Cheat Sheet : REAL Appreciative TeamBuilding Activities To create REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACES

REAL Appreciative team building is the new rage for smart business. Gone are most of the games, people used to call "team building activities". Smart companies are now looking for sustainable results, beyond team motivational talks, that they know don't last.

Appreciative Inquiry in Team Building

The Appreciative Inquiry based approach supports the trend towards a more positive focus on strengths and what is working - rather than the old style problem solving approach.

RESILIENCE is also becoming a major need in companies today as competition increases globally. REAL leadership is required to guide, empower and inspire teams to greater performance in a sustainable way.

But, in the past, most leaders and managers have had no simple way of getting these effectively into their organisations.

From our past Appreciative team building experience, we have distilled our wisdom gained into a few simple steps.
Make sure you incorporate your steps into your next team building events and provide a positive focus in your next team building activities facilitations.

Cheat Sheet for Smart Team Building Facilitators.

1. Make sure that the entire group is involved, from all levels, and make it clear that negativity will not be entertained.

2. Make it clear to everyone upfront that the focus and discussions will aim to build on strengths, past positive experience, what is ALREADY working in the team, and what else can be done to enhance this.

3. Make it safe for participation by everyone. Set ground agreements of what attitudes, comments and inputs will be allowed in the team building process – avoid naming, blaming and shaming!

4. Set up a trust-level scale on the wall and invite people to mark their present team trust scores on the wall and move them during the day. Talk about what impacts and influences trust levels, and what can be done to improve them.

5. Set up talking-circles and get people to talk about positive past experiences around leadership, team building, and what they want more of at work.

6. Get groups to agree and document what they will agree to STOP, START and CONTINUE back in the team workplace.

7. Make the learning fun, experiential and encourage participation and input from every person.

8. Teach teams about RESILIENCE or AQ (Adversity Intelligence) and how they can individually and as a team enhance their self talk and resilience levels.

9. To remove titles, position labels, and seniority advantages, each person takes on a new Identity /name of their ideal role model.

10. Incorporate “archetypes” like Lover, Warrior, Magician, Sovereign intro the roles and use them to allow multi-perception position inputs. Eg my love says”... or my warrior says...”

11. Document and display stop start continues and regularly discuss how you are maintaining the agreements.

12. If a consensus arises about what needs to be done to improve some area....take visible action to rectify and improve it ASAP.

Often the biggest challenge with staff and team building in the workplace is there is a lot of “TALK” from leadership and management, but very little “WALK”. It is a grave mistake to ask for input and then not act on it.

It doesn’t take long for people to see that you don’t value their input, and thereafter just disengage Trust is Bust....again!

Too many leaders think happy staff are more productive – this is not always true. Resilient, challenged, engaged and happy staff deliver exceptional results in a sustainable manner.

By bringing the positive, focus on more of what is working, approach of Appreciative Inquiry Team Building ideas, leaders can transform their culture from a destructive, politically hostile environment to a great place to work.

But remember it takes time to rebuild trust. It take time for the people to see that you are really walking your talk. It takes tile to change old habits and entrenched cultures.

Through regular Ai based teamwork building activities you can begin to create a CultureShift from negative to more positive. This brings more available energy into your teams and the workplace.

Through Appreciative Inquiry positive approach to building teamwork, you can transform your results...faster than any old way of doing team building games and motivational talks.

So next time you are looking for a team building idea choose REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE appreciative team building and Transformation to create a sustainable, positive working, High Performance workplace and culture.

See video case study here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz4P9jOgtJE

For a free "Riding the Razor" white paper - email RTR@coachfree.com

Namaste’

Tony Dovale - South Africa www.lifemasters.co.za http://www.tonydovalespeaks.comr
083-447-6300