Just because your company is cutting costs does not mean that you should cut down on team building and training activities as well. We could all use an occasional low-cost team building activity to lift the team’s spirits—and have the team polish their communication, persuasion and negotiation skills in the process.
Divide your team into groups and have them negotiate something—a mobile phone contract, flat screen television, letterhead printing and so on. Each group must negotiate for the same product personally and using one other communication medium (e-mail only, phone only, Twitter only, online chat only, etc.). The first group to negotiate the lowest price wins.
Have each group come up with a strategy and then execute it. Schedule a debriefing session to capture what they have learned and which techniques they can use at work immediately.
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The tough economic environment should not be used as an excuse to skip on team building activities. Given all of the negative news around us, now is the best time to lift the team’s morale. Here are three low-cost team building ideas that you can do during lunch breaks.
If you are like most people, a box alarm clock wakes up for your 9-to-5 routine. You leave your box house using your box car or sit on the same seat in your box train.
In all of my consulting engagements, be it in Asia, North America or Europe, I often hear my clients demand high-quality results—appealing appearance, greater glory, impeccable implementation, minimal maintainability, rapid response and so on. The benchmark for the aforementioned high-quality results shapes the opinions of the stakeholders when judging, upon completion, if the project objective was met or not.
To get things done, we delegate tasks to others. Hopefully, the delegated tasks were SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.
