Offsite team building workshops can sometimes be difficult to coordinate. They’re expensive, they’re time-consuming, and often there are a few people who simply can’t make it due to other commitments. Luckily, there are short team communication activities that can be run to help colleagues get to know each other better, and help improve the cohesion of the group. One of McQuaig’s most popular team communication exercises takes less than 30 minutes – so the next time your team is available for a half-hour meeting, try following these steps to help everyone get a little bit closer.
Step 1: Divide your team into groups based on their personality profile type. A personality assessment tool like McQuaig can identify personality and behavioural trends to determine what type of personality each team member has.
Step 2: Have each group complete the following statements:
- We’re great on a team because…
- We might drive others crazy because…
- We prefer to contribute to the team by…
- If you want to persuade us, you should…
- If you want to annoy us, all you have to do is…
Step 3: Read out the answers – and notice how groups of people share similar personality traits.
This exercise is short and easy to run, but the results are surprisingly powerful. We actually use this as one of our team communication activities in the McQuaig Team Effectiveness workshop, due to the response we’ve seen from running it. You’ll start to notice that groups of people share certain traits, like an aversion to small talk, or a preference to only know big-picture details. It’s a great way to illustrate how various groups of employees might prefer to be communicated to. It can even help answer some underlying questions, like why certain members of the team get restless during conversations, or why others get frustrated when there’s a deep-dive into detailed metrics during a campaign.
The next time you’re looking for team communication exercises, take 30 minutes and try this one out. You might be surprised by the results!