free team building activities ideas (2) (1)

free ideas for team exercises and activities - for team-building, training, employee motivation, learning and development, recruitment, and other group activities

Ensure that team-building activities comply with equality policy and law in respect of gender, race, disability, age, etc. Notably, (because the legislation is relatively new) team-building facilitators should be familiar with the Employment Equality Age Regulations, effective 1st October 2006, (UK and Europe). For example, a demanding physical activity might be great fun for fit young men, but if one of the team members is old enough to be a grandfather then think again, because it wouldn't be fair, and it might even be unlawful. The same applies to any activities that discriminate against people on grounds of gender, race, disability, etc.

Team-building games and activities have to agreeable and acceptable to team members, and the exercises have to be fair.

free team building games (2)

free team building games - warm-ups, quick games and exercises, ice-breakers, exercises and activities

These free team building games and exercises generally last less than one hour, and can be adjusted to create longer team building activities, depending on the sort of team building, ice-breakers, training development activities required. Review and discussion are often useful and helpful after exercises which have raised relationship issues, or changed people's perceptions. Plan and practise all unknown aspects of the activities before using them. Logistics, facilitation and especially how you split the group into the numbers of team members per team are factors which have a big effect on how the exercises work and the experience for all. See the team building activities guidelines for tips and techniques.

See also the activities and exercises on the team building ideas page 1 on this website, and the quizballs quizzes, especially the management and business quiz for aspiring managers and trainers, and anyone interested in managing people and organisations.

free games, exercises and activities (2) (1 - more activities and exercises here)

dice exercise (sales planning, marketing, sales strategy, selling effectiveness, time management, maximising your productivity)

N.B. Die is singular for dice not plural, as I ridiculously stated when I first posted this item, (thanks M Burgess).

This is a quick simple activity for a meeting or training session. The activity illustrates some important lessons.

Approach a salesperson (or person with similar responsibilities) with a handful of dice. Hold out the dice, handing just one to the person. Avoid encouraging them to take the other dice.

Then ask them to throw six 'sixes' in thirty seconds to achieve success or win a small prize, while you (as the facilitator) continue holding the remaining dice in your open hand.

Expect the thrower to build up to frenzied activity as you count down the seconds aloud.

Some succeed, some don't. The lessons of the exercise are in the review.

The learning points are:

• The chances of hitting sixes increase with the number of throws - a big part of selling is a numbers game, in which percentages and ratios are significant. So why not throw quickly from the start to increase your chances? Why wait for the deadline to increase energy levels?
• The thrower could have asked for more dice. (As the facilitator explain in the review that you would have given them more if asked.) Obviously the more dice being thrown, the more sixes are likely to appear. We can expand our range or opportunities by simply thinking how to maximise our effectiveness at the outset of a task. We can ask ourselves (and others) when we approach a new project - What other ways and potential exist? For example, working together in a business to look for cross sales for other departments. And looking for additional distribution methods and market sectors, which can also dramatically increase potential.
• Also, (prior to the exercise) the facilitator can doctor some of the dice to have an extra six. The facilitator keeps the doctored dice among those retained in the hand. Use correction fluid to make extra dots - fours and twos easily convert to sixes. These doctored dice represent the availability and neglect of methods which offer better returns than the initial assumption, or 'received wisdom'. This demonstrates the value of research, and perhaps testing, of methods and targets which produce a better rate of success.

You will uncover more examples related to your own situation which will arise from this powerful yet simple little exercise.

Chiefly the exercise is for sales people, but can be used for anyone with responsibility to plan how to use their time, and especially how best to direct their efforts in order to maximise results and rewards.

Anyone with average skills can easily out-perform the most skilful operator if they target their effort more strongly and effectively.

Success does not only depend on what you do. Success depends mostly on where and how determinedly you do it.

Note: Technically 'die' is the singular for dice, and dice is the plural, as in the famous expression 'The die is cast', which is an interesting item of trivia, not least because it is also connected to the expression 'crossing the Rubicon', if people are likely to be interested.

Thanks to R Chapman (no relation), for the contribution of this excellent exercise.

shoe-wear and foot wear (icebreaker exercise, discussion about self-awareness, different people-types, johari-type development)

Mind and body are connected.

Here are some simple quick questions to prompt thought and discussion about that notion. The activity is useful as an icebreaker especially because it is active and usually humorous.

Look at the backs of the heels of your shoes. Do you wear your heels down on the inside or the outside, or in the middle? Is the wear the same for each foot?

To what extent is there a relationship between our personality and the way we walk? And additionally (or alternatively), how does our footwear reflect us as individuals?

Discuss with other people your and their reactions to these questions.

The facilitator can organize the groups, feedback, discussion, etc., to suit the situation. The Johari Window model is helpful in explaining the value of self- and mutual-awareness.

Discussion can be developed in various ways. 'Nature versus Nurture' (genes v upbringing) is often an interesting perspective when considering what makes us the way that we are. Also, the subject of our feet has several strong emotional and cultural connections, which can raise interesting questions about human behaviour and feelings from various angles.

Other ways to develop ideas about mind-body connections, for self-awareness and awareness of other people; types, personalities, styles, attitudes, needs, etc:

• graphology (handwriting analysis) - including self-assessment instrument
• muliple intelligence theory and learning styles - also including self-assessment instruments
• personality theories - within which the four temperaments is a great introduction which everyone can relate to
• self-hypnosis/visualisation exercise - adapt the format to suit your purposes
• stress management - many mind-body aspects
• and for young people especially - fantasticat

N.B. Given the nature of this subject, the facilitator should consider any potential discrimination implications.

how many 'f's?... (icebreakers, assumptions, checking details, the mind plays tricks, seeing is not always a basis for believing)

A quick puzzle with various uses.

See "How Many Fs?" on the puzzles page.

'a senseable friend' cards activities (icebreakers, problem-solving, creative thinking, hidden issues, johari, etc)

'sell a region' diversity game (diversity awareness, teambuilding, presentations, research, understanding other cultures)

For group sizes of nine and upwards ideally. A group of eight split into four pairs is probably the minimum. Whatever, split the group into the teams you'd like to work together. Team sizes can be between two and five people. Teams of three generally work well. For larger events bigger teams will work well, subject to finding roles for everyone. Consider the total presentation time available and the total group size to arrive at optimum size of teams.

For example - three teams of three would be fine for a small group event, or ten groups of five would be okay for a conference. For groups of more than 50 you can devise supporting roles (coordinator, props, equipment, MC, scheduler, creative, etc) within teams to enable bigger team sizes.

This activity requires that people are given time before the event to research and prepare. It is possible to run the exercise in a 'lite' version by offering research facilities at the event, but the benefits of the activity are much increased if people and teams have the opportunity to discover information.

The exercise can also be adapted for individuals to work alone, and could potentially be used in a group selection recruitment event, in which case group members people should be given time for research and preparation before the presentation day. A smaller group size, say four or five people, is viable for the exercise if based on individual presentations.

Having determined the teams, allocate a part of the world to each team (logically relating to the regions/countries that chiefly feature in your diversity issues) - or invite the the teams to choose their own countries/regions, subject to your guidelines and situation.

Each team's task is to prepare and then deliver a team presentation 'selling' their region to the group or conference, imagining the audience to be seeking a holiday home or the holiday of a lifetime.

Team members are responsible for researching and preparing the following aspects for their presentation. The number of aspects is variable and at the facilitator's discretion, and should ensure there is sufficient for each team member to be involved:

• leisure and sport
• entertainment
• history and culture
• food and drink
• places to visit
• language and custom
• industry and commerce
• transport and travel
• people and places
• connections with other parts of the world
• amazing facts you never knew about (the region/country)

During the presentations, for which you should issue appropriate timescales, the members of the conference or group vote on the best presentations according to pre-announced criteria (examples below), and as an additional incentive you can ask each team to buy a prize (representing their region up to a stipulated value, depending on your budget.

The winners of each category can choose their prize from the pool.

Awards categories examples:

• overall Wow! factor
• presentation style and quality
• star presenter
• specialist categories according to above presentation criteria, e.g., best historical item, best entertainment item, best amazing fact, etc.

The activity offers lots of flexibility for adaptation to suit your particular circumstances and development aims. It challenges people to discover new positive things about other parts of the world, to work in teams, and then to share their discoveries with the group.

A neat addition to the exercise, if the situation allows, is to appoint some team members as roving 'cultural advisors' to other teams if among the group you have people with background or knowledge in the allocated regions, and if you are very clever you could actually select and allocate the regions with this in mind. To achieve a competitive balance each team should be able both to offer an adviser and to benefit from the help of an advisor from another team.

This exercise can also be adapted to provide a more modern and meaningful interpretation of the desert island or plane crash stranded survival exercise, which essentially encourages group members to identify resources and to formulate a plan of action.

To do this, adapt the presentation instructions thus:

Purpose of the presentation: to identify a plan for surviving and thriving on a personal or business level (in your allocated region/country).

This obviously does not carry the aspect of desperation present in the traditional 'stranded' exercise - instead it gets people focusing on real issues of diversity and personal challenge in a more useful sense.

animal perceptions exercise (self-awareness, team discussions and mutual awareness, johari-type development)

This is a simple, enjoyable and thought-provoking activity for workshops and team-building. This exercise should be positioned as mostly fun and to prompt reflection, discussion, etc. It is not to be presented or used as a scientific assessment of personality or attitude, and certainly not as an assessment of good or poor skills or temperament.

I am grateful for its contribution by Shwetha Singh, a post-graduate in psychology, Punjab University, India.

Ideally start the activity with some discussion about how other people affect one's own self-perceptions - for example:

"How do significant people in our lives affect the way we perceive ourselves?"

This discussion should prompt people to think about their own self-perceptions.

Next, ask group members individually to rank the animals below in order of their personal preference.

Group members do not need to reveal their chosen order, but may do so if happy to in the subsequent discussion.

When group members have decided and written their list of the four animals in order of preference, you can then reveal the key for interpreting the results.

You must emphasise that this is mostly for fun and to stimulate reflection and discussion. People may keep their preferences and interpretations private if they wish.

Some discussion points:

• To what extent do we shape our self-image and aims according to the influence and opinions of other people?
• To what extent do we understand how we are actually regarded by others?
• To what extent does what other people think of us matter?
• Should the influence of other people today affect what we seek to be in the future?
• If you could list different animals - or substitute people/role-models instead - what would the list be and what might it tell you about yourself?
• Whether the exercise produces accurate results is not the point - the point is to encourage thinking about who we are and who we want to be, in more depth than we normally consider these things.
• The Johari Window model is a useful reference for this exercise and surrounding discussions.

Underpinning theory and further reading if desired: Carl Rogers' ideas about Ideal Self and Real Self, and Sigmund Freud's theories, notably relating to animal personalization and influences of significant others (people in our lives).

I am grateful to Shwetha Singh for the contribution of this exercise and assistance with its adaptation. This exercise is not presented as a validated or scientific instrument. Please use it carefully.

christmas quizzes

Free Christmas quizzes - Quizballs 48 (30 questions and answers) - and last year's Quizballs 29 (20 questions and answers)

listening games (listening, interpretation, understanding, speaking, creativity)

Exercise 1. First here is a quick self-contained ready-made listening exercise (ack Claire Leach) which focuses on listening only.

Exercise 2. The activity which follows is different to the ready-made game above - it enables a group to devise their own exercises and therefore includes aspects of creativity and team working in addition to listening.

This second exercise is an activity idea chiefly for demonstrating and developing listening, understanding and interpretation abilities, but also for general communications and creative and competitive team working.

Split the group into two or more teams of up to five people per team. Split larger groups into more teams and adapt the exercise accordingly - it's very flexible.

Each team member (or a given number of people per team) must read out a passage from a newspaper or other suitably detailed text to the opposing team or teams.

Rotate the reading around the teams in turn rather than have each team perform all its readings one after the other.

Teams must listen to the readings so as to answer questions later, posed by the team asking the questions. Taking written notes while listening is optional at the discretion of the facilitator. If useful and relevant to the skills required then include this aspect.

When all the passages have been read, each team must then devise and ask the other team 5/10/20 questions in turn about the passages they've read.

Optionally the questions can be devised before the readings, which makes the listening challenge easier since there is no interruption or distraction between the readings and the questions.

The winning team is the one to answer most answers correctly. The facilitator can award bonus points for answers which demonstrate particularly good interpretation of the subject matter included in the readings.

Adjust the many variables of this activity to suit your situation, notably: structure teams number and size, number of readers, length of passages, number of questions, etc., according to time and group size, and level of difficulty required.

Here's an example:

• group of 10
• two teams of 5 people
• 3 readers per team (self-appointed by teams)
• passages to be max 100 words or 30 seconds
• 5 mins allowed for teams to decide passages (newspapers contain ideal content)
• 3 mins total time for reading the six passages
• 5 mins for teams to construct 5 questions based on their passages
• 5 mins to ask and answer 10 questions, 5 questions each team, asked/answered alternately one from each team
• winning team is team with most correct answers/points including bonuses
• total time including set up, excluding review and discussion, about 30 mins

The activity format can be varied too, for example breaking the questioning and answering into two different sections, so that teams have a chance to work on their answers, which adds the extra difficulty of noting or remembering the questions properly too.

Introduce more fun or additional technical aspects by issuing amusing or obscure or very specific reading material.

money exercise (ice-breaker, talking point, focus on observation, taking things for granted, noticing things right in front of us)

This is a quick and very easy ice-breaker or scene-setter.

Everyone uses money - notes and coins - most days of their lives. Coins and banknotes are a part of our lives, and yet like other vital and ever-present aspects of our lives, their familiarity and constant presence cause us to ignore their details.

The same can be said of our friends, our families, colleagues, our own bodies, the world around us. We go through life taking it all for granted, and only miss something when it is gone.

To illustrate the point ask people (individually to write down) how many designs they are aware of on a pound coin. In countries other than the UK choose a suitable equivalent coin or banknote which has many variations.

Then ask people to look in their pockets and purses (manbags?... the world is changing, another story..), and show and tell as a group how many actual different pound coin designs exist. You will be surprised.

Arguably no harm comes from failing to appreciate the detail, variety and subtlety and purpose of all the designs of our coins or banknotes, but could we pay (pun intended) more attention to the detail, variety and subtlety that exists in other aspects of our world - people especially? The world opens to us when we become more open ourselves to what and who are in it - then we see more clearly the opportunities and bigger priorities we might have been ignoring. Ask the person next to you: "Tell me something important about you that I don't know." Again you will be surprised. With a little effort we can see and enable more to happen, or we merely continue (quite understandably) to focus on our own very narrow priorities and view of the world, which when we take a wider view often don't seem to be so important after all. The picture shows nine of the pound coin designs. How many others can you find? What do they denote? There are fourteen in circulation (as at 2007). See the Royal Mint pound coin page for full details. For more supporting trivia and information about (mainly British) money see the money history and slang page.

conkers and acorns activities (various themes for discussions and exploration)

A seasonal activity if ever there was one. These ideas are more for young people than for grown-up work environments, although for some there will be connections with work issues. Usefulness and effectiveness will partly depend on openness to intuitive learning and exploration. Various exercises and opportunities arise from these fascinating fruits, for example:

• Take the group outside to the local park and have them collect conkers and/or acorns. Fresh air and a nostalgic revisiting of simple childhood fun is good for the soul. Be careful if the (big) boys want to throw big sticks up into the trees.
• Trees are very spiritual and symbolic of many modern issues and challenges, and can be used to prompt all sorts of discussions and ideas. Time, maturity, age, seasons, growth and rest, converting energy and fuel (sun, rain, soil minerals) into life and beauty, design, balance, quality, etc.
• Ask people to close their eyes, think and then explain their associations and feelings triggered by (physically holding, handling) conkers or acorns. The real thing is far more sensory and emotive than a picture. This illustrates the power of the subconcious and unconcious mind, which is very relevant to our behaviour, as featured in personality, NLP, and Transactional Analysis, for example. For many grown-ups it demonstrates the deep-rooted feelings anchored in our childhood.
• A good old-fashioned conkers competition. You need a drill and string. Goggles and health & safety disclaimer as appropriate. Have the group design the structure of the competition so that all stay involved from start to end.
• Explore/develop the selection and preparation of the most competitive conkers. Old conkers are the best. Drilling produces a stronger hole than forcing through a nail or an awl, which creates weaknesses liable to split. Does vinegar really work? Apparently softening with moisturiser works better..
• Write the rules of playing conkers so that an eight-year-old would understand them.
• The pros and cons of regulations in proper competitions which forbid the use of personal conkers. How do rules affect the nature of the competition and the appeal to potential contestants and audiences, in turn affecting the 'market' development?
• Cultural/diversity discussion - Conkers and acorns have strong British associations. What are the equivalents in other regions/cultures?
• Acorns symbolise growth and potential: "Parvis e glandibus quercus" - Tall oaks from little acorns grow, is the old anonymous Latin saying. What other imagery and analogies are associated with trees?
• What are the origins of the words? - chestnut (from Greek 'kastanon' - not the modern English words chest or nut), conker (probably from conch, meaning shell, because apparently early versions of the game were played using snail shells, and/or associated with the word conquer) and acorn (Old English different spelling 'aecern' evolving into modern form by combination of 'ac' meaning oak and 'corn' meaning kernel as in nut - sources Chambers and Cassells).
• The design of the conker and its prickly casing are a marvel of evolution. Why is it like it is? Why is the acorn like it is? How did that funny little cup arrangement evolve? When we think about the function of fruits we can imagine how they evolved their amazing designs. What can we learn from nature's evolution and design that might be transferable to organizations and society? To what extent should we encourage and enable design and evolution of organizations and policies and systems via external influences (customers especially) rather than internal arrogance and guesswork?
• Conkers (horse chestnuts) are not to be eaten by people, yet they are safe for certain animals, including horses. The North American Indians used a lot of acorns in their diet, yet acorns are poisonous to horses. How did that happen?
• Extend the exploration to sweet chestnuts, which of course are very tasty roasted or toasted under a grill and rather easier to prepare than acorns.
• Or find the best propellors from the sycamore/maple trees. You'll discover a lot more in the park. Maybe combine with a visit to the swings. (See the quickies below). Or just go feed the ducks and the squirrels. Beats spending your lunch-break at your desk any day.

world conker championships

wikipedia conkers

North American Indian acorn recipes

how to whistle an acorn

competitor-partner exercise (competitor intelligence, competitor research, different perspectives, seeking and finding positives and opportunities instead of difficulties and threats - choice over instinct - collaboration rather than conflict)

The assumption is normally that a 'competing' organization or person can only ever be a competitor and a threat, to be attacked, defended, undercut, or beaten or fended off in some way.

Such tendencies commonly stem from instincts which give rise to basic human survival behaviours like: tit-for-tat, retaliate before being attacked, to see threats rather than opportunities, and to defend rather than expose our own vulnerabilities, etc.

There are good reasons however for taking a more modern rounded collaborative view of people and organizations that operate in our personal or business space or field or market.

The first law of cybernetics explains a crucial benefit resulting from considering and choosing our responses rather than defaulting to instinct (or worse still defaulting to the assumed or inherited instinct of others, or convention, tradition, status quo, expectation, etc).

Much energy is wasted developing and implementing competitive strategies, which often can either be avoided altogether (because the threat is vastly lower than believed) and/or which can better be channelled into collaborative partnership strategies (which can produce far better outcomes for all concerned).

This exercise (which can be simplified or extended) encourages a more sophisticated approach when responding to organizations in markets (or people within work teams) normally viewed as competitors or threats.

Split the group into teams or pairs or individuals as appropriate for your situation.

Allocate or ask the participants to identify an organization (or group, but can be a trend or a development) that they consider to be a competitor or threat. In certain situations choices can be kept private, for example where the exercise deals with people and relationships.

Validate the selections (in light of the remainder of this exercise, so that the subjects are relevant and helpful). Obviously this is more appropriate for commercial competitor situations. Where the exercise is used for private personal relationships just ask people to double-check themselves that they have chosen a suitable subject.

Ask people to think carefully about their chosen person/organization, according to the factors in the appropriate grid below (the grids are different for organizations and people), and particularly to cast aside all assumptions and historical beliefs and practices.

The factors can be adapted according to the circumstances, and for more complex situations (notably commercial competitor and market analysis) can entail quite detailed research (separate from the session, or part of the session, depending on the time available and local situation).

Essentially the exercise weighs the pros and cons of each factor from the perspective of competitor and partner.

Emphasise to participants when making the assessment to look continually for a fit between the other organization and their own situation and capabilities and needs.

You will often be surprised that there are far more reasons to collaborate than to persist with habitual aggressive or defensive competition strategies and responses.

This is the age of collaboration. We can all benefit by checking old assumptions.

market competitor/partner grid

Tips:

1. Using colour can make the exercise more intuitive and the results easier to see, for example use green for pros and red for cons.
2. If developing strategy in relation to a single major 'competitor' you can have the whole group work on one big grid, using post-it notes or similarly ingenious display method - in which case allocate parts of the grid to teams or pairs to work on. Or have two teams - one work on the pros and the other the cons; or four teams or pairs, each working on one of the four factors.

people and team relationships grid

The competitor-partner grid can also be adapted to help people or a group explore team and group relationships and ways to work together rather than to compete and conflict.

Again the emphasis should be on finding a fit between oneself and the other person - in terms of strengths and weaknesses, personality and styles, mutually supporting aims, experience and aspiration, etc.

If running an open shared exercise ensure anyone subject to the analysis is present and agreeable, and ideally participating constructing their own grid featuring another member of the team.

The tool can of course also be used as a private personal reflective instrument, in which case the findings are to be kept private and personal. It is not appropriate for a group to discuss and analyse a person who is not present and agreeable to the exercise.

Add other lines as appropriate. Allow and encourage people to adapt and develop the format to suit their situations. The aim is to find points of mutual support and compensation. Everyone is good at some things and not so good at other things. We do best in life when we help people where they are not strong, and this enables them where possible to help us where we are not strong.

Other relevant concepts:

prisoner's dilemma (related to collaboration v aggression, game theory and win-win strategies)

cybernetics

personality perceptions relationships matrix (based on the Four Temperaments/DISC model)

personality types

multiple intelligences and learning styles

© competitor-partner grid concept alan chapman 2007

questioning games (to demonstrate, teach and practise the difference between open and closed questions)

Many people habitually ask closed questions when they want to gather information and encourage the other person to talk, instead of using open questions.

Here are some scenarios to use with groups in demonstrating the effectiveness of open questions, and the ineffectiveness of closed questions, for gathering information efficiently. Use your own alternative scenarios if more appropriate to your situation.

In each case state the scenario to the group, and then role-play or ask for closed questions by which the group must gather all the facts or solve the puzzle. This is neither easy nor efficient of course. Then ask for suggestions of open questions which will reveal the information or answer most efficiently.

Scenarios (numbers 2 and 3 are lateral thinking puzzles suitable for questioning exercises):

1. You are seeking to rent a holiday cottage in a particular area (say Cornwall, or whatever). The newspaper has one advert in the Cornwall section, stating merely: 'Holiday Cottage For Rent' and a phone number. Role-play your phone call to discover if the cottage is what you want, using closed questions only. (If helpful, brainstorm a long list of typical requirements beforehand.) Similar exercises are possible using other sale/hire/services scenarios, e.g., cars, houses, party/wedding venues, coaching, clubs, etc.

2. A class of twenty-five children is invited by their teacher to share a bag of exactly twenty-five sweets. After the share-out all the children have a sweet but one sweet remains in the bag. How is this? Instruct the group to ask closed questions to solve the puzzle. (The answer is that last sweet was taken away in the bag.)

3. Two electric trains were mistakenly routed onto the same track in opposite directions into a tunnel. One travelling at 200 mph, the other at 220 mph. Each train passed successfully through the tunnel and was able to continue its journey without stopping or colliding. How so? Instruct the group to ask closed questions to solve the puzzle. (The answer is that the second train entered the tunnel several minutes after the first one had left it.)

Use or adapt your own puzzles and scenarios as appropriate for the audience.

You can also vary the way that the group asks questions - in turn, one-to-one with observers, in pairs, etc.

Here is some explanation of the use of questioning in a sales training context, as typically found in a traditional selling process. Questioning of course features importantly within coaching, counselling, interviewing, investigating, and many other disciplines, so adapt the explanation to suit your needs.

Use the poster of Rudyard Kipling's 'six serving men' verse to help explain and reinforce the best way to ask open questions.

You can also extend this activity to develop the way that questions are structured and asked (style, emotion, tone, body language, use of words, etc), in which the Mehrabian theory is a helpful reference.

For help with enabling powerful facilitative questioning see Sharon Drew Morgen's Facilitative Methodology.

(My thanks to Sarah Phillips for this activity idea.)

diversity quiz game (for diverse groups, mutual understanding, empathy, diversity training)

Here is an easy exercise which makes use of the quiz format to teach and improve people's response to diversity issues.

The activity is for diverse groups (mixed age, race, gender, religion, and/or other types of people), but the exercise will be useful for groups of apparently less diverse nature too. Diversity is not just about race and religion - diversity entails all aspects of what makes people different, which can be found in any group of people, even if initially the group seems not very diverse at all.

The exercise is basically for the group members to create a diversity quiz by contributing questions individually (or working in pairs or threes depending on overall group size), and then for the group as a whole to take the quiz (or in the same teams).

This process enables discovery of real practical local diversity issues, instead of assuming and announcing what they might be.

If appropriate first brainstorm and/or discuss and agree/explain what diversity means.

Here is a suggested description. Adapt it or use your own explanation to suit the situation.

"In a social or work context diversity means difference and variation among people. This difference and variation can be characterised by race, gender, age, religion, physical shape and ability, social class and background, personality and ability: any, some, or all of these. Organizations which make the most of the natural diversity in their staff, customers, suppliers and other partners, have a huge advantage over organizations which fail to do so. Making the most of diversity in staff and other people - often called inclusiveness - increases the depth and range of behaviours and capabilities (also skills, knowledge and styles) that the organization can call upon in meeting the needs of the increasingly diverse market place. Recognising diversity in the market place effectively increases the size of the market. Failing to acknowledge diversity within and outside the organization reduces capabilities, causing the organization to be less appealing, and to fewer people, and in some cases creates organizational liabilities for litigation under discrimination laws. Failure to recognise and respond to diversity often equates to discrimination and is regarded by fair-minded people as unethical."

Here is the instruction to group members to create the quiz:

1. You have five (or 10 or 15) minutes to formulate one (or two or three) quiz question(s) and answer(s) for a diversity quiz. You must do this individually/in pairs/in threes.

N.B. Timings, numbers of questions and team size depends on the size of the group, for example: work as individuals for group sizes up to 9 people; in pairs for groups of 8-24 people; or in threes for groups of 15 and above. Very large groups should be spilt into sub-groups with appointed facilitators. Consider time available and number of questions needed when deciding your parameters for the activity.

2. Tell the group: when formulating your questions and answers think about subjects that are significant in reflecting or influencing how you, and people like you act, think, behave, decide, etc. Questions can be about anything - history, lifestyle, culture, media, travel, geography, finance, food and drink, language, politics, leisure and entertainment.

3. For the effective running of the quiz, questions must be clear and easy to understand, and have clear short answers - facts, figures, etc., not subjective personal opinions that might be subject to wide interpretation.

4. One of the ironies of diversity is that we all tend to assume that people who are different to us understand how and why we think and behave the way we do. We take for granted the way we are, and expect others to sympathise with us, and to see things from our viewpoint. This starts with the simplest aspects of our lives. Therefore in formulating helpful diversity quiz questions and answers, do not strive for complex concepts. Keep it simple, and you will be surprised how revealing and helpful this can be.

5. Hand the formulated questions and answers to the facilitator, who can then run the quiz for the whole group using all questions. The quiz can be run for people competing as individuals or in the same pairs or threes which formulated the questions.

A useful reference model for this activity is the Johari Window. The diversity quiz exercise seeks to enable people to increase what others know about each other, which is at the root of inclusiveness and making the most of diversity.

The Multiple Intelligence model is also a useful reference model for considering people's different strengths (to avoid assuming that there is only one type of intellectual capability), and the Erikson life stages model is also helpful in considering age and upbringing issues.

questions examples, and adapting exercise into survey

The questions and answers should be simple - everyday things that we all take for granted, except when it comes to other people, which is the point. Most obvious examples relate to geographical/cultural facts relevant to people's own native/place of birth/parents' country.

For example:

• national holidays
• money/currency
• capital city
• language(s)
• airport(s)/airlines/roads/transport/ports
• ruling party/government/leaders/opposition parties
• religion(s)
• national sports/hobbies/pastimes/music/dance
• newspapers/TV/media
• beautiful regions/scenery weather/seasons/climate
• tourism
• monuments/buildings/bridges/rivers/lakes
• wild animals/birds/trees/plants
• national flag design/national anthem/national history/independence.

Other diversity issues questions/areas to explore:

• disabilities and personal physical/mental differences
• age/generational factors and lifestyle/behaviours/preferences
• gender/sexuality differences
• multiple intelligence issues (see Gardner model and test for useful context) - respecting each other's strengths and weaknesses, preferences and aversions, fears, etc
• home life attitudes and received/conditioned/inherited views/attitudes - exploring cultural aspects of parental influences.

Developing quiz questions need not be the most important aspect - it's the discussion and exploration on the way that also holds great potential for mutual understanding, especially in a diverse group.

The outcome or ostensible 'aim' of the activity can therefore be altered accordingly - maybe not a quiz - maybe 'ten amazing things I never knew about my group', or 'ten amazing things my team partner(s) and I never knew about each other'..

The concept can also be adapted into/started with a survey - when the group goes out into a busy public area to ask people: "Could you tell me a simple fact about your culture/country that could make a good question and answer for a diversity quiz? (Explain if required: Diversity is understanding and appreciating the differences between people)..."

If you run the exercise and produce some questions do let me have them to share on the website.

Please send me quizzes created using the above exercise to share with others, or post them onto the Businessballs free publishing Space.

causes and solutions exercises (discussion or illustration of problem-solving, dispute resolution, crisis management and avoidance, solutions-focused thinking)

Quick and easy to set up, and very adaptable for all sorts of training and development purposes, this exercise is based on the following simple principle:

Ask individuals or pairs or threes (or a larger team with guidance as to team for leadership) to identify an example in a newspaper of some sort of dispute or conflict, and then to analyse the causes and solutions.

Ask people to adopt the view of a mediator. Suggest or brainstorm some pointers to help people approach the task, for example:

• What helpful facilitative questions could be asked of the parties involved to work towards a solution?
• What might be changed in the methods or attitudes or structures of the situations in order to prevent a recurrence of the problems?
• How does each side feel and what are their main complaints, feelings, needs and motivators?
• To what extent could the problem have been averted or predicted, and if so how?
• How can others learn from the situation?

Discussion and presentation format and timings are flexible and at the discretion of the facilitator.

Save time if needs be by highlighting suggested articles in the newspapers.

Refer delegates to relevant management or behavioural theories and models, and/or ask that delegates do this when they present/discuss their views/analysis.

quiz public survey game (research, communications skills, appreciating the knowledge other people possess, human engagement, fun)

This is a simple twist to bring any quiz or question to life, and add a wonderful dimension for developing and demonstrating the power of successfully communicating and engaging with other people.

Split the group to suit you (teams, pairs, or threes probably best). Decide rules, timing, presentation, discussion, review, etc., to fit your situation. All this is flexible.

Take any quiz or series of questions, or one big difficult question. Issue it to the teams (or pairs, or individuals, etc).

The task is to go out and engage with the general public to find the answers.

Introduce variations to suit your situation.

For example if working with competing teams you can arrange that each team has a 'shadow' or observer from another team to ensure no cheating, and also to give observer feedback in any reviews that happen afterwards. (If appropriate brainstorm the review points prior to the exercise with the group - it's easier and better than you doing this by yourself.)

You can also define certain areas or places for the teams to go (shopping centre, pubs, library, old folks home for example), although take care to ensure no nuisance is caused.

State clear rules for the use of phones. Purists might argue that they are not allowed at all, which is fine, but there is no problem allowing an element of phone research if it fits the group roles/preferences and development situation.

There are lots of quizzes in the quizballs section, including many with interesting varied content that would suit this exercise.

Or make up your own questions or subjects for the teams to research among the general public, for example:

• List the last 20 prime ministers/presidents in correct order.
• List all the county towns/state capitals.
• Name all the Big Brother winners in order.
• What's the history of the local town?
• Who are the most famous people born locally?
• What are the five most liked corporations, and what are the five least liked corporations?
• Who would win an election if one were called now?

You'll think of lots more ideas.

bin toss game (warm-up, tea-break activity, competitive exercise, exploring competitiveness and motivation)

Adapt this simple idea any way you want. There are lots of potential variations. A horse-shoe table layout (U-shape) or a ring of tables or a square with a gap in the centre are well-suited to this idea. 'Cabaret'-style layout will also work provided the position of the waste bin target(s) is arranged fairly.

You can probably guess already...

Position a waste bin or basket on the floor or on a table centrally between the delegates.

The winner or winning team is the one to throw the most balls of paper (or any other suitable objects that the facilitator decides) into the bin.

Obviously specify a method of identifying who threw what.

Variations on the theme are for example:

• Design a personalised or team brand or logo for each sheet rolled and tossed.
• Different coloured paper.
• Paper rockets.
• Only one sheet allowed - how many tiny balls can you get in the bin.
• Time limits. Limits on amount of projectile materials.
• All throw at once, or take it in turns.
• Business cards - float or spin.
• Coins, coloured rubber bands.
• Pairs, threes, teams.
• More than one bin with different point values.
• Ice buckets and dustbins.
• One bin per team with point deductions for opposing team missiles successfully deposited.
• Write a letter on each sheet before tossing - words must be spelled from bin contents.
• Pairs, or threes or teams to devise a party game based around the bin toss idea - then demonstrate and sell it to the group.

You'll think of lots more..

When you have why not publish them on the new Businessballs Space?...

bricks in the wall exercise (aims, goals, objectives, steps - for new years, new beginnings, changes and planning, making dreams into reality)

This is a simple exercise for goal-setting and making changes. The ideas are relevant for calendar new years, new trading years, new roles, teams and projects, and for personal development.

The activity is based on the simple concept that even small aims actually comprise a series of elements which need to be identified, planned, and implemented in correct order.

Achieving aims, goals and changes is like building houses - they need to be understood and assembled bit by bit - like bricks in a wall.

You might start with a vision or dream or objective, but this cannot be achieved in one single move.

A house is not built from the top down or all at once. It starts with a plan - or maybe a vision if the type of house has never been built before - and is then constructed from the foundations upwards, section by section, brick by brick.

Like building a house, any aim or change or objective must be analysed and planned, and then built in a sensible order:

• what will it look like? - describe the vision or end-aim so we will recognise it and be sure it has been achieved correctly
• what are the components? - the causal factors and circumstances? - what needs to be put in place? - physical resources and materials, maybe people too, and intangibles like agreements, permissions, understanding, etc.
• and what is the process for assembling it all? - the steps, sequence, timings, etc.

Using this concept, ask the group, split into whatever teams or individuals that makes sense for your situation, to visualise and then map out - in very simple terms - one of their own main aims for the coming year/period, quarter/lifetime, whatever.

Keep it simple. Resist getting into a lot of detail. Merely seek to explain/reinforce the need for basic structure and sequence and the relationship between cause and effect. This is the extent of the exercise.

The framework is:

1. Describe the end-aim - what does the completed change/objective/aim/dream look like? What will it/you be like, feel like, behave like, and what difference will the change make? Is the end aim worth the investment? Is the end aim actually a good and right one? How will you know when it's been achieved, and everyone else too?
2. What are the components of this change? The physical things you can see and touch and put a cost to, and the other factors that are less easy to see and to measure? What are the cause-and-effect relationships - start at the end and work backwards - what needs to happen before this, and this, and this, etc.
3. What is the sequence and timings of assembling the components, and for more complex changes, what is the inter-relatedness (and inter-dependence) of the components? Certain elements are part of sub-sets or sub-structures that need to be built at the same time alongside eachother, converging at a suitable point. Understanding these connections is very important where a project comprises a number of separate inter-dependent structures. (Imagine how long it would take to build a house if only one trade or activity could be on site at any one time, and imagine how chaotic things would be if these different activities were not planned and joined together at the right time.)
4. Finally, having identified the above - in outline terms only - ask people to bring them together as a rough plan for their own particular aim/objective/change, in whatever format people find easiest. (Some people prefer to map out a flow diagram, others prefer a pictorial representation like a house; other people prefer a list; any format is fine as long as it's clear and structured.)

The purpose of this exercise is not to produce a heavily detailed project management plan - that can happen afterwards if required (see the notes on project management for examples of traditional planning formats) - the aim of this activity is to explain the importance of cause and effect, and compenents and process, in achieving aims.

the ampersand game (ice-breakers, warm-ups, demonstrations of learning, thinking, and brain-types, knowledge versus skill)

This simple exercise is a quick icebreaker, or can be extended into something more meaningful. Fundamentally the activity demonstrates that knowing something is very different to doing something. Knowledge is different to skill. The exercise also illustrates certain learning and brain processes, notably relating to retention, practise and repetition, as steps to perfection. Useful reference models would include Bloom's Taxonomy and the Conscious Competence model.

The basic activity idea is very simple: It's basically to draw the ampersand symbol (the 'and sign'). The exercise however can be adapted and developed significantly.

Everyone has seen the ampersand symbol. Most people call it the 'and sign'. It looks like this, in two common fonts, (Tahoma and Times New Roman):

In fact the ampersand appears in a wide variety of wonderful designs; it has provided designers through the centuries with more scope for artistic interpretation than any other character.

The activity is simply to ask people to draw the ampersand symbol - serif or sans serif - or a more stylised version - at the discretion of the facilitator. (Interesting background about sans serif and serif fonts is on the presentations page.)

It's actually not at all easy to draw a good-looking ampersand, especially if team members are not able to see the symbol to copy it.

Knowing and recognising the ampersand equates to 'knowledge'. Being able to draw it - to reliably produce one - equates to 'skill'. Different things. Knowledge we can learn by observation and other sensory input. Skill is generally only acquired from experience, practice, trial and error. This is the heart of the activity.

Where people should draw and present their artwork attempts - and how large and how long is permitted for the effort - is all flexible and at the discretion of the facilitator. People can use a blank sheet of paper where they sit, or alternatively can practise (or not), and then take turns to draw the symbol on a flip chart. Or ask people to work in pairs or threes or even teams, to design their definitive ampersand. Or encourage branding and styling of people's artwork according to a particular theme, which extends the activity beyond the basic purpose described here.

At its simplest the exercise is a two-minute icebreaker. With a bit of imagination it can be adapted into a much bigger activity, if the idea appeals and fits the situation.

The exercise emphasises that we can know something very simply intimately but be incapable of reproducing it properly and expertly - whether a printed symbol, or something more significant. The principle extends to behaviour, style, techniques, etc.

The activity also demonstrates the significance of practice in becoming good at something. The brain must learn how to do it, which is very different from the brain simply recognising and being able to describe it.

Incidentally while the symbol is about 2,000 years old, the word ampersand first appeared in the English language in around 1835. It is a corrupted (confused) derivation of the term 'And per se', which was the original formal name of the & symbol in glossaries and official reference works. More about the origins of the ampersand. Explaining the history can help position the exercise - it took 2,000 years to arrive at today's ampersand designs - hence why it takes a bit of practice to reproduce a good one by hand.

seasonal team games (exercises and activities linked to christmas and other celebrations)

These activities ideas are not only for Christmas. They'll adapt for other seasons and celebrations. Use these activities sensitively. If there's a risk of causing offence then adapt them or avoid them. The ideas are meant to be fun, underpinned by some useful questions and learning. Split the group however suits you (teams, pairs, or threes probably best). Arrange presentation, discussion, review, etc., to fit your situation. The Roman/Greek god theme below has absolutely nothing to do with the activities, but if it helps add an additional creative perspective by all means go with it.

1. Christmas Community Party - You are a think-tank appointed by Bacchus, god of wine, merriment and debauchery. Bacchus has tasked you to devise a plan for staging a free local community Christmas party or event, to include ideas for the type of event, target audience and guests, funding, staffing, venue, marketing, publicity and ideally on-going benefit for the community, and reasons for the funders and event managers to stay involved and supportive. (Specify a community as appropriate, or leave the teams to decide this themselves.)

2. Brussel Sprout Relaunch - You are marketing advisor to Saturn, not only Roman god of the sky, but also with a secondary portfolio responsibility for agriculture (never knew that did you..) Anyway Saturn is very concerned that one of the greatest vegetables ever - the brussel sprout - has struggled to achieve the popularity it deserves, especially among children, most of whom would apparently prefer to eat a bogie or a big mac instead of a good helping of brussels. Your task, should you decide to accept it, is to devise a product relaunch plan for the brussel sprout, including whatever you think would elevate the vegetable to its rightful place as king/queen of all vegetables. Consider the marketing staples: Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and anything else you can bring into play, e.g., endorsement by Ramsos and Olivos, the two-headed god of culinary evangualisation. The world is no longer your oyster, it's your sprout. (Incidentally sprouts smell bad when they are cooked for too long, so education is worth including in your ideas.)

3. 2020 Retail Visioning - You sit on the advisory panel in the service of Argos, Asdos, Morros, Sainsbos, Tescos, and Waitros, the six musketeer gods of retailing, who have been assembled by Zeus and tasked to redefine the developed world's retail distribution model for the year 2020. Consider how, where, what, when and why consumers will be buying, and from whom. Your 2020 vision for retailing does not necessarily have to include the six musketeers, and in some ways it might be more fun if it does not. For instance, Co-opos, god of mutuality has some interesting ideas, as do Amazos, Ebos and Googlos, the gods of change and basically ripping up the rule book.

4. Seasonal Rebrands - You are marketing assistant to Richus Bransos, the emperor of branding, and he's hungry for a sleeping giant of a product to rebrand and relaunch. Your task is to identify a product or service or a proposition of some sort - anything from a chocolate bar to a whole country - which can be rebranded and relaunched for the Christmas season (or any other season as appropriate) to generate bucketloads of wonga for the Bransos Empire and its shareholders. Consider product/service, price, promotion, place, uniqueness and differentiation, distribution, plenty of photo-opportunities for Richus Bransos to dress up as a banana or a silly girl. (Forget brussel sprouts because Saturn is already working on it, and forget ITV because that other lesser god of the sky Rupertos Murderos has already bollocksed that one up right good and proper).

5. Christmas Diversity Project - You are doing a spot of work-experience for Gallupos, god of questioning. Zeus has raised the matter of the Christmas tree in the foyer and the 'Secret Santa' planned for next Friday lunchtime. Gallupos wants you to go forth into the local high street and canvass the populace (or look on the internet) to discover all the different ways that people celebrate Christmas around the world, and for those who don't celebrate Christmas find out what they do instead and when and how and why. Then (optionally) if you've time, try to roll them all together to conceptualise some sort of celebratory extravaganza for all of humanity that will please everyone, and that we might be able to fit into the foyer.

6. Monetary Exchange project - You are special advisor to Soros, god of money, who has been tasked to devise an improved design of coinage and banknotes, which better reflects people's preferences and practical needs. Your responsibility is to suggest design, size, shape, material, monetary values, and any other innovative ideas for a new system of coins and banknotes.

christmas quiz

See Quizballs 29 - twenty questions and answers for parties and team games.

cartoon and celebrity role-plays (case-studies, character profiles and scenarios for role-playing appraisals, interviews, counselling, disciplinary meetings, and coaching reviews, etc)

Creating or compiling case-studies, character profiles, and scenarios for role-play training exercises can be time-consuming and difficult for trainers.

This is especially applicable when planning role-plays in training for appraisals, job interviewing, counselling, disciplinary meetings, coaching, etc., when it's important to get people practising and observing techniques and learned skills.

Role-plays produce significant benefits for the participants and observers - and provide evidence of learning retention and comprehension - but giving people suitably interesting parts to play usually requires a lot of preparation. Even given good preparation, case-studies which are too mundane or too close to real work situations can hinder enjoyment and the necessary detachment and focus on techniques.

Here's a way to generate easily and quickly lots of interesting case-study character profiles and scenarios for role-play exercises, which will also be great fun and very enjoyable to use.

Instead of spending ages searching for and developing work-based case-studies, consider using well known characters and situations from the world of news, entertainment and celebrity.

You can also get the group involved in thinking of suitable characters or situations they'd like to incorporate into their role-plays, for whatever work skills you are teaching or seeking to demonstrate.

Certain characters are useful for different sorts of skills development role-plays. Where helpful or necessary also stipulate a situation that relates to the character. Situations related to characters are especially useful in roles-plays for disciplinary or counselling meetings, and for performance reviews, etc. Here are some character examples. You'll be able to think of many more:

• Superman, Lex Luthor, Batman, Catwoman, other comic book heroes and anti-heroes (for mediation roles-plays too..)
• George Bush, Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela, Hillary and Bill Clinton, other politicians
• Characters from Thunderbirds, Wacky Races, X-Men, Star Trek, etc
• Characters from TV Soaps; Eastenders, Coronation Street, Friends, Sex in the City, etc
• Characters from Sci-Fi and fantasy adventure: Dr Who, James Bond, Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins, etc
• Rupert Murdoch, Clive Thompson, Richard Branson, and other notable corporate leaders in the news
• Cruella Deville, Snow White, Homer Simpson, other cartoon characters
• Tom and Jerry, Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote, (for arbitration role-plays..)
• Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Paul Gascoigne, OJ Simpson, and other controversial celebrity figures

The world of news and entertainment is full of well-known characters and interesting situations that provide unlimited fascinating raw material for role-plays.

Using iconic and famous characters enables participants to relate quickly to the personalities and broad issues. Characters and situations are instantly recognisable and instantly available for all sorts of role-play situations.

Importantly, not having extensive case-study details encourages people to focus on helpful facilitative questioning and listening, and on clear expression and presentation, all of which is central to successful one-to-one communications. Using very broad and powerful characters and situations enables a strong focus on the development of communications style and techniques for both/all participants, rather than getting bogged down in technical work-based content. (If you want to work with bit more detail you can always use biographies or obituaries of famous people, which are readily available on the web.)

It's also a lot more fun role-playing larger-than-life iconic characters than using detailed (and for many, boring) management case-studies.

Fully detailed work-based role-plays of course have a place in the learning and development spectrum, but there are times when something quicker and more stimulating will work better. Not forgetting also the benefit for the facilitator, for whom these ideas enable role-playing activities to be organised without having to spend ages compiling and writing case-study profiles.

obituaries (personal goals, visualising personal aims and potential, identifying personal potential, life values, purpose and meaning)

A simple exercise to lift people out of habitual thought patterns, and to encourage deep evaluation of personal aims, values, purpose and meaning.

For groups of any size. Encourage post-activity feedback, review, sharing and discussion (or not), as appropriate, depending group/teams size, facilitators and time available. Encourage and enable follow-up actions as appropriate, dependent also on the situation and people's needs.

The activity is based simply on posing the question(s) to team members:

"Imagine you are dead - you've lived a long and happy life - what would your obituary say?"

Alternatively/additionally ask the question:

"How will you want people - your family and other good folk particularly - to remember you when you've gone?"

Modern day-to-day life and work for many people becomes a chaotic fog, in which personal destiny is commonly left in the hands of employers and other external factors.

It is all too easy to forget that we are only on this earth once. We do not have our time again.

So it is worth thinking about making the most of ourselves and what we can do, while we have the chance.

Focusing on how we would want to be remembered (who and what we want to be, and what difference we have made) helps develop a fundamental aim or idea from which people can then 'work back' and begin to think about how they will get there and what needs to change in order for them to do so.

Follow-up exercises can therefore focus on 'in-filling' the changes and decisions steps necessary to achieve one's ultimate personal aims.

Most things are possible if we know where we want to be and then plan and do the things necessary to get there.

See the various quotes posters related to life purpose and values, which can be used in support of this activity, for example:

"He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead" (Anon), and

"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." (William James, 1842-1910, US psychologist and philosopher)

telephone chatting activities (team-building for home-based staff, telephone skills exercises, remote teams relationships)

Home-based staff and remote teams miss out on the valuable social contact normally available to office-based teams.

Personal interaction between staff (typically chatting and engaging in the canteen, elevator, lounge areas, etc) is crucial for developing relationships and mutual awareness among teams, so if teams do not meet frequently then the leader must devise ways to enable this personal interaction to happen.

Traditional autocratic management discourages chatting between workers because it considers chatting to be a waste of time, but this misses the point.

"You are paid to work not to chat or socialise in the corridor - get back to work.." is actually a very unhelpful management tactic.

The truth is the better team members know each other the better the team performs.

See the Johari Window model - it is a powerful explanation of the value of increasing mutual awareness, and why mutual awareness is central to effective teams and team building.

Within reason, people need to be given every opportunity to get to know each other, and chatting achieves this very well. Chatting develops mutual awareness, and it also helps people feel included and valued. Conversely, if you deny people the chance to engage personally with their colleagues you starve them of interaction that is essential for well-being and life balance.

The internet increasingly enables people to connect through 'groups' and 'social networking' websites, but for many remote or home-based work teams a simple telephone-based alternative can provide an easier more natural process, moreover using the telephone - even for chatting - helps improve telephone skills, especially listening.

A simple way to achieve this double benefit of team development and skills improvement among remote teams is to encourage telephone chatting (within reason of course) between team members.

Here are some ideas for doing this:

• Introduce a compulsory 15 minutes telephone chat-time which each team member must have with every other team member every week. Give no subject or aim other than having a good chat and getting to know the other person.
• Introduce a rota or matrix for inter-team chat telephone appointments - timings to suit workloads - again with no aims other than to have a chat and learn something about each other.
• Introduce a virtual team tea-break or virtual visit to the pub - everyone is in fact by their phone in their own homes or offices (with a cup of tea or a tumbler of what does you good) connected a suitable via telephone conference call - and the tone and spirit of the discussion must be as if the team were gathered around a table in the canteen or at the local pub. There are no aims or intended outcomes aside from having a good chat and getting to know each other better.
• When people are connecting more regularly and the telephone chats are up and running, maybe try introducing a few discussion subjects - not necessarily about work - anything to get people talking and understanding each other better. Maybe ask the team to suggest topics too, and then see where the team wants to take things.

Encouraging and enabling chatting between team members improves telephone communications skills since it involves using the telephone to develop understanding, mutual awareness, empathy and relationships between people. Skills development becomes sharper still if activities are adapted for 'conference' calls connecting several people. Communications skills are placed under greater pressure when the voice is the only medium, which obviously tends to develop people's listening abilities.

businessballs quickies (ice-breakers, thought-provokers, ideas you can develop into all sorts of activities)

These are quickies in the sense that they are quick for me to explain and for you to understand the basic ideas. What you do with them is up to you. Of course the development of these ideas could also be team exercises in their own right. Have fun.

quickie 1 - marbles

Take a few bags of marbles into the session. They are inexpensive, extremely evocative and nostalgic, beautiful and can be used for all sorts of exercises, aside from simply organising a quick knock-out competition (in which case be sure to brainstorm and agree the rules first with everyone..)

quickie 2 - ultimate sandwiches

Provide various loaves of bread, butter, margarine, and various (adventurous) fillings, plus bread-knives and wipes. Competition to make the ultimate sandwich. Variations extend to sending delegates out at lunchtime to buy their own ingredients for the ultimate sandwich challenge. Group tasting and voting as appropriate. Be adventurous with fillings and if appropriate enforce penalties and forfeits for anything you could buy in a sandwich bar. Bonus points for anything including anchovies, capers, etc. Could you patent a sandwich? What sandwich would be most or least profitable? Consider production, packaging and distribution too. Correlations between sandwiches and types of people (makers and eaters)? Brand your ultimate sandwich. How would you market and promote your sandwich? How would you extend your successful sandwich business?.. Fancy rolls/cobs/batches/baps? (any other names incidentally for a bread roll?), pot noodles? restaurants, delivery? Market sectors? Range diversification? Pies, pasties, soup in the basket?..

quickie 3 - papier mache

Papier mache, for those who never paid attention at infant school, is newspaper strips and flour paste glue, which is a wonderful modelling material, for small and large constructions, especially with a few tubs of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) as a release agent (if using moulds) and maybe some chicken wire from the local DIY store for making base structures. Painting is optional if you have time for constructions to dry and work on another day. For ideas see papiermache.co.uk. Revisit all the construction exercises you know and consider how they might work with papier mache. Aprons are advisable.

quickie 4 - conkers

Still a few around (October 2006) and amazingly the kids aren't interested in them any more, which means there's plenty for grown-ups. A knock-out championship is the obvious activity, but like marbles they are beautiful and will prompt lots of thoughts, memories, feelings etc., which can be used to address all sorts of issues - environment, cultural diversity, technique, quality, ageism, etc.( Conkers of course get better with age, not vinegar, which just makes them smelly and soggy..)

quickie 5 - sweeties

Buy a few chocolate bars and tubes of sweets - one or two of the main varieties - and see how the groups responds to them. Why do we each have our favourites? What correlation is there between favourite chocolate bar and personality? Is there a class thing going on? Is there a gender thing? Cultural diversity and team correlations or analogies? What are the brilliant marketing and packaging successes and abject failures? Does anyone in the world like the new Smarties packaging? Bring back the tube I say. The possibilities are endless.

quickie 6 - breakfast cereals

Another visit to the supermarket, or task the delegates to go shopping at lunch-time for the cereals (according to whatever rules you state) and report back on their service and marketing experiences and observations. Same sort of activities and discussions as above basically. Milk, sugar, spoons and bowls are optional. Who prefers it straight out of the box dry? Anyone prefer water on their cornflakes? Salt and sugar debate, linked to marketing and social responsibility issues? How old is Tony the Tiger? What's the best thing you ever had free from a cereal box? What's the greatest example of added value? Which actually tastes the best and can we predict what your team members will like and dislike? Are the adverts grreeeeaaat or are they a load of rubbish? Can we see similarities in the style and feel of products from the same organisation? Which brands are more likely to succeed globally and which will need re-branding?

quickie 7 - groups

Essentially this is an activity for the group to organise itself into sub-groups according to the categories you state. People should have space to move around, and materials to create simple signs (for sub-group names). It's up to the group to establish the sub-group sections, which many people will find very challenging - they have to create the structure from nothing and then fit themselves into it. The facilitator can stipulate minimum and maximum sub-group sizes, which obviously increases or reduces challenge of deciding the sub-group structures. Here are some examples of subject categories. These are daft, but daft is thought-provoking, fun, and a great leveller, which makes the topics helpful for relating to each other in ways that are completely removed from usual work or social groupings:

• preferred washing-up or vacuuming or decorating or gardening methods
• favourite type of TV or show or entertainment
• leader role model
• random words, eg., 'pets/money/sport/wow', or 'table/tree/nut/leave' (obviously the random words are effectively the sub-group structure)
• holiday destinations
• favourite music
• dream car
• preferred retirement age

Points to review after several group organisation phases would be for example: what did you think when you saw different people in different sub-groups? Who surprised you in their choices? Who was predictable and unpredictable? How did people's behaviour change in according to the different group categories? Who has knowledge or expertise or passion about something that we didn't realise before?

quickie 8 - playground visit

Take people to a local kids playground and mess around on the swings and roundabouts, etc. Try not to get into trouble with the local authority. Find a location without an upper age limit ideally. Preferable go when the kids are at school. Playgrounds help people get in touch with feelings and imagination that gets buried and hidden at work. And it's fun.

visualisation exercises (identifying unique personal potential, careers and direction, lifting limits)

A simple exercise with deep meaning, for any group size subject to appointing discussion leaders if appropriate. Review is optional. Thoughts can be shared and discussed or kept private; the type of review and follow-up depends on the situation.

The purpose of the exercise is to encourage and enable people to think creatively and imaginatively about their direction and potential. As such it is particularly appropriate for people who are in a routine that is not of their choosing, or who lack confidence, or who need help visualising who they can be and what they can do.

Ask people to imagine they are 18 years old and have just received a great set of exam results that gives them a free choice to study for a degree or qualification at any university or college, anywhere in the world. They also have a grant which will pay for all their fees. No loans, no debts, no pre-conditions.

So the question is, given such a free choice, what would you study?

Put another way, what would you love to spend a year or two or three years becoming brilliant at?

For older people emphasise that they can keep all the benefit of all their accumulated knowledge and experience.

They can even create their own degree course to fit exactly what they want to do.

The important thing is for people to visualise and consider what they would do if they have a free choice.

And then either during the review discussion and sharing of ideas, or in closing the exercise, make the following point:

You have just visualised something that is hugely important to you.

You are (depending on your religious standpoint) only here on this earth once. You will not come back again and have another go.

So what's actually stopping you from pursuing your dreams?

In almost all cases the obstacles will be self-imposed.

Of course it's not always easy to do the things we want to do. But most things are possible - and you don't need to go to university for three years to start to become who you want to be and to follow a new direction. It starts with a realisation that our future is in our own hands.

We ourselves - not anyone or anything else - determine whether we follow and achieve our passions and potential, or instead regret never trying.

(Additional stimulus and ideas can be provided for the group in the form of university and college course listings or examples, although people should be encouraged to imagine their own subjects. Anything is possible. See also the Fantasticat concept.)

team skipping (teamwork, team-building, warm-ups, outdoor activities)

These team skipping activities are for groups of ten people or more, ideally twenty or larger, up to very large groups of a hundred or two hundred people.

Split the group into teams of five to ten team members - 8-10 is ideal - or bigger teams if you fancy being more adventurous.

Issue each team with a length of rope six metres long, or longer if you want to work with larger teams. The rope should be suitable for skipping, about 1cm wide, typically available from DIY and hardware stores. As ever practise and test any untried elements before selecting activities and materials for the actual event or session.

The task for the teams is to perform a routine or series of skipping exercises in teams (like children's playground games, with two team members holding the rope, one at each end obviously).

Instruct and demonstrate the rope twirling correctly, so that the skipping rope just touches the floor on each downward part of the twirl. Twirling too fast or too high can be dangerous and is punishable by detention or a visit to the head-teacher's office..

The rope holders will create a safer wider higher area of clearance for their team's jumpers by using their arms, not just wrists, to create big circles when twirling the rope.

Ensure everyone in the teams has a chance to practise the rope twirling if the intention is to rotate this responsibility during the routines, which will add useful variety and change.

Teams can perform simultaneously or one after the other depending on the situation, as planned by the session facilitator, although activities like this are far more dynamic and exciting if everyone is involved at the same time. If you wish you can arrange individual team displays or 'jump-offs' at the end of the activity, which will enable voting and judging by all participants.

As implied, voting or judging the best teams and team members can be included in the activity depending on the situation. You can create different prize categories to ensure there are a number of different opportunities for teams and participants to excel in their own way (style, technique, duration, most spectacular rope tangle, most awkward director, overall best skipper, most reliable steady twirlers, best team rhythm, etc, etc.)

Music can also be used to add to the atmosphere, in which case be aware of the effect of the music beat on the skipping speed.

Encourage team members when not skipping themselves to coach and support those skipping at the time.

It is the responsibility of the facilitator(s) to oversee the skipping speeds to ensure teams keep to sensible and safe rhythms.

Be mindful of age and health issues, and structure the activities accordingly, for example allowing those who prefer not to skip to be twirlers or coaches or judges.

Be mindful also of general health and safety and insurance issues, and where appropriate (especially if you are external provider) ask participants to sign a disclaimer. If using the activities indoors ensure the floor is carpeted or that sponge gym mats are used to cover the skipping areas. If using the exercise outside use a grassed area rather than a car-park.

Under no circumstances force anyone to take part. This sort of physical activity must always be voluntary, and also must be appropriate for the group.

Warn participants not to jump in high heels (not just the men, the ladies too..)

If you really want to use this exercise but are unable or unwilling to risk the rope then consider running the exercise without the rope. Instruct the teams to use an imaginary rope. It might sound a daft idea, but it will get people thinking, moving and jumping about, and working in teams. And it's completely safe.

Here are some examples of skipping instructions, which can be issued in advance, or called out during the activity by the facilitator. Plan instructions that are appropriate for the type of group. Variation to instructions can be increased by asking the teams to give a number to each team member. You should clarify the instruction terminology before the exercise begins.

Terminology suggestions (adapt according to preferences):

• skipping zone = the floor area above which the rope is twirling, between the two rope holders
• step in = enter the skipping zone and start jumping, preferably over the rope at each revolution
• step out = exit the skipping zone, preferably without getting caught by the rope
• twirler = a rope-holding team member responsible for twirling the skipping rope

These skipping instructions examples are based on a team size of 8-10 people but in principle they'll work with larger or smaller teams. Be creative and imaginative. There are no bounds to the silliness, subject to safety and the group's sense of humour and fun:

• step in/out boys/girls/all/bosses/directors/team-member1/2/3/whatever
• change one/both twirlers (while skipping continues)
• clap/chant/count/sing along to the music/whatever in time with skipping rhythm
• boys remove ties while skipping
• girls put make-up on the boys while all skipping
• make a mobile phone call to a loved one/colleague while skipping
• you get the idea..

More chaotically challenging variation and team inter-action can be introduced by instructing team members to join or swap team members with other teams. This obviously changes the competitive team dynamic into one of whole group interaction and cooperation. To do this you will need to clearly identify each team. Again, using humour and imagination makes more fun.

Examples of a 'whole group' instructions:

• All teams to synchronise their skipping rhythm so the whole group is skipping 'as one'.
• All teams maintain at least one/two/three jumpers, while the whole group re-organises into (balanced) teams according to categories specified by the facilitator, for example: boys/girls; job type; length of service; personality type; favourite food; etc, etc. (The facilitator must prepare and list the categories within these broad category headings, for example personality type could offer the categories of reliable-dependable, intuitive-creative, critical-thinking, warm-friendly.)
• Each team develop into their own actual or virtual team by swapping team members with other teams and then develop their own distinct skipping pattern/sequence/style/performance which reflects their actual or virtual team role in the whole group/organisation (which can be performed and judged at the end of the activity).

isolation and intuition team exercises (relationships, bullying and harassment, diversity, intuitive demonstrations)

Here are two simple ideas for groups which can each be developed and adapted to suit local situations.

Split very large groups into teams of ten to twenty people.

exercise 1 - isolation

The task demonstrates the feelings that a person experiences when isolated or subject to victimisation, group rejection, etc. As such it supports the teaching of positive human interaction principles, and laws relating to equality, diversity and harassment.

Ask the team(s) to nominate a person among each team to be the 'victim', who must then stand away from the rest of the team, while the team members stare and sneer at the unfortunate isolated 'victim'. For very grown-up people you can allow mild criticism directed at the 'victim' (nothing too upsetting or personal please). In any event be careful, and do you best to ensure that the first 'victim' is not the most vulnerable member of the team. Preferably it should be the most confident or senior member, and better still the team's boss. Ensure every team member that wishes to is able to experience being the victim. The review should focus on how 'victims' felt while isolated and being subjected to the staring or worse by the rest of the team. The exercise demonstrates the power of group animosity towards isolated individuals. If appropriate and helpful you can of course end the activity with a big group hug to show that everyone is actually still friends. (Hugging incidentally demonstrates well the power of relationships at the positive end of the scale of human interaction and behaviour. See the Love and Spirituality at Work section for more supporting background to this subject.)

exercise 2 - intuition

Aside from the lessons from exercise 1 relating to victimisation, the above activity also highlights the significance of intuitive feelings, which although difficult to measure and articulate, are extremely significant in relationships, teams and organisations. This next exercise augments the first one to further illustrate the power of intuition and feelings that resides in each of us.

Using the same or similar team(s) in terms of size, then split the team(s) into two halves. One half of the team (called 'the watched') should stand facing a wall unable to see the other half of the team (called 'the watchers') which should stand together, several or many yards away from 'the watched'.

The watchers then decide among themselves which person to stare at in 'the watched' half of the team (for say 30 seconds per 'target' person). The watchers can change whom they stare at and if so should make rough notes about timings for the review. After an initial review you can change the sides to ensure everyone experiences watching and being watched.

Of course 'the watched' half of the team won't know which one is being stared at... or will they?

In the reviews you will find out if any of 'the watched' people were able to tell intuitively who was being stared at, even though 'the watchers' were out of sight. Also discuss generally how 'the watched' and 'the watchers' felt, such as sensations of discomfort or disadvantage among 'the watched', and perhaps opposite feelings among the watchers, all of which can support learning about relationships and human interaction. For review also is the possibility that some people in the teams are more receptive and interested in the activity than others, which invites debate about whether some people are more naturally intuitive than others, which is generally believed to be so, and the implications of preferences either way.

Experiments (and many people's own experience) indicate that many people have an instinctive or intuitive sense of being watched, and although there is no guarantee that your own activities will produce clear and remarkable scientific results, the exercise will prompt interesting feelings, discussion and an unusual diversion into the subject of intuitive powers.

age diversity exercises for teams (age discrimination training, ageism awareness, diversity development)

With the introduction of Age Discrimination legislation (UK October 2006, and consistent with European law), there is an increased need to raise awareness and to train people about ageism and age discrimination. Here are some ideas for activities and exercises which will highlight the issues. See the related notes about Age Discrimination and Diversity, including the 'objective justification' rules explaining certain allowable age discrimination subject to robust evidence that it is proportionate and legitimate.

Organise teams and discussions according to your situation. Here are four separate ideas which can be used for exercises and team games.

1. Under age discrimination legislation many customary expressions in written and spoken communications are potentially unlawful if they refer to a person's age (any age - not only older people) in a negative way, and/or which could cause a person to feel they are being harassed or discriminated against. Under the law, individuals are liable (for harassment claims) as well as employers' wider responsibilities regarding discrimination, harassment and retirement. Some very common expressions are potentially discriminatory or harassing if directed at someone at work. Ask people to think of examples - there are lots of them, such as:

• Teach an old dog new tricks
• An old head on young shoulders
• Mature beyond his/her years
• Respect your elders
• It's a young man's game
• Too old
• Past it
• Over the hill
• Put out to grass or pasture
• Dead man's shoes
• Too young/Not old enough/Not mature enough

2. Direct age discrimination means treating a person at work less favourably because of their age. Indirect discrimination is more difficult to identify and guard against than direct discrimination, and it is equally unlawful. Indirect discrimination is where policies, criteria, processes, activities, practices, rules or systems create a disadvantage for someone because of their age. These pitfalls can be less easy to identify and eliminate than directly discriminatory behaviour.

Ask delegates to think of examples of potential indirect discrimination with your own organisation or within other (real or hypothetical) organisations, and/or based on past experience. Here are some examples - there are lots more:

• job or person profiles or adverts (and advertising media) which stipulate or imply an age requirement
• application or assessment documentation which includes reference to age or date of birth
• training or job selection criteria, attitudes, expectations which differentiate according to age
• job promotion decisions and attitudes
• pay and grades and benefits policies
• holiday entitlement and freedoms
• social activities and clubs which have or imply age restrictions
• office and work-place traditions of who should do the tea-making, errands and menial tasks
• organisational and departmental culture, extending to jokes and banter

3. Age diversity (as other sorts of diversity) offers advantages and benefits to all organisations and employers, especially where a diverse range of people-related capabilities is a clear organisational and/or competitive strength. This is particularly so in all service businesses. In all organisations, age diversity (as other sorts of diversity) is very helpful for management teams, which benefit from having a range and depth of skills, and a broad mix of experience, maturity, and different perspectives, from youngest to oldest. Diversity in organisations relates strongly to the immensely powerful 1st Law of Cybernetics.

Ask people to suggest specific benefits which age (or any other) diversity brings to organisations. This helps focus on the advantages of encouraging diversity, aside from simply complying with the legislation. Here are some examples - there are lots more:

• Diverse organisations can engage well with diverse customer groups, markets, suppliers, etc
• Diversity in management teams can more easily engage with a diverse workforce
• A diverse workforce has a fuller appreciation of market needs and trends
• Diverse organisations have more answers to more questions than those which lack diversity
• Diversity enables flexibility and adaptability - diversity has more responses available to it than narrowly defined systems (Cybernetics again..)
• Age Diversity in an organisation collectively understands the past, the present and the future
• Age diversity naturally enables succession and mentoring
• Age diversity in management helps executives stay in touch with the whole organisation; helps keep feet on the ground (as opposed to heads in the clouds or up somewhere unmentionable)
• Full diversity in an organisation collectively understands the world, whereas a non-diverse system by its own nature only has a limited view.

N.B. Beware of promoting age diversity by suggesting particular correlations between age and capability, which can in itself be discriminatory. For example it is not right to say that only older people have maturity and wisdom, nor that only younger people have energy and vitality. Instead make the point that by having a mixture of people and ages, an organisation is far more likely to be able to meet the diverse demands of managing itself, and engaging successfully with the outside world, compared to an organisation which lacks diversity.

4. If you do not already have an equality policy (stating the organisation's position relating to all aspects of equality and discrimination) why not start the creative process with a brainstorm session about what it should contain. Incidentally the term 'brainstorming' is not normally considered to be a discriminatory or disrespectful term, just in case anyone asks...

Ask the team(s) or group to list your own or other typical major organisational processes (inwardly and outwardly directed, for instance recruitment, training and development, customer and supplier relationships, etc) and how each might be described so as to ensure equality and to avoid wrongful discrimination.

Alternatively ask people individually or the team(s) to prepare or research (in advance of the session, or during it if you have sufficient internet connections) examples of other organisations' equality policies, with a view then to suggesting and discussing as a group all of the relevant aspects which could for used for your own situation.

We all, irrespective of age, race, religion, gender, disability, etc., have our own special capabilities and strengths, and it is these capabilities and strengths that good organisations must seek to identify, assess, encourage and utilise, regardless of age or other potentially discriminatory factors.

shot at dawn discussion (organisational morality, leadership styles and integrity, decision-making, humanity versus efficiency)

This is a big emotional subject which enables a variety of discussions about morality, ethics, integrity, leadership styles, policies and decision-making in institutions and organisations, and the wider world. It also provides a stimulating basis for exploring ethics versus autocracy, and for examining the balance in organisations and cultures between humanity and efficiency.

Organise the team(s) and debating activities to suit the audience and context. This can include debating, presenting, role-playing, brainstorming, listing and mapping key factors - anything that fits your aims and will be of interest and value to people. The subject also provides a thought-provoking warm-up discussion for any session dealing with ethics, morality, compassion, leadership, decision-making, and organisational culture, etc.

Read and/or issue the notes about the Shot At Dawn pardons, which were announced by the British government on 16 August 2006, relating to British soldiers shot by firing squad for 'cowardice' and 'desertion' in the 1st World War.

The 'Shot At Dawn' story represents a 90 year campaign to secure posthumous pardons for over 300 soldiers shot by firing squad