Team Exercises To Improve Relationships
There should be shared respect and trust proven among staff and management before the team reaches its full potential. These values come from the family unit. There are disciplinary measures within a family but this is after love has been proven. After all, under such bad conditions why would staff be afraid to lose their job?
Team events that build up
Here are two helpful events to improve working relationships that can be adapted for many different needs. The first event is an experiment in isolation that teaches an illustrative point, by exposing a member to the feeling of victimisation and staff rejection. Each team is asked to nominate a person to be the victim of the scenario, who should be exiled from the team while the others stare and deride the victim. The latter should only be done for adults, and should be done carefully, with only restricted criticism for illustrative purposes. In fact, it is best to nominate the team leader or the most confident person on the team, as you do not want to expose vulnerable colleagues to victimisation. The event ends with a team discussion of how the victim felt being exiled and criticised by the team and hopefully a group appreciation session to illustrate that there are no hard feelings. This event teaches the value of beneficial human interaction relating to equality laws, diversity and harassment.
Another event to try
Another event dealing with intuition, can assist to improve working relationships in a beneficial manner. Intuitive feelings are an imperative factor in determining human relationships, although they aren’t always identified. The event sees the team being split into two sides, one half being the ones watched (that is facing the wall, and not able to see the other team) and the other side acting as the watchers, (who stand together several feet away from the watched). The watcher staff decide among themselves which person on the other team to stare at and events proceed from there, with rotations and timings up to the trainer’s discretion.
In the review portion, persons from the watched team reveal if they had any intuitive feelings as to when they were being stared at. More significantly discuss the feelings of both the watchers and watched, relating to the discomfort or advantage that they may have felt. This event will naturally lend itself to debate and discussion. It can also illustrate the point of equality and discrimination, as being watched for critical reasons can be an unpleasant experience. Discussing these feelings is a progressive form of team building.
Relationships should be preserved if at all possible. This leads to more trust between colleagues and management, and in the end, better team work.