Any team building communication activity can improve the way team members talk to each other and convey their ideas. This is a great way to engage team members and to ensure channels of communication are open.

Improvisation

One excellent team building communication activity is improvisation. You can use this activity to apply the techniques and principles of improvisational theater to venues that are not theatrical. This will improve communication between team members, while helping them to focus on self awareness, the importance of communicating a message, and self confidence. This activity also stresses listening skills and the ability to pay attention. You can complete this activity in five minutes and it requires no supplies.

Instruct team members to break off into pairs, and ask each pair to decide which person will be A and which person will be B. After that is decided, tell A to say something to B, such as, “The sky today is beautiful.” B should reply with a yes, and then make a statement that is related, such as, “Yes, and the breeze is light and warm.” The person who is A then adds another statement in the same fashion, and A and B continue back and forth like that for five minutes. When each pair finishes the activity, have the entire team meet together to discuss the activity. They can address various issues, including how it felt to be agreed with and to agree, how easy or difficult was it to listen to someone intently, how hard it was to build upon the statements, and how the technique they used can be incorporated into the workplace.

Deliberation and Delivery

Communication within a group or in a workplace can often use a boost. This team building communication activity will do just that. Throughout this activity team members will need to communicate fluently, find a balance between uniqueness and functionality, troubleshoot designs, and be extremely attentive.

Break your team down into smaller team of seven to ten people. Assign each smaller team an eight foot by eight foot area to work in, ensuring that each work area is connected to the other work areas. Give each team limited building supplies, such as tying materials, PCV piping, wooden stakes, tape, etc., and instruct each team to build a delivery system for marbles.

Also, and this is the real challenge, each team’s part of the delivery system must interface with the parts from the team’s ahead and behind them.

Putting a Team Building Communication Activity into Action

As you can see from these two activities, a team building communication activity can be as simple or elaborate as you want it to be, depending on what skills you want to stress. Choose activities that you think will be the most successful given your resources and constraints, and always give yourself enough time to properly plan.