Team Building Exercises for Adults

To achieve organization goals it is important that each member understands that they are part of a team. Managers have recognized the importance of activities that promote and stress on the importance of team work. To cater to this industry need, many enterprising companies have sprung up which offer expert services to business organizations in arranging indoor and outdoor team building exercises for adults. However, if you are willing to put in some time and energy you can arrange some easy team building exercises for adults.

Team Building Activities for Adults

There are several activities that you could easily arrange for your team members, even with limited resources. To start with, chart out the objective of the program and decide the time frame for your activities, this will help you in the planning process. Here are some free team building exercises for adults.

Card Castle
You will need a few decks of cards, newspapers, and couple of table fans for the card castle game. Divide the team members in two to three groups, if required you can make more groups. Give each group a couple of decks of cards and assign them an area where they can build their castle. Give each group a set of newspaper and put a running table fan on the assigned spot to increase the difficulty level. Set a time limit for the activity and observe as the teams struggle in building a castle with a running fan blowing it away. In most cases teams will get a member to block the fan with the newspaper while they build the castle. At the end of the game point out that without team work this simple task would be very difficult.

Treasure Hunt
This is a fun way for team bonding and inculcating the benefits of team work on an experiential level. Buy gifts to substitute the treasure and leave clues that will lead to the treasure. Make three to four groups of the participants and hand each team a set of clues that lead to the treasure. Divide the treasure hunt in 4-5 different stages and stipulate that for every stage different team members will solve the clues. Other teammates can help from the side lines if they have finished a stage. The team who finds the treasure first wins. Now highlight the winning team's success by pointing out incidences of their team work.

Obstacle Course
One of the team building exercises for adults that can be organized outdoors is the obstacle course. Divide the participants in 2 groups, mark a route which weaves around itself and make people from one group stand as obstacles on this route. Get team members from the second group to navigate the course one at a time. There is a catch here, the team member who is navigating the course has to be blindfolded. His teammates can shout out instructions to help him navigate the course without bumping in to the human obstacles. The team working as obstacle can alter the place of the obstacles for each new member of the navigation team. After everyone from the navigation team is done, they will reverse the role and become obstacles and the other team will then navigate the course.

Actor Factor
Team members acting skills will be called in to play in this game. Divide the participants in two groups and call out 2-3 members from one group first give them a name of the movie to act out. For example if the members get the movie 'Armageddon', they will have to act out a scene from the movie that will help their teammates guess the name of the movie. They will get 3 guesses to get the name of the movie right, if they don't guess the movie they get minus point. After one group is over, 2-3 members from the other group will have to come out to act a scene from a different movie for their teammates to guess. The team who has the maximum number of points at the end of the stipulated time wins.

Studies conducted by human resource personnel state that team building exercises help motivate the members and improve their performance. These exercises also contribute to the learning and development process of the participants.