"When you
step forward to serve others, which is true leadership,
you can't help but grow!"
Team Building Activity
to Bring Your Team Together by Brian D. Biro
Activity
#1: The Blind Date
There are
tremendous secrets in this simple, fun team
building game. Here’s the way it works: Have
each player find a buddy. Hand out blindfolds to
each player. Bandannas work beautifully. Each
player will serve as the "guide" for
five minutes, and will also be the "blind
date" for five minutes. Give the following
instructions at this point:
"When I set
you free, you can go anywhere you like during the
blind date. At the five-minute mark, switch
roles, wherever you are. If you were the guide,
you will become the blind date, and vice versa.
Here are three guidelines:
"1.Help your
date discover more of the world than he or she
ever would have with his or her eyes open.
"2.Make it
incredibly fun, creative, and vibrant: a truly
enriching experience.
"3.Take great
care of your date.
"GO!"
Note: During
the game, turn up your alertness as the coach,
watch, listen, and play. Call out
"Switch!" at the five-minute mark and
give time-remaining announcements with two and
then one minute to go.
To help the team
integrate the experience when they’re done,
tell them, "Thank your buddy! How many of
you had a great time on your blind date? Great!
How many really enjoyed being blindfolded? (These
are the adventurers!) How many really liked being
the guide? (These are the controllers!) How many
enjoyed both roles?"
Now you will help
all the participants discover the secrets and
powerful principles at work in this game. Your
role as coach is to facilitate a
question-and-answer session that will foster
tremendous learning. Have fun as you guide the
process and be sure to illuminate each key
learning point. Following are some questions you
can include:
"What
was it like for you to be
blindfolded?"
Listen and enjoy the responses. Many will
say they felt frightened and
tentative—as if they were about to
fall into a forty-foot hole at any
moment. Key Learning Point: Being
blindfolded was about trust. Every
participant had the opportunity to
experience whether or not they fully
trusted—at least in this context.
Also ask, "Who did you have to
trust?" As this question sets in, it
becomes apparent that the blind dates
must trust both the guide and themselves.
In fact, before the guide can begin to
create a rich experience for the blind
date, the blindfolded person must let go
and trust their guide, or the date will
never unfold.
"How
many of you found yourself becoming less
fearful and tentative as you went
along?"
What happened to your experience as you
trusted more?" Key Learning
Point: The more you trust, the richer
your experience. Your senses come alive
and you notice much more of the world. By
taking away the dominant sense of sight,
the other senses become more acute. For
example, the most underused sense is
hearing. When we are in a conversation,
what are most of us actually doing when
the other person is speaking? The truth
is, we are usually formulating our
response. This keeps us from fully
listening. People who make the most of
their potential share a special
characteristic—thy have a heightened
level of alertness. They use more of
their senses to gather information and
discover solutions and connections. We
all have huge potential for this. One of
the special secrets in this game is an
"aha" about the benefit of
increasing our alertness.
"When
you were tentative and frightened as you
began your time being blindfolded, what
did you notice?" Key Learning
Point: When we are in the state of
not trusting, we only notice our
fear—everything else is blocked out.
"What
was it like for you to be the
guide?"
Once again, listen and enjoy the
responses. Key Learning Point: For
most, being the guide is about
responsibility. What would happen if each
participant in the game accepted the
level of responsibility with their
teammates and work at home that they
willingly shouldered in this game? One of
the great gifts of this game is to feel
that level of responsibility for a
teammate.
After this point has been made, ask how
many guides focused their responsibility
more on guideline #2 ("make it
incredibly fun, creative, and vibrant: a
truly enriching experience") and how
many focused more of their responsibility
on #3 ("take great care of
them"). Key Learning Point:
Where you focus your responsibility as a
coach has a tremendous effect on the
results you generate. If you focus too
much on #3, eventually you teach and
coach dependence. As a coach, one of your
primary goals is to instill
self-motivation. For example, as a
parent, somewhere along the road it is
critical that your children learn to
believe in themselves, to develop their
own purpose, and to feel inspired about
their lives. This requires a shift in the
focus of you responsibility from #3 to
#2.
"When
you thin back to your experience as the
guide, what happened to your discovery of
the world?"
Key Learning Point: When people focus
on being guides, they discover far more
of the world than had they not accepted
that responsibility. When you accept the
responsibility to enrich another’s
experience, you can’t help but
enrich your own! This is the hidden gift
of leadership and service. In other
words, when you step forward to serve
others, which is true leadership, you
can’t help but grow! Yes!!
"How
did you help your date discover more of
the world than with their eyes
open?"
Listen carefully to the responses. Most
will say they described things and had
their date touch objects. Once
you’ve listened to these responses
ask this key question: "How many of
you spent at least half you time as the
guide asking your date questions?"
You’ll see a few hands go up! Key
Learning Point: This points out a
paradox of leadership. When we strive to
take care of our teammates, we can easily
get caught up in thinking we’re
supposed to do everything for them. We
fall into the trap of telling instead of
asking questions. When we tell instead of
ask, what do we take away? The answer is discovery!
When you think about it, aren’t
there some great questions you could ask
a blind date? For example, "What
color do you think this is?" Or,
"We have one minute left. How would
you find your way back to the room?"
Wouldn’t that create a totally
different experience? The key is not that
the blindfolded partner answers these
questions correctly; it’s that by
asking the questions you have helped them
access a part of their insight and
intuition they could have well missed.
"How
many of you felt a real connection with
your partner in this game?"
Key Learning Point: Though initially
the blind date appears to be a game about
trust, it is ultimately a powerful
example of the importance of being fully
present. You can’t get away with not
being present on this date or you’ll
run your partner into a wall! The truth
is, during the blind date both
participants are one hundred percent
present with each other. They are not
thinking about yesterday or the meetings
they have next week. The outcome of this
presence is wonderful connection, a
feeling of closeness, trust, and
importance that is unmistakable.
Over the years I have come to view the
blind date as one of the most valuable
exercises you could ever experience
because we are almost always in a state
of either being guides or blindfolded.
When we work with customers, teammates,
or family members, we are often seeking
to be great guides. We want to help them
because we have more experience or
knowledge in a particular area. They are
somewhat "blindfolded" because
they do not have much experience.
At other times, it is just the opposite.
We need to be guided because often the
greatest obstacle to discovering the
truth is the belief that we already know
it. The principles about being present,
trusting, asking instead of telling,
turning up our alertness, serving, and
responsibility are enormously important
elements in building great teams. This
game helps you bring these ideas to life
in thirty minutes of fun and awakening
that can save you months of struggle!
