Corporate Adventure

• Time: One minute
• Purpose: Focus participants before the meeting begins
• Participants: Everyone attending the meeting
• Materials needed: None
• Instructions: Before the meeting begins, everyone must stand up and tell as many others as they can in one minute what they hope to contribute to the meeting. For best results, offer a simple prize for the most people contacted and a bigger prize for the most generous contribution expressed.
• Desired outcome: Allows players to think about what they will give to a meeting rather than what they will get. Encourages participation from the start

• Time: 5–6 minutes
• Purpose: To stimulate conversation, ideas, and laughter
• Participants: Small groups, This can be done with one group or multiple groups at the same time.
• Materials needed: Cloth napkins
• Instructions: Give a napkin to each group of five to ten participants, One person at a time stands and demonstrates a use of that napkin.
• Rules: Person demonstrating cannot speak, Must stand while demonstrating, Demonstration must be original.
• Desired outcome: Participants experience the infinite ways to use a napkin and translate this to the infinite ways to solve problems, use resources, motivate a team, etc.

• Time: 10–12 minutes
• Purpose: Cooperation and healthy competition
• Participants: Small groups
• Materials needed: Golf balls, straws, tape

Instructions:

Each small group receives 12 straws and 18 inches of masking tape. They get ten minutes to build a container that will catch a golf ball dropped from about ten feet. Each group selects a ‘ball dropper’ that person stands on a chair, holds a golf ball at eye level. That group places its container on the floor under where it thinks the ball will land. Each group gets three attempts. The group that gets a ball to go in and stay in its container wins.

Desired outcome:

Teams can use their experiences in the game to overcome work problems and relational issues.

• Time: An hour
• Purpose: Discover how emotions effect the success of our negotiations
• Participants: One or several small groups
• Materials needed: List of 15 people in a yacht

Instructions:

Give the team or teams a list of 15 people who are on a yacht. Tell them that the yacht developed a leak and is sinking fast. There is only one lifeboat and it will accommodate only nine people—not one more can fit and there are no more life boats or life jackets. The group must then come to an agreement as to which of 15 people gets to go in the lifeboat and be saved. However, they must also list those they save in order of importance —because if they run out of food and water the “less important people’ will have to be dumped overboard. Of course this is often the more difficult job. The key for this game is to make the 15 people on the list as controversial as possible. For example include a priest, minister, rabbi or all three! A pregnant woman, powerful leaders from both major political parties, an ex-convict, a male physician and a female one, a political lobbyist, people of different ethnicities, etc—the more emotionally
charged the list the better. Give them a period of time to work out the problem. Make it long enough to get into heated discussion but short enough to be pressed for time. I usually allow six to ten minutes.

The discussion afterward should be in depth and include everyone on the team. You can facilitate with questions. Such as:

• What problems did you experience?
• How did you resolve these issues?
• Was it the best way?
• How else could you have resolved your differences?
• Why did these problems occur in the first place? Then…
• How does this exercise reflect your day-to-day relationships?
• What are the similarities between what you just experienced and negotiations at work and at home?

After fully exploring these questions ask your team—or teams—to reconvene. This time they will list three things they would do differently now that they have had this discussion. Be sure to tell them that this follow-up exercise is not about the lifeboat or anyone on it—it is about the process of negotiation.

Desired outcome:

The critical take away here is that negotiation often fails because each participant wants to get his or her way. A better method may be to first learn the needs and intents of others. Understanding fosters a spirit of cooperation and therefore agreement. Use the three things each team determines they learned as a guide to create better understanding in future meetings and discussions.

• Time: 2–3 minutes
• Purpose: Learn new things about co-workers
• Participants: All
• Materials needed: Pens and paper

Instructions:

Group is given a list of characteristics and instructed to find people in the room that have those characteristics that differ from them. For example: different gender, weight by 20 lbs, height by seven inches, marital status, etc.

Desired outcome:

Learn new things about co-workers; encourages conversation, breaks down perceived barriers.

• Time: 10 minutes
• Purpose: Relieves stress and demonstrates the power of team encouragement
• Participants: All
• Materials needed: Piece of paper, marker, tape (prizes optional)

Instructions:

Place a poster high up on a wall. One person runs across the room and
jumps up, placing a mark as high as they can. Then they are told to try again but place it higher. This continues until the person is absolutely convinced they can’t reach any higher. Then the team is told they will be rewarded (ice cream, longer lunch hour, etc.) if they can get this person to make the mark higher. However, they cannot do it for the jumper and can’t touch them or provide a chair or other booster—they can only do this through encouragement.

• Time: A few minutes
• Purpose: To develop models of behavior
• Participants: Any number of players
• Materials needed: Paper and pen

Instructions:

Everyone writes on a piece of paper the words, “I admire others who …” The game now has four steps:

• Instruct players to think of people they admire and why.
• Give the players one minute to finish that sentence. Ask them to use positive language; for example instead of writing, “I admire others who are not negative,” write “I admire others who are positive.”
  They are to continue to write free form for one minute without regard to punctuation, grammar, or spelling—just a constant flow of thoughts as they think of others they admire.
• Have a few volunteers read what they wrote starting with the introductory words, “I admire others who …”
• Now ask that they draw a line through the words, “I admire others who …” and insert these words: “I am powerful when I …” Ask volunteers to read again, this time using the new introductory words.

Desired outcome:

Participants understand that what they most admire in others they can do themselves. It encourages others with simplicity and ease to be the best they can be.

• Time: All day!
• Purpose: Change the “dreaded Monday” mentality
• Participants: Everyone who chooses
• Materials needed: Your best clothes

Instructions:

Request that everyone who wishes to play should dress up in their very best outfits on Monday. Have a small celebration like coffee at the morning break; take pictures of the group; have a parade through the rest of the office; give prizes for brightest colors, longest skirt, sleekest tie, etc.
Do this only occasionally—a couple of times a year. Every Monday is too much and detracts from the uniqueness of the event.

Desired outcome:

Your team feels better about Mondays—energy and renewed interest will follow.

• Purpose: Loosen up tight muscles right at your desk
• Participants: Alone or all together—any number
• Materials needed: None

Instructions:

Do five repetitions each of the following — all done in seated position:
Hunch up shoulders to your ears, roll them back, down, and forward making large circles.

Bend you neck so that your right ear moves toward your right shoulder, straighten, move your left ear toward you left shoulder, straighten; tilt head forward until chin touches chest, straighten; head back to look at ceiling.

Raise right arm over your head, bend your elbow so right hand is behind your head, and bend to the left as far as you can; repeat with left arm, hand, and side.

Lift your right arm over your head and straight up; move it forward, down, and back drawing a large circle; repeat with the left arm.

Squeeze your face, eyes, mouth, cheeks, making them all tight and small; now
quickly open your eyes and mouth as wide as possible. Desired outcome: Relieves tension, feels good — gets a laugh if anyone is watching!

• Time: 10–15 minutes
• Purpose: Encourages risk
• Participants: All can play—one at a time
• Materials needed: Music

Instructions:

Everyone stands in a room leaving a path through the middle of the group.
One person at a time walks or dances through the path from one end to the other. Each person in turn must follow, but each walk or dance step must be different than any that have been done before.

Desired outcome:

As one person said, “After you’ve behaved like an idiot, for the rest of the day you’ll take any risk to get the job done!”

• Time: A few seconds
• Purpose: Encourages all to be conscious of attitudes they are displaying
• Participants: Everyone can play
• Materials needed: Attitude buttons

Instructions:

Have buttons or laminated cards with a variety of attitudes on them; such as happy, angry, friendly, generous, sad, worried, excellent, etc. As each person enters work, allow them to pick the attitude they would like to display. People who pick unattractive ones can be avoided and the pleasant ones will get all the smiles, encouragement, and positive attention. Anyone can change their ‘button attitude’ at any time.

Desired outcome:

Bring awareness about how transparent our moods are and what we get as a result.