are you talking to me?
Purpose: Demonstrate the importance of explaining the who, when, where, why and what of a process when working with a customer. This exercise also builds team awareness of how they can support their team in customer service interactions.
Materials:

• Paper and Pens
• Instructions Sheets
• Various items mentioned in the instruction sheets
• Small slips of paper with A, B and C written on them and a fishbowl or hat to draw the papers from

Activity:

• Using the fishbowl and slips of paper allow the team members to blindly select their roll. The fishbowl should have one slip of paper for every participant. If you have 15 participants, you will have 5 slips of paper with A, 5 slips of paper with B and 5 slips of paper with C. If you do not have an even number of participants, you may choose to reduce the groups to 2 people or assign 4 people to a couple of teams (this fourth person should be a C) .  Once all assignments are selected ask the participants to form groups with one A, one B and one C.
• Hand out a blank piece of paper and pen to all C members and Hand out one Instruction sheet to all A members.
• Explain to the group:
  • C members will observe and take notes for their group. They are not allowed to speak to or intervene in the activity.
  • B members are a “customer” in the scenario
  • A members are to follow the instructions on their papers
• Without further instruction ask A members if they are ready to begin. Once they all respond yes, begin the activity. You may pull them aside to answer any questions they have (do not let B and C members hear). You may choose to set a time limit of 5-10 minutes on the activity
• Make notes of your observations and take photos during the activity.
• At the end of the activity spend a few minutes in debrief.
  • Address each group and ask them to share their reactions to the activity
    • How did you feel during the activity?
    • Were there any points during the activity where you felt frustrated?
    • Was this a good customer service interaction? Why or Why not? What would you do differently?
    • To group C – Describe your observations, What was the most difficult part of being on the sideline? How could you have jumped in to assist?
• If desired you may repeat the activity in one of two ways
  • A – repeat the activity allowing the A members to explain their actions as they are doing them and answer questions from the B “customer” members and allow C members to jump in and assist if needed
  • B – switch the roles in the group and give B members a chance to run through the activity. This can be repeated for group C. ( I suggest switching scenarios between each round)
  • Debrief again!

 
Conclusion
The key component the participants should take away from this exercise is the importance of explaining your actions with a customer. When a customer is well informed they are more likely to respond positively because they understand the reasons for your actions or questions. It is also a great way to build trust in the customer relationship and that goes a long way when looking to strengthen the likelihood of return business.

I am so excited about the One Minute Obstacle Course! This is a challenge I would love to participate in. This is just the right kind of silly fun to facilitate real team learning! Ready-Set-Go!


The One Minute Obstacle Course
Purpose: Develops a team’s ability to rely on each other, without outside resources, to succeed and or complete a challenge. This is a great challenge to bolster trust, communication, problem solving and listening skills and simulate working under pressure or deadlines
Materials:

• Random Items to create an obstacle course or maze
• Awards for teams that complete the challenge successfully
• Poster Board or Flipchart paper and markers

Setup:

• Find an area that can be used by the team as an obstacle course or maze. A few examples are included at the end of the instructions
• Invite your team to the challenge and ask them to bring comfortable shoes. Safety comes first!

Activity:

• Divide everyone into teams. The teams can be as small as 2 people per team up to 5 people per team.
• Collect all watches, phones, clocks etc from your team or that are present in the room. You do now want the participants to have the ability to “time” the activity.
• Inform the team that their goal is to complete the obstacle course/ maze as a whole team in one minute. A team will be deemed a winner when they complete the course in exactly one minute only. Times that are less than one minute or more than one minute are considered losses.
• Give the team’s 5-7 minutes to strategize.
• Next…you may permit up to three test runs in the course per team. Do not exceed three test runs as the teams will get to play multiple times in the game.
• Start the game, run one team through the course at a time. Either you or another designated person (who is not on a team) will be keeping records of their time. You may allow the teams to attempt the course multiple times taking turns with the other teams. I recommend a minimum of three and a maximum of 6 runs. Between each run, allow the teams to re-strategize. At the end of each run, give the team’s their current time. You can always use a poster or flip chart to post the times for everyone to see.
• At the end of the course runs, review the times and select the winning teams based on who came the closest to one minute.

 
Conclusion / Debrief
To conclude the activity. Announce the winners and if you chose, have a metal ceremony like the Olympics! Stores such as Party City have these metals and small award statues for purchase at a very economical price. After the awards are given out, ask the teams a few questions to help them cement what they learned from the activity.

1. What was the most challenging aspect of the game? How did you overcome it?
2. What is one thing that happened that surprised you? How did you react?
3. What would you do differently next time?
4. How did your team make decisions on the strategies used?
5. What was the most difficult part of working with your team? Were you able to overcome it and how?
6. How much importance did your team place on watching the other teams and learning from them?

Obstacle Course
Typical courses involve obstacles the participants must climb over, crawl under, balance, hang, jump, etc. Puddles of muddy water, ropes/nets, and "no touch" restrictions are often used to make the course more difficult. Items you can use in an Obstacle Course
1.Hoola Hoops
2.Pool Noodles
3.Paper Plates
4.Balloons
5.Chairs
6.Stackle Blocks or cups
7.Ropes
8.Laundry Baskets from the dollar store
9.A Pinata
10.Small orange cones
11.Spoons and hard boiled eggs
12.A kids golf set
13.Trash Can Basketball
14.Sand or Water Pails – to carry or fill another object
15. Dominos
16.Bouncy Balls
17.Toilet Paper Toss
18.Nerf Dart Board
19.Pool Floats (big funny ones to make someone wear to increase difficulty)
20. Frisbees
 

​Are you looking for a super quick and super easy way to do some team building that wont feel like forced fun? This activity is the answer to your team building dreams! Well not really, but it's close. This activity is made for the long hall. Its something you can use all year long and actually allow team members to engage in at their own pace...no more "Forced Fun"! Best of all, this is a great activity for REMOTE teams. It encourages engagement and can help build relationships without the need to set aside time for a meeting or separate activity. It's a break room, roll at your own pace activity!
Prompt and Circumstance -  is a journal activity. You start the journal with a prompt and let everyone contribute. Each week you add a new prompt and perhaps even let your team members add a prompt. As the weeks go by, your team will open up and hopefully share some laughs. You can even try photo prompts for a "Caption This" or a What's the story"
Check out the attachment below for instructions.

Get outside and go on a Bear Hunt with your Team!!!
This activity is so much fun and it gets you and your team physically "out of the box". This is a great energizer and can help improve their interpersonal skills and reliability of the team members. Give this a try on a Good Weather Day and you and your team will thoroughly enjoy!

​Use: Ice Breaker, Afternoon Energizer, Team communication, Team Reliability
Purpose: This is an outdoor exercise that can be used as an energizer or as a tool to improve team communications and influence teams to begin relying on each other rather than the leader for support and direction.
Materials:

• Version #1 - 12 print outs of the “bear”. The PDF is included in this document. A group of people between 2-50 people. Writing pad to document the location of the hidden clues, rewards such as gift cards, get out of jail free cards (return 10 min late from lunch or arrive 10 min late to work), chocolate etc…
• Version #2 - 12 print outs of the “bear”. The PDF is included in this document. A group of people between 2-50 people. Print out of the Clues for each team, rewards such as gift cards, get out of jail free cards (return 10 min late from lunch or arrive 10 min late to work), chocolate etc…

Setup:
Version #1

• Print and cut out the 12 bears. Number the bears 1-12
• Find a location like a park or town center for the event
• The day of….Hide the 12 bears around the chosen location and make a note of where each bear is hidden.

Activity:

• Remind the team to bring their phones
• When the team arrives separate the group into teams of 2-3 people. Tell them they are going on a Bear Hunt. Show them a sample of one of the Bear Cards and then instruct them to find each of the 12 cards that you have hidden, When they find a card, they take a picture of the card and move to the next one.
• Give them 30-35 minutes to complete the task
• You may give them 2-3 lifelines, which they can use to text you or the other teams to get help finding one of the bears. I recommend having the teams reach out to another team before they attempt to use a lifeline on you. It is an honors system
• At the end of the 35 minutes all teams need to be back at the starting line. Each team that successfully completes the challenge will win a prize of your choosing.

Setup:
Version #2

• Print and cut out the 12 bears. Each team gets 2 bears
• Find a location like a park or town center for the event
• The day before or the da of find 12 spots where you want the bear card photographed. Make a note of where each bear is hidden and turn those notes into clues. Prepare a one-page document with all 12 clues. Print enough, one for each team.

Activity:

• Remind the team to bring their phones
• When the team arrives separate the group into teams of 2-3 people. Tell them they are going on a Bear Hunt. Give each team 2 bear cards and instruct them to write a team name on each card.
• Tell the teams their objective is to find the correct location using the clue sheet provided and photograph their “Bear” in that location.
• Pass out the clues – always do this after the instruction to keep everyone’s attention
• Give them 30-35 minutes to complete the task
• You may give them 2-3 lifelines, which they can use to text you or the other teams to get help finding one of the locations. I recommend having the teams reach out to another team before they attempt to use a lifeline on you. It is an honors system
• At the end of the 35 minutes all teams need to be back at the starting line. Each team that successfully completes the challenge will win a prize of your choosing.

 
Conclusion
This quick and fun exercise will be the ultimate refresher on a good day. There is no need to officially debrief the group. But make note of any observations you have about how well they worked together when they needed a lifeline. Ask a few questions to guage how much interaction the teams had with each other. Praise when needed and offer positive redirection or ask for suggestions from the team for how they could improve the next time they play.

• Ask the teams if the reached out to each other before reaching out to you?
• Ask them if they found the other team’s advice helpful?
• Were any of the teams proud of the fact that they did not contact you?