Team Building Activity: The Telephone

This team building activity is a variation of the game where people get together and pass along a phone message by whispering it to the next person until it comes out the other end, often quite different than the way it started. Gather your group and have them do the following:

• Have people get in a line, sitting or standing.
• Have a person at one end whisper a message (give them a message that you've written on a piece of paper) it in the next person's ear.
• Have the next person whisper what he or she heard to the next person.
• Repeat until the message gets to the end of the line.
• Have the last person say what he or she heard out loud.
• Have the first person indicate how close to the original message the final message is.

Next, have the group repeat the activity but, this time, ask them to do it with total accuracy. In other words, the message needs to be exactly the same at the end of the line as the beginning. Give the group a couple of minutes to discuss with each other how they're going to do it and then repeat the activity. When they're done, ask the following questions.

• What needed to happen to ensure the message was accurate at the end of the line?
• What was each person's role?
• What worked?
• What might have been improved?
• How is this activity about team building?
• How can what they did in this activity be applied in the workplace?

The idea in this team building activity is for people to participate in a group where the members are all working toward a common goal. It demonstrates how people can get things done collaboratively by practicing positive behaviors. You can also have two groups do this activity, which gives you the opportunity to compare and contrast their approaches.

Take care,

Guy
Team Building