I love the extreme things that OK Go do. They are a band but they work with Rube Goldberg type investions to add an extra level of creativity to their music and the sheer scale of their ambition is remarkable.

Some team building events are Rube Goldberg in style. Essentially this is a machine that does something very simple in a complicated way. The game Mousetrap is a classic example and you may be familiar with W.Heath Robinson’s cartoons depicting mad invention from World War II.

It’s amazing what a group of people can do when they sit down with a load of basic materials and decide to build something. Why build something that amounts to a complicated way of achieving something? Because we can.

Team Building Painting

Painting is an excellent activity for team building. The group is divided into teams of three to five people and each is given a canvas. Their objective is to create one large picture with each canvas being a section of a mosaic. Communication is essential if the canvasses are to fit together to make one matching big picture.

We run an event called DaVinci’s Designs which is a tribute to the great creative genius of Leonardo DaVinci. This starts with a selection of themed activities in which teams have to identify and recreate some of his famous inventions, for example a helicopter, a parachute and a self supporting bridge. We have a wooden kit with which teams can reconstruct a DaVinci bridge.

With lots of teams contributing towards one big picture the business metaphor is fairly clear and DaVinci’s Designs is an ideal team building event if facilitation is an objective to gain business insights and advantages from the event.

The Benefits Of Team Building

Here’s a word cloud that we put together showing some of the benefits of team building. All of our events are great fun and the team will take away some great shared memories.

There are also business benefits; hard and soft concepts, some measurable but mostly anecdotal. This word cloud captures some of those benefits.

Evidence

Trial By Jury is an event which takes place over dinner. Each table acts as both a prosecutor and jury member at the end of the case. A snooker player has been murdered, his rival is the defendant and his wife, mistress and a pub landlord appear as witnesses.

A Judge oversees this court room simulation event and guides the process, keeping the court room in order. Witnesses take the stand between courses of the meal and are cross examined by a representative from each table, often fulfilling the fantasy of acting as a barrister. At the end of the evening each table delivers a guilty or not guilty verdict and the defendant is judged on the balance.

How does it usually end? That would be telling, however we are always impressed by the questions asked and how seriously the jurors take their responsibility. But more than anything, it’s great fun!

A lion with a keeper

When a client decided that they wanted to do something worthwhile for a good cause on their team building event we connected them with a wildlife park that needed some lions rehoused. Their current facilities were inadequate and our client bought materials and sent a team of fifty to spend a day building a new enclosure for them. With such a large group a huge amount was accomplished and the day ended with the lions being let into their new living space.

Everyone who participated enjoyed contributing to something worthwhile. We took photos of the day and captured this lovely moment of contentment between a young cub and one of the keepers. Follow this link for more photographs from this good cause team building day.

Chinese New Year is on Monday 23rd January 2012 and making a Chinese Dragon and dancing with it is a great idea for a team building activity. First of all I apologise for the quality of this video. It was taken a few years ago and I’m hoping to do this event again so that we can get a better film because it was colourful and great fun. In fact, it was event better than I thought it would be; the quality of the six dragons was superb and they were all different.

Dragon Dancing as a team building event? I recommend it.

Children duck herding

Corporate family fun days are a very effective way of rewarding employees and their families. They give the families of employees a chance to meet the company where their family member works in a positive environment.

A large field at a hotel or country house will be hired for the day and activities and catering arranged. Usually the catering is a high end barbecue and marquees and event dressing are set up. Activities can range from a full fun fair to a selection of activities such as laser clays, archery and driving activities.

In the picture a group of children take part in duck herding. This is something they may have seen at a country show but having it at a private events means they can really get involved.

There are excellent locations for this sort of event around the country and we also have large spaces in major cities available.

This is a video from our old stock but we still really like it. Film making is a great team building event and the final cut is always something that people want to keep as a memory of their day together.

We send experts to help out with using the camera and editing. Team building with film making is another activity where people learn really useful things that they can take with them and use when they next make films for themselves.

Sushi Team Building

Sumptuous Sushi is our latest team building event based on preparing and eating a delicious sushi meal. Cookery has been a popular theme for team building in recent years. The task is genuinely bonding for a team and, at the end, they eat what they have created giving a real sense of purpose. Traditionally a feast is how teams celebrate winning.

Our Sumptuous Sushi event is lead by an experienced sushi chef who will teach participants how to create this very popular food. The skills learned can be taken home, so participants will be able to prepare delicious sushi for their friends and family.

Car Crushed By Tank

Tank driving fits into the social team bonding end of the team building event spectrum. The benefit is derived from sharing an entertaining and memorable positive experience together away from the usual stresses and strains of the office.

The team spends the day getting to know a selection of tanks and everyone who wants to has a change to spend time at the controls. The grand finale involves crushing a car by driving over it with a tank. Memorable? We think so!

I think that used to be a Ford Mondeo…