Team Exercises
Recognition Survey
Description: Understanding employees’ preferences and priorities goes a long way in fostering employee engagement. This is a simple exercise that involves obtaining a clear understanding of how your direct reports prefer to be recognized from an awards perspective.
Approx. time: 30 min
Participants: 2+
Directions:
- Develop a written survey to poll your employees about how they’d prefer to be recognized when awards time comes around (i.e., monetary, time off, etc.).
- Send the survey and solicit responses.
- Keep the results in employees’ files for reference to be used at time of awards to ensure awards being given are in line with what an employee prefers.
NOTE: Feedback can be solicited verbally as long as it’s documented for future use.
Cross-team collaboration
Description: Develop enterprise social networks (ESNs), department-wide social activities and frequent team flexibility can protect against the negative impacts of tribalism. Freibergs writes that "tribalism starts when employees and leaders view their organization as divisible and compartmentalized." Strong feelings of team loyalty aren't always a bad thing, but they can have a negative impact on cross-team work. Leaders should strive to develop a spirit of oneness for the entire organization.
Approx. time: min
Participants:
Directions:
Senior Leadership Panel
Description: Educate employees on the stories of the leadership team.
Approx. time: 30 min
Participants: Large group
Directions: Schedule a panel discussion or a leadership lunch and learn. Leadership can share personal and professional stories, and answer questions in an informal atmosphere. Share the bios of the leaders involved prior to the event.
Open door
Description: Many leaders are busy and frequently engaged in meetings. Consider maintaining regular "office hours" when you can be reached if you are frequently offsite or away in meetings.
Approx. time: 1-4 hours per month
Participants: 2+
Directions: Establish an "open door policy." Designate certain days/times of the week/month when you will make yourself available to answer questions and address concerns.
Personal touch
Description: Leaders typically spend a large portion of their time focused on work. It’s important to connect with coworkers and employees on a personal level. This exercise includes suggestions on simple ways to personally recognize and connect with employees.
Approx. time: Variable
Participants: Variable
Directions:
Leadership sends personalized cards to employees recognizing significant occasions for the employee. Cards could be sent for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, births of children. This helps to show that the Leadership knows the importance of the employee's family life.
Leadership sends a personalized email to employees for something that they have done of significance. This helps to show that the Leadership is aware of and appreciates the contribution.
Story contest
Description: This exercise provides the opportunity to engage the workforce in an “outside-the-box” and creative way, and to publicly recognize creativity. It involves soliciting written stories from the workforce on a preselected topic or theme.
Approx. time: Variable
Participants: Full workforce
Directions:
Leadership determines a topic or theme and solicits the workforce for written submissions. Depending on the environment, topics can be focused on work or personal topics. Clear guidance and timeline should be specified.
Once written submissions are received, they are reviewed by a panel and one or more winners are selected.
The winning story is posted in a newsletter or other public forum. Acknowledgement emails, letters or certificates may be sent for each submission. Certificates may be presented to the winners.
Kudos
Description: Managers and Supervisors can be given a group of KUDOs coupons. When they observe an employee doing something above and beyond their normal duties, they can issue a coupon.
Approx. time: Variable
Participants: Workforce
Directions: Track the coupon so a list of issued KUDOs can be published in the newsletter or on the organization’s intranet.
Shared sense of purpose
Description: In order for employees to feel engaged in a team or a process, managers need to foster an environment where each team member understands and shares the team's values and vision. Use this exercise to create a shared sense of purpose, so that the team achieves greater alignment.
Approx. time: 45 min.
Participants: 2+
Directions: The team should enter into a discussion and answer the following questions together:
- What is the one goal we need to achieve in a defined period of time to consider ourselves successful? Some examples are:
- Improve customer service
- Control expenses
- Implement a new project or process
- Strengthen the team
- Discuss as a team and come to agreement on the following organizational elements:
- Vision
- Mission
- Values
- Unit or department strategy
- Goals
- Team roles and responsibilities
- Discuss as a team and come to agreement on how the team members will deal with one another on an ongoing basis. Develop group norms on:
- Meeting schedule and structure
- Acceptable behavior during meetings (e.g. BlackBerry use)
- Preferred methods of communication (e.g. email, face-to-face)
- Response timelines
- Use of shared resources
- Team member availability for questions, support, tastings, etc.
Problem Solving
Description: There is a key concept in improvisational comedy, or "improv," called the “yes, and…” rule. Instead of thinking about problems as obstacles, and stifling team members with a “yes, but…” response, the “yes, and…” rule allows your team to brainstorm as a collective, build off of each other’s ideas in a positive way, and foster an environment of creativity and innovation.
Approx. time: 30 min.
Participants: 4+
Directions:
Animal Ad Agency Exercise:
Break into small groups. Five to seven is ideal. Each small group forms a circle. Ask each group to name two things:
- An animal. (Take the quickest or best answer.)
- A common household product. (Take the quickest or best answer.)
Then explain that your organization has been hired to be the advertising firm to sell the common household product to a group of those animals.
Describe the process to the group. Someone starts by identifying a feature of the product that would be compelling for the animal; the next person says “yes, and…” then gives their feature; and so on around the circle. It might sound like this for selling Eyeglasses to Elephants:
- Person 1: The glasses would be enormous, to fit their large head.
- Person 2: Yes, and…they would have a special nose-saddle to adapt to the movement of their trunks.
- Person 3: Yes, and…they would have a heads-up display that pinpoints distance to their next meal.
- Person 4: Yes, and…they would have special bifocals strictly for seeing their tiny mouse friends.
When you debrief, discuss the importance of “yes, and…” in terms of the creative process. As a team of professionals, what types of new possibilities are created by thinking in terms of “yes, and…” instead of the more often heard “no, because…” or even “Yes, but…”
Information Sharing
Description:
Approx. time: min
Participants:
Directions:
- Hold meetings with staff ASAP after SL meetings so you can share information with them first to build trust in management
- Alternatively email summaries could suffice
Participative decision making
Description:
Approx. time: min
Participants:
Directions:
- Enhance employee engagement through two-way communication: Managers should promote two-way communication. Employees are not sets of pots to which you pour out your ideas without giving them a chance to have a say on issues that matter to their job and life. Clear and consistent communication of what is expected of them paves the way for engaged workforce. Involve your people and always show respect to their input. Share power with your employees through participative decision making so that they would feel sense of belongingness thereby increasing their engagement in realizing it.
Passion Projects
Description: Passion Projects are employee-created initiatives that improve or innovate government. An employee is asked to propose something they are really excited about -- outside their normal job responsibilities -- that will enhance the office or organization's products or services. It is important the employee truly believes in the initiative, and it's not something being pushed on them by senior management.
Approx. time: 60 min for initial meeting
Participants: 2+
Directions:
- To get started, invite your team to a 60-minute "finds your passion" meeting.
- Explain the concept of passion projects, and set the ground rules for your passion project program.
- Allow the group time to brainstorm. In many cases, this first meeting will become a growing source of new enthusiasm for your team, and some employees might come up with several excellent ideas.
- Keep track of the extra ideas for teams that are struggling to come up with their own ideas to consider -- they might use these proposed projects as a starting point for their own ideas.
Disruptors club
Description: Sr. Leaders (and managers) don’t know everything. Now that we understand that concept, how do we fix it? A Disruptors club is a regular gathering where all staff are invited (all grades, all backgrounds). It allows free input from all levels to think outside the constraints of normal government to solve long-standing problems.
Approx. time: min
Participants: 2+
Directions:
- Start a disruptors club that is focused on solving the “unsolvable problems” in the organization.
Generational exercise
Description: The current workforces are made up of many different generations, each with their own experiences and perspectives. This exercise is designed to share experiences between generations and explore different values.
Approx. time: 20 min
Participants: 2-20
Directions:
- Take 3 minutes to write down what was cool when you were growing up?
- Take 3 minutes to write down what events shaped your generation?
- Take 3 minutes to write down some negative stereotypes about your generation?
- Take 3 minutes to write down some positive stereotypes about your generation?
- Share your experiences on each topic, one minute each.
Truths and Lies
(Fazal)
Description: Get to know team.
Approx. time: 20 minutes.
Participants: Entire team (large)
Direction: This game – also known as Two Truths, One Lie – is an easy, fun and quick way for team members to get to know one another. Invite everyone to sit in a circle facing the center. Instruct everyone to take a minute or two to come up with two truths and one lie about themselves. It’s not necessary but you could have each individual write this information on a small sheet of paper making sure to label which was truth and which was lie. Pick a random slip of paper or just choose someone to reveal the three pieces of information about themselves. Allow the rest of the group to confer and decide what is truth and what is lie. Then reveal the lie and move on to the next person.
Pairs
(Fazal)
Description: Get to know team.
Approx. time: 20 minutes.
Participants: Entire team (large)
Direction: Pairs is one of the best employee engagement activities to help team members get to know one another. You’ll need to raid the office stationery room for a pen, paper, and tape to make this game run smoothly. Before the game begins, come up with as many pairs of things as you can. Items such as peanut butter and jelly, yin and yang, salt and pepper, dark and light, male and female, Minnie and Mickey, noise and silence, and hard and soft make excellent choices. Write each word on a separate piece of paper (yin on one piece, yang on another). Once you’ve gathered everyone together, tape a piece of paper on the back of each person. When the game begins, participants can only ask Yes or No questions (like Twenty Questions) in order to figure out what word is on their back. Once they have done so, they must find the other member of the pair and sit down together. When sitting together, they must learn three to five interesting facts about one another.