Message #32227

[countrigal]

A recent team building excercise we had here was built off of the Seattle Fish Company, known for throwing fish.  There is a tape now that breaks down their work environment and what it takes to be them (successful but having fun as a team) and our folks translated it into "Fish Camp".  The best part of it was when each team was assigned a key element of the Fish Mentality (Be There, Have Fun, etc) and turned loose to use props given to participate in arts and crafts time.  With limited time, every group had to come up with some unique way of incorporating their element into our work, our vission, or whatever.  Ex:  my group grabbed up some little styrofoam fish shapes, yarn, googly eyes, and a pen.  Our's was "Be There" and we wrote that on each fish, gave him an eye, and then hooked him onto the string.  Our idea was to have these and hand them out to folks who did not appear to be "in the moment" as they need to be, to remind them to "be there" and focus on the job at hand.  I know it sounds kind of boring and blase, but we had a lot of fun, and with the time constraints and limited supplies, it took the entire team to pull it off as planned.  Other teams wrote songs, skits (accented by posterboards, props provided, etc), poems or made other projects.  It opened communications between folks and really had us enjoy ourselves.

I'll see what else I can come up with too.  But that's a start.

CountriGal
Deskdemon Editorial Board Member