Setting Your Team Up for Success

September 28th, 2011

When you set out to develop a work team or take over an existing team, consider placing your personal ambition on the back burner. You are the team leader. You are responsible for directing the team and leading its members to success for the benefit of the organization.

How you start off with your team will hugely impact their early success. Develop a plan for presenting yourself effectively as a positive leader. Be sure to include planning for how your team will be expected to accomplish the goals you set. Find opportunities to reassure team members that you will be supportive by providing regular feedback.


Once you have laid out a plan for your team and most of the team members buy into it, you have to live up to your end of the deal. If you truly want the team to succeed, you will follow through on the commitments that you made at the beginning.

You will also seek new ways to provide assistance to each member and to the whole team. You can work on your two-way communication and improve your listening skills. You can take on part of the team’s work during stressful periods.

Whatever you do, your job depends on the success of your team. Set them up for success by making a commitment to providing what they need as they develop into a cohesive group. When you build on their strengths and weaknesses, your team will become a group that depends on your support.

If you fail your team, then they will have no motivation to succeed for you. Being a team leader is about living up to your promises and truly wanting the best for the people who make you look good. Set your team up for success!

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History Of Bingo

September 2nd, 2011

Bingo is an absolutely great game. It’s fun, easy to learn and provides an avenue for social interactions that can help build relationships. Really, who doesn’t love  shouting “BINGO”? Nothing rivals the fun of bingo, it’s an original, traditional and very popular activity in the U.S. Although Bingo might easily be considered an American past-time, we know that Bingo did not originate here.

The game of Bingo has been recorded in histories as far back as the 1530’s in Italy, where it was called called “Lo Giuoco del Lotto D’Italia“. Amazingly this original version of the game is still played religiously every Saturday.

Later in history, around 1770, Bingo reached France but there it was called “Le Lotto” and was only a game played among the wealthiest of the Frenchmen. Sometime around the 1800’s a new version of the game appeared in Germany, but this time it was being used as a fun child’s game that help them learn their math, spelling and history lessons.

It was not until 1929 that the first version of this game arrived in America. Somewhere near Atlanta, Georgia a carnival introduced a patrons to a fun and exciting ‘new’ game called “Beano”, because it was played with beans (obviously). The game was then adopted by a New York toy salesman named Edwin S. Lowe and he decided that he liked “Bingo!” better. And it stuck. Look how far the game has come now.

There are hundreds of variations all with different objectives. It’s played for church fundraisers in classrooms and online. Bingo has been very beneficial when played at family get together, at school events and especially during business meeting to build unity and trust where people aren’t very familiar with each other.

Bingo can easily be modified to be a fun get to know you game to ease tension and to help people open-up. Bingo is great anytime anywhere and for anybody. No matter your age, gender, occupation or status. Imagine all the fun you can have playing Bingo at/in your next party, classroom, meeting or family event.

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Icebreaker Games

March 30th, 2011

It’s interesting how many people don’t know what the term “icebreaker games” means. Almost everyone understands the concepts but few are familiar with this very parableistic word. As the name implies, icebreaker games “break the ice”. They are those interactive games you play before a seminar, on the first day of school or at family reunions.

Icebreaker games can be quick little get to know you activities or day long (hour long) events that helps groups build unity, trust and cohesiveness.

When new people meet or when families get together after not seeing one another for a while they may feel awkward, uncomfortable or just shy. This is typical behavior but the secret to breaking down walls and popping bubbles is to help people have fun whilst encouraging interaction with a game or activity.

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Add Group Games To Your Arsenal

August 1st, 2010

Group games are probably the most interesting team building activity in your arsenal and they are also known for their positive effect on the team. It might sound strange to use games in order to build a team but since kids learn by playing and adults are nothing but grown up kids, it is obvious where the positive effect comes from.

Group games are a way to learn and relax and this is what makes them so useful and appropriate for any age. In a sense, this is the perfect learning tool – useful and fun. Of course, you use different games for individuals of different ages but very often even adults are enthusiastic to take part in a game they used to play when they were kids.

You also use different games for different situations because you are after different effects. This is more than obvious but if you choose the wrong game, all your efforts to build a team might go in the wrong direction and might make participants show resistance, which certainly won’t help you to achieve your goals.

There are many places where you can use small group games. For instance, they are great as an ice-breaker. You can use them as team building activities in new teams, when the individuals don’t know each other because these games reveal personality (.e. a leader, a follower, a dominating type, a cooperative type, etc.) and how each individual interacts with the rest of the group.

Depending on the purpose of the game, it can be used to explore personality or to teach new skills. For instance, one of the best uses of small group games is to develop communication skills, which are so valuable in today’s society. When the participants interact in an informal atmosphere, it is easier to teach them what role they are supposed to play and how to communicate with the rest of the team.

1. There are many approaches to team building and small group games are among the best. When games are used, this has a positive effect on the team. This effect is due to the fact that humans, no matter if they are kids or adults, learn with ease when playing.

The main advantage of group games is that they are a relaxing experience, yet they contribute to learning. What else would you want from a learning tool? Sure, depending on the age of the participants, you would use different games. When so many games for different ages are available, your options are numerous.

In addition to age, another factor you need to consider when choosing the small group games for your team is what you aim to teach. It is important to pick the right game because if you don’t, your team might be unwilling to take part in the activity and this can compromise the whole idea.

You can use small group games for many purposes. One of the most common uses is as an icebreaker because these games help to establish contact with the rest of the group. That is particularly useful in new teams, when nobody knows the rest of the group and is cautious to initiate a formal contact.

Small group games can help to reveal the personality of the people in your team. When people play, they show their true self, which they would otherwise hide. For

instance, a game can reveal if a person is cooperative or selfish, if he or she feels more comfortably as a leader or as a follower, etc. When you know these behavioral characteristics of the people in your team, you will get a more realistic idea about what you can expect from them and which areas in their personality are a candidate for improvement.

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Team Building Activities: The Why & How

June 24th, 2010

Maybe you have a lot of new employees who haven’t quite opened up yet. Or perhaps your team of seasoned workers have fallen prey to routine and have forgotten how to interact with the other members of the group. Whatever your reasoning for looking to icebreaker games or teambuilding activities, you’ve come to the right place.

When a team of co-workers come together to solve a problem that has nothing to do with their jobs outside of the activity, it forces them to think in new ways, and interact with each other in new ways, so that they begin to see each other as one entity, and not individual people. They can see the gears for the clock and how they work together to achieve something significant. These games can create lasting friendships while also increasing productivity and raising morale.

What’s The Goal?
Before you can begin to choose the right icebreaker game or teambuilding activity for your group, you need to know what you are trying to accomplish. For example, a simple bean bag game where each person in the group introduces themselves and then a bean bag is tossed from person to person, the person throwing saying the name of the person catching as it goes, would not be a useful game to play if everyone in the group was already very familiar with each other. So what you are trying to accomplish directly affects what games or activities that will be most useful. The main goal of any group activity, above all others, is to teach everyone in the group what effect their own actions have on the group, and what effect the group’s actions have on themselves.

Creativity = Productivity
The more creative the game, and the more fun and silly it is, the more members of the group will laugh and start to open up. This is an essential aspect of any group activity and coming up with creative team building activities can even be fun for the person planning it. The icebreaker game or activity should make each member of the group forget about his or her role within the company, and only think about his or her role within the group participating. The more involved or challenging the activity, the more participation you will get.

Participation is Key
A team building activity could be the greatest and most creative activity ever thought of, but if no one is participating, then it doesn’t do the team much good. Even if just one person doesn’t participate at all, the idea of one person not participating can overshadow another’s desire to participate. Even if someone is shy, coax them into at least participating for a few minutes or have them do a small task like keep score if it is a point-based activity. This will achieve the overall goal of making a group of individuals actually think as a group.

Challenging But Achievable
A great icebreaker activity will be one that is challenging and makes the members of the group think, but not something that they would not be able to figure out on their own. If you had a team of writers or editors, you wouldn’t want to play a game that relied heavily on number crunching or math related word problems. Think about the level your group is at, and try to go just one step farther so as to challenge them but not cause frustration. Frustration will get you the exact opposite of what these types of activities are meant to do. A great activity will teach members of the group to rely on others when that person’s strengths are helpful to the group, and to offer up their own strengths when they will be needed by others.

So the next time you get to moderate a large meeting with unfamiliar faces, try an icebreaker game to help everyone learn a little something about each other and relieve some of the tension that might be in the room. And if a team that usually works great together starts getting a little edgy, try a team building activity to get those employees back to the group state of mind they were in before. Whether you are using an icebreaker game or a team building activity, you will get people smiling, and maybe even laughing. The group will feel more comfortable, and that will lead to more productivity, and maybe even a few friendships along the way.

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