Free Team Building Activities

Here is a short list of free team building activities:

Free team building activities for youths are designed to teach trust, openness, self-esteem and cooperation.

Darlin’, Darlin’, Darlin’!

Randomly pick one person to sit in a chair. Line the others up in no particular order. One by one they all go down on one knee, place their hands over their heart and solemnly say:

“Darlin, darlin, darlin’… if you love me, won’t you pretty please smile?”

Have them repeat it three times in an effort to make the seated participant smile. That person must then reply:

“Oh, baby, I really do love you, but I’m sorry ‘cause I just can’t smile.“ If they do smile, they have to go to the back of the line and the new person takes their seat.

This game is a great icebreaker, and gets everyone on a level playing field ready to engage in more complex exercises.

Backing Each Other Up

Teens should pair off who are of equal height and weight. Partners sit on the ground with their backs pressed together. The goal is to stand up in unison without losing contact while communicating. Hands have to be kept off the floor. Once all groups have accomplished the task, group into fours and eights with participants sitting in rows facing away from each-other, staggered so their back touches two people. Continue making longer groups until the entire team succeeds together. This teaches teamwork and trust, like many other team building activities for kids.

I Like Everybody, and I REALLY Like…

Seat all members in chairs in circle formation. The leader will stand in the middle of the circle and call out I like everyone in this room, but I especially like the people wearing jeans (or blue shirts, or braces, or red hair ). If this pertains to anybody in the group, they must leave their chair and find another one. The leader also finds an empty chair, making another participant the new leader. This can open up doors to let teens say nice things, even if they are relatively unimportant – and lets everyone feel good about themselves.

Hooking Up

This game is best played in a gym or in an outdoor area with a defined boundary. Pair the teens up, have them hook elbows and spread the pairs out evenly across the playing field. Each person should have their free hand by their hip, elbow out, creating a hook. Divide on pair of players and make one person ‘it’. The other has to reach a couple and ‘hook’ elbows with one of them – whereupon the third becomes the new runner. If the runner is tagged or runs outside the boundary line, the two reverse positions with the person tagged becoming ‘it’. This game is so entertaining to watch that many players are caught flat-footed and are suddenly targeted. To add an extra twist for larger groups, you can have two or three ‘its’ and runners at the same time.

Pairs must work as a team to avoid being ‘hooked’, and the nature of the game allows for frequent switching of partners and roles. This is a great activity to kick start team building for teens.

These free team building activities will create an atmosphere where kids or adults would feel comfortable and they would enjoy being, playing and working together.

Free team building activities are great to help you to explore yourself and others.

Corporate team building

1. Corporate Team building Exercises

free team building activities
free team building activities

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. don”t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. – Steve Jobs”

Corporate team building exercises are valuable tools to use for team training and development . When you start putting a team together, you have to find the most qualified person for each job – and sometimes personalities clash or egos get in the way.

A roomful of people working towards a common goal doesn’t automatically equal a team. They have to work in tandem, or the process can take forever. Imagine a team of horses trying to pull a plow – if one goes fast and slightly to the right and the other goes slow and slightly to the left… you get the picture. Everyone needs to pull together (and in the same direction) for any serious ground to be covered.

This means that your team members need to get to know each other – and not at a cocktail party. Each member of the team needs to have respect for all the other members, and a spirit of trust must be established for optimal results. Developing the ‘team mind’ can quickly and easily be achieved by activities and games designed to improve communication, increase trust and build relationships between the different members of the team.

The main focus behind team building activities is to construct a functioning group that can effectively work together to achieve goals on a daily basis.

There are numerous team building approaches; some prefer to hold ‘group seminars’ or ‘training classes’ or ‘workshops’ on team building. Unfortunately, many people find this method boring and there is little if any information retention, because no-one has actually shown the team members how to work together.

Another option is to hire a company that specializes in developing and setting up corporate team building ‘retreats’. This can be effective, but costly for small companies and difficult for employees to attend.

Sometimes you can simply find your own plans and set up a ‘team building weekend’ or even hold sessions during regular work hours instead. This is a good option for small businesses or ones which attempt to respect the fact that their employees have lives outside of work.

Managing an in-house team building program can be complex, but the returns are worth it. By creating your own plan, you can incorporate targeted activities that deal specifically with your situation and allow more flexibility than a generic program designed by a third party. All you have to do is carve out the time, select a venue and decide which exercises and games will work best for your group.

Corporate team building exercise, activities and events should put people into new, challenging and fun situations.

You want maximum interaction between the team members, and a mixture of group, split team and one on one exercises to help each team member learn to work with every other person on the team.

This way, they will learn flexibility and also become more accepting of mistakes in others as they realize they too are not perfect. Strengths and weaknesses will be uncovered and recognized, and plans can be made for improvement. From there, improving the quality of the team as a whole will follow as a matter of course.

Good communication between team members

One major focus of all corporate team building exercises is the development of better communication between team members. Many office or project problems are caused by lack of clear communication, and this can be rectified by using games and activities to improve back and forth between team members as they strive to conquer obstacles and reach goal together.

Members of the group will also learn to take advantage of individual differences, cope with change, become supportive and appreciative of each other as people as well as coworkers, and work together to establish creative solutions to problems.

2. Corporate Team Building Games

Research shows that workers who have fun at work are more productive, creative and motivated ; they become better able to meet the demands of their job, have better physical, mental and emotional health, and develop flexibility.

Many highly productive workers are strictly ‘left brained’ people – which means they are extremely focused and logical, follow instructions well, and are good at reasoning things out. These people may be good at math or science – fields where logic and reason reign supreme – and often show a distinct orderliness in their professional as well as personal lives. However, they are not always the best at ‘thinking outside the box’ or able to adapt to rapidly changing situations.

One of the best benefits of team building play is the opportunity for such employees to tap into the right side of their brains, and developing the ability to tap into the creativity, intuition and imagination that can boost them from excellent employees to superlative ones.

The domain of the right brain shouldn’t be restricted to ’creative types’ – there are thousands of ways it can be utilized in the corporate world as well!

Benefits of corporate team building games

1. Games get people involved in the learning experience.

People who listen to instruction, no matter how good they are, generally only retain about twenty percent of what they are hearing. People who actively take part hold on to ninety percent of the information they’ve been given.

2. Games allow for failure.

Games give the players permission to fall and pick themselves up again. Mistakes are an integral part of the learning process, and playing games gives people the chance to fail and learn from their tumbles in a safe, low risk environment

3. Games develop the team dynamic.

Team play allows a group to discover how to work together to make decisions and adapt to change. It also uncovers unique weaknesses and strengths to be addressed and built upon.

4. Games increase trust.

Creating the opportunity for team members to get to know each other and themselves better. New experiences and ideas allow self-examination and awareness to take place, and teammates will view themselves and others in a new, more positive way. Each member of the group can sharpen their awareness of group dynamics and see where they fit in.

5. Games can confirm the value of teamwork.

Often a team is being built out of A-list employees, and it is discovered that many of the members are too competitive or too inexperienced at teamwork to work well together. Fun corporate team building games can be used to show them that sharing information and responsibilities dramatically improves team effectiveness.

6. Games are fun.

Why is Google such a great company to work for? Most employees of the huge internet company say it is because the job is fun that so many innovation and creative solutions are produced. Games can revitalize a group or even rebuild morale. Research shows that happiness and productivity are related – and making training fun can improve information retention by getting team members involved.

7. Games teach.

Corporate team building games deliver lessons, skills and experiences for each participant. Some games involve problem solving, while others are physical. Many are designed to enhance communication skills, and others focus on organization. Games can be played in groups, one on one, or attempted as individuals – it all depends on the game and the lesson to be learned!

Recommended pages for free team building activities

Another great activity is to build a website together. Choose the niche everybody is interested in and build it. You can use your creativity, imagination and a team spirit to succeed together as a group. The following link will help to get a better understanding.

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