The art
of cooperation is something we are taught as children.
For some reason, many of us forget that lesson when we enter
the front door of work. This exercise is designed to let participants
experience how fun cooperation and teamwork can be.
As with
many of our exercises, the exercise simply cannot be accomplished
without the effort of every person on the team or group. The
same is true at work, although we all want to think we can
do everything ourselves. Only the single entrepreneur actually
does everything themselves. The rest of us depend upon other
people to take care of certain tasks, sometimes incredibly
important tasks. However, we often don't try to work as a
team unless we have to. This exercise lets participants experience
what can be done as a team and how much fun it can be.
Clear
communication is required as well as the passing of
critical information from person to person in order to
accomplish the task. This event will show what happens when
there are gaps in communication and the resulting frustration
will be a source of long dialogue.
The goal
of the exercise is to have the entire team involved, demonstrate
the power of teamwork and show the interdependence
teams have.
You may
use many variations of this activity to achieve different
outcomes, depending upon what is desired.
This is
best outside, but can be run very well indoors with some room.
This is
a fun activity that your group will not forget and
relates easily back to work.
Listen to an impromptu
audio clip describing the benefits of the Search and Rescue
team building activity...
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U. of Vermont
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BD
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