Cortex Leadership Consulting

  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Cortex Leadership Associates
  • Services
    • Overview
    • NEW Cortex Courses
    • Leadership Development Programs
      • Leading a Winning Team Program
      • GoMonti
      • 4 Keys To More Effective Leadership
      • The Empowerment Dynamic
      • Cortex Council
    • Workshops for Leaders and Their Teams – One-hour, Two-hours, Half and Full Days, Retreats
      • Meeting Facilitation
      • Meeting Toolkits
      • Team Building & Retreats
    • Individual and Team Assessments
      • Cortex 360 Assessment
    • Executive Coaching
    • Keynote Speeches
  • Client Reviews
  • Leadership Library
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

February 12, 2017 By Lynda Foster

5 Quick Tips for Team Building

It is awesome when you can take a full day away from the office and do full-scale team building.  What is as, or even more important, is being sure that team building is “baked in” to your culture by having quick ways to build trust and create meaningful and fun connections with team members on a regular basis.

Cortex Thumb Ball for Team Building

  • THUMB BALLS – These handy and inexpensive tools can help to break the ice for new team members or deepen relationships quickly with existing ones – even if they’ve known each other for years.  Thumb balls are named that because you throw them to one another and the person catching it gets to choose from either question their thumb lands on. There are different types of thumb balls for different situations and they run about $24.75 each.  With questions like:  “Your proudest moment” or “I’ll be successful if…” or “My most creative contribution” team members can find connection quickly.  Click here to find one on Amazon.
  • CONVERSATION CARDS – TableTopics were designed for families and parties but are great for quick team building in the same way that the Thumb Balls are.  With 135 different questions on cards team members can choose from a small stack to answer one in a round, or you can have each of the people in the group answer the same question.  Click here to find a box of these on Amazon.
  • ME MINGLE FOR MEETINGS – Want your meeting to be more productive? Do 1-minute rounds where people pair up with each other and finish the statement:  In today’s meeting, I am going to contribute by: (fill in this blank).  Do 3 rounds so each person has a chance to tell at least 3 people their answer.
  • SHARE ARTIFACTS – Organizations are changing quickly. To help bring perspective and a touch of history into your next meeting, ask team members to bring an “artifact” from the past and describe how it became a fossil or how its use may have been repurposed.  Perhaps someone brings in an old calculator or type of pen or a picture of an old logo or a picture of people at work 10-20 years ago.
  • MEAL OF THE MONTH – There is something special about having a meal together. To introduce different cultures and tastes perhaps each team member can choose the meal of the month.  They get to pick what type of food your team will eat together for one meal a month.

Here’s a quick video to demonstrate how one CEO used techniques for onboarding an existing team.

http://www.virginiafirst.com/news/local-news/virgnia-at-work-leading-an-existing-team/655226272

 

 

 

Share
Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Cortex Leadership, Cortex Leadership Consulting, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Training, Roanoke, Team Building

About Lynda Foster

CEO, Cortex Leadership Consulting, Forbes contributor, author of Time Mastery: 7 Simple Steps to Your Richer Outcomes, Executive Coach, Leadership Trainer, TED* Practitioner, wife, mother, slow runner, terrible cook.

Some of Our Clients:

Copyright © 2023 · Cortex Leadership Consulting · Terms · Privacy Policy · Disclaimer · Website by Smart Business Development