Team Building Exercise

OVERVIEW:

Oak Grove Technologies planned a retreat for internal corporate employees at the Oak Grove Training Center. The purpose of the team building session was to increase collaboration and interaction, open the lines of communication, and obtain a deeper understanding of one another.

Directors at the Oak Grove Training Center orchestrated a one-day team building session to increase understanding of team dynamics and improve communication. All activities were held at the Oak Grove Training Center and included activities based around rappelling, shooting, and other organized team building group activities and games.

CHALLENGE:

Shooting and rappelling are inherently individual events, so we had to develop a means to execute these events as team events, in order to stress the importance of communication and team work to obtain the desired outcome.

SOLUTION:

The day was segmented into two blocks; rappelling in the morning session, and shooting in the afternoon session, with team building activities sprinkled in between.

The day began with a land-mine exercise where team members took turns being blind folded. Using active listening, the blindfolded individual was directed by a colleague to navigate the course and retrieve tokens before returning to the group. This exercise continued until all team members had successfully negotiated the course and retrieved all tokens.

The group then moved into the rappel exercise, where they received instruction on rappelling, which included knot tying, rigging of an anchor point, donning of a rappelling harness, helmet and gloves, and rappelling commands. The group was then divided into two teams. The teams were then given time to put into practice what they had learned in the classroom. Once the practical exercise was complete the competition began. The groups were timed on setting up a rappelling lane, and successfully rappelling down, where the time ended when the last person from the group was disengaged from the rope. The group’s ability to work as a team, and effectively communicate throughout the process was essential to conducting this event in a timely manner. The team that completed in the least amount of time was declared the winner. Then the group moved to the rapel tower where each team member had a chance to traverse the 40’ rapel tower to the supportive cheers of their colleagues.

After breaking for lunch, the team arrived at the shooting range. A brief gun safety lesson was given, followed by individualized instruction on shooting techniques before the team event. Groups of four were selected based on skill level to try their hand at achieving a cumulative high-score. The team with the highest score was declared the winner.

CLIENT:

Oak Grove Technologies

MARKET:

Commercial and Non-Profit Organizations

NATURE OF WORK:

Team Building

RESULTS:

Participant feedback indicated that the session was both practical and motivating with clear guidelines on how to apply the lessons learned in an everyday context when back in the office. The team building event resulted in an increase in morale, collaboration, and communication. Getting to know their counterparts enabled employees to reach out to geographically dispersed team members without hesitation.