Every meeting planner will have to organize a teambuilding event at some point in his or her career. Planning this type of event can bring a lot of stress. Your organization wants to grow team unity, and you need to make sure the attendees have fun. Accomplishing both of those things can seem tough. To help make your next team building planning a success, check out these 5 easy tips.
Know Your Goals For The Event
Defining the goals of your teambuilding event is a great place to start. It will give you a clearer picture of what type of event you need to plan. If your goals are to get your team motivated behind a new product, starting off with a meeting room ice breaker is great idea. If you are just trying to have fun and build team spirit, a sporting event might be better path to take. Determining your goals is easy, just open up a Microsoft Word document and start jotting down all the things you want to have accomplished at the end of your meeting. You can easily define your meeting goals from there.
Meeting Room Ice Breakers That Work
If you find yourself faced with a jet-lagged crowd in your Monday morning General Session, it’s your job as a meeting planner to get the energy pumped into the room.
Here are some quick steps to an easy meeting room ice breaker called The Company Herald:
Meeting goals: Get ready for the new sales year and teach about your company’s new line of product
- Get your group into small teams and spread them around the room, giving each of them a flip chart. Think about your teams in advance…this is a great chance to mix people together that don’t work together often. As always, make it fun! Raise the team spirit by giving each group a color. Giving everyone matching bandanas, bracelets, necklaces and other inexpensive accessories can help drive up team spirit!
Using the flip chart, start by each team creating a title for their newspaper and a catchy tag-line. Let the group know it’s okay to be creative and unique.
Next, have each team design the front page of your company’s newspaper with major headlines. Try to keep it fun. Let each team know that some headlines can be serious and others can be funny. It’s Monday morning and the group could use a good laugh.
Go around the room and have each team present their team names and headlines. Everyone will love to hear all the different titles and taglines, and it will definitely get the energy up!
Watch as the teams work together and get excited to be in your meeting!
You did it! You pulled off an easy meeting room ice breaker. Congrats!
Partner With A Charity
As a planner, you can never go wrong partnering with a charity and giving back to the community. Many charity organizations offer volunteer opportunities that foster team building, and make your life as a planner a little bit easier. Habitat for Humanity is an amazing organization that definitely brings your group together in a fun and unique way, where team work is key. Plus, they will be able to see what they and their teammates did years after the house is completed.
Games Make It Easy
A great way to keep your teambuilding event simple is to set up different games or run a tournament. The rules are already written, so it takes some pressure off of you! If you find yourself at a venue with a variety of things to do, give your group options like golf, tennis, soccer, kayaking or other fun activities.
Everyone loves a good game and it’s a classic way to drive up team morale. Always remember to keep it fun and encourage team names, slogans and colors!
Partner With A Hotel That Offers Teambuilding & Recreation
Site selection can have a major impact on your teambuilding event. If you know team building is going to be a focus, you can narrow down your search to include hotels and resorts that offer recreation and teambuilding departments. Many hotels and resorts around the world have amazing options already in place. Focusing your site selection search around teambuilding at the beginning will help you pull off the perfect team building event.