Employees on your team might think they are on top of their game but can often forget they may have skills that need improvement. No one is perfect and everyone has abilities they can work on. This quick employee bonding activity will put your team on the track to success!
Throw Game
Time: 15-20 minutes
Purpose:
• For the group to be looking to itself (rather than their manager) for ways to improve.
• To eliminate the thought of being so good improvement isn’t needed.
Participants: 5-10 people
Materials
1. Arrange the group in a large circle with everyone standing.
2. Give the ball to anyone.
3. Ask him or her to throw the ball to anyone in the circle.
4. The catcher now throws the ball to someone else in the circle.
5. This continues as each participant always throws the ball to someone who has not had it yet.
6. The last one throws the ball back to the participant who had it first. The group has established their pattern.
7. Have them repeat the same pattern throwing the ball to the same person, in the same order as they did before. Time them.
8. If anyone drops the ball, it goes back to the first participant to start again. Time keeps ticking.
9. Announce the time, and ask them how much faster they think they can get.
10. Repeat the pattern, and time them again.
11. Give them 3 minutes to create a strategy to vastly improve their time.
12. Repeat the pattern and time them once more.
SUMMARY
• How did you feel the first time I timed you? On subsequent timings? (Nervous, energized, competitive, pressured, etc.)
• What strategies did you employ to improve your speed? How successful were they?
• What assumptions or limits did you impose on yourselves? (We had to catch with our hands [not laps, if sitting], etc.)
• How did you feel when participant X dropped the ball? (Frustrated, angry, depressed, hopeless, empathetic, etc.)
• What was the key to your success?
• What implication does this have for us back on our jobs?
