There are some people I just love working with, and Leanne Hughes is one of them. Leanne is a dynamic innovator in team and business performance, and master facilitator. I jumped at the opportunity when she called me up and asked…
“I have an hour and half to fill in the afternoon session for a team day I’m running, do you have any ideas about what we could do? Also… it’s next week!”
Absolutely I had ideas. Lots! I also had a few nerves about pulling it together so quickly, but here’s the questions I asked:
What is the theme of the day?
What does the client want to get out of it?
What is the company and the group like? Quiet? Loud? Connected? Strangers? What are the culture vibes?
(Importantly) How many people are there?
Team bonding, creativity, innovation, collaboration and connection don’t always have to be complicated theorised activities. I am all about simplifying. My mission is to provide experiences that get people’s brains out of work and into something that fosters connection with the self and others in a creative way. This group was primed for it, Leanne had worked with the organisation before, and had designed the day to be all about connection.
So the activity I landed on was ‘Portrait Pals’. This involved pairing up to ask questions to get to know one another, and then creating a collage portrait about them, with a short drawing lesson in amongst. Once the creations were made, people got up and introduced their ‘pal’ to other people using the art piece they’d created. The room was buzzing with laughing, chatter, and banter.
Here are the reasons why this worked so well:
People were positioned at tables next to people they mightn’t be familiar with, so this was a perfect way to get to know each other.
Using limited resources of a couple of magazines, pens, glitter, stickers scissors and glue meant creative brains were activated! The bartering for magazine images was pretty fun too.
Most importantly team bonding, collaboration, connection and creativity all happened without even using these words.
I’ll admit that gathering the resources required for a collage activity for 130 people within a week was somewhat frantic, luckily I have kids who helped me package the materials.
I absolutely love doing this. If you’re interested in something similar for part of a day or a team building activity, please get in touch. (It’s usually much preferred if I have more than a week’s notice!)