Creating a solid working environment or broader organizational culture is more than just hiring the right people. To a large extent, it is more about getting this group of people to interact and co-exist at a more intimate level than being extremely competent in an individual capacity. Here are 4 great techniques that will help the group develop a better bond.
1. Life Highlights
This game is broken down into 3 parts: 2 parts of reflection and one part of communication. With everyone sitting together, ask the participants to have their eyes shut and take one minute to gather all the highlights of their life that they wouldn’t mind sharing with the group. Then, after the one minute has elapsed ask them to keep their eyes closed and think of thirty seconds of their life that they would like to relive if they only had 30 more seconds to live. When everyone has the 30-seconds that they want to experience again, it is time to share it with the group. While this will help understand the other person’s life and even their perception towards life, it helps people understand the power of listening. By sharing such a deep thought it promotes both the speaker and the audience to really focus on the other person and develop the bond that is necessary for high-quality relationships.
2. Sports
Any kind of sport will help a better community but for larger groups, team sports are more efficient. If you would like to help a pair of coworkers consider a more tight-knit sport like squash or table tennis. If they have never played squash then consider a Squash Guide for both players so that they know what the rules are. Sports, especially among competitive people, can cause difficulties if the competitors are on different pages. This is why it helps to have games that have a straightforward point system and in which foul-play is easy to detect and doesn’t require a third party.
3. Community Project
Being good friends and having a good working relationship can be two very different things. A great way to get the team to find out about each other as individuals is to give them a small project to complete on their own which requires input from all the members. The end goal isn’t important, what’s important is that it requires everyone to play a part and that they all have to interact with one another. This could be as simple as making a monthly, hand-written group magazine in which everyone writes a column.
4. Charades
This is a game in which one person, the demonstrator, is given the name of a movie, personality, song, or any other well-known thing that other people in the group would know, and without speaking they have to convey what that thing is to the group. This can be an effective icebreaker and also helps in improving the communication skills of the players.
The fact of the matter is that whether it is a business, a school, a research team, or any other kind of group of people that are working towards a common goal it is how well the group performs as a collective unit that will determine the group success rate. Relying on a few competent people, or a smaller group within that large group will increase the burden on the people that are being relied upon and alienate the others who are not considered as ‘the chosen ones’.
