Staff Meeting Resources: Part Two

I’ve been holding staff meetings in veterinary hospitals for 10 years.

That is a lot of monthly staff meetings.

It occurred to me perhaps others could use some of this information for their own meetings in the same way that I used this information from where ever I stole it from.

I’m envisioning this being an ongoing resource for those who have to come up with topics for discussion or team building.

You can find Part One on Customer Service here and Part Three on Communication Tools here. Part Zero, on general meeting structure and etiquette, can be found here. 

I have removed a lot of the hospital specific information and so please feel free to add, rearrange, and generally change the information to suit your practice, or business.  I’m going to try and keep similar subjects together. This week we are looking at team building exercises and games. If you end up using some of this I’d love to see your slide decks, pictures, or presentations.

Blind Trust

Separate into pairs. One of the pair is blind folded and needs to be navigated to the other side of a room full of obstacles.

The obstacles can be anything. I’ve printed out pictures of lava, snakes, poo, etc. and then taped additional sheets of paper to the pictures to make the “obstacles” interesting shapes. If you have difficulty finding blind folds elasticated headbands work really well.

Have both members of each pair stand at the same end of the room. Have one of each pair put the blind fold on. Quickly rearrange the obstacles so that the blindfolded team member done not have the benefit of having seen the layout of the course. The un-blindfolded team member instructs the blindfolded team member through the “maze” while they remain at the starting point. Then the roles are reversed. If a blindfolded team member steps on an obstacle they go back the start and they try again. If you have candy or some other kind of reward it helps get the competitive juices flowing.

This is a fun exercise that teaches the value of listening to instructions and working as a team. It does eat up a lot of time so don’t cram it into a busy meeting, particularly if you have a lot of people.

What’s That Tune?

Have a deck of index cards with the names of very recognizable tunes written on them. Split your group into two halves. Give a card to victim / volunteer and have them share the name of the tune with the rest of their group. Have the volunteer tap out the tune and see if the other group can guess that the tune is. You can then have the groups reverse their roles a couple of times. Have anyone who thinks they know the tune out their hand up rather than shout out.

The group who know what the tune is will find that it is almost impossible to believe that the other group does not recognize the tune from what is being tapped out. But then they will realize how difficult it is when it is their turn to guess.

This exercise is used to explain “the curse of knowledge.” Context and knowledge are incredibly important for communication, but they can hinder. When a person has knowledge (such as the name of a song) it can sometimes be difficult for them to understand why someone who does not have the knowledge can’t understand a less than ideal description of that knowledge. Things that are obvious to staff that deal with the subject everyday are not so obvious to clients who do not.

Song Suggestions:

Star Spangled Banner

Star Wars Theme

Jingle belles

Game of Thrones Theme

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Tower Building

Get whatever materials you have to hand. Straws, paper cups, paper plates, sticky tape, etc. Spilt your group into separate teams and see which team can build the highest free standing tower within five minutes.

This is a great ice breaker and team building exercise that is cheap and does not take a lot of time.

Call My Bluff

Works better with smaller groups of less experienced staff. Have everyone sit in a circle and have a small table with a selection of brochures for the products / services you sell. Use a stuffed toy or something similar to designate who’s turn it is to speak.

Pick a person to start who chooses a leaflet from the table. They read out three statements relating the product leaflet, one of them should be false. If someone in the circle guesses which statement is false they get to pick who gets the stuffed animal and picks a leaflet next. If someone in the circle incorrectly identifies a true answer as false they get the stuffed animal and have to pick a leaflet.

This exercise not only allows staff to learn about the products and services you sell it also helps pinpoint deficiencies in training programs.

The Prisoners’ Dilemma

Two players.

Each player should have no more than 25 coins. Tell both players that they can keep all the coins that they have at the end of 20 rounds as long as they play all 20 rounds.  However, warn them that you may play multiple games using the coins they have and they cannot reuse coins that they bet or win. Players can talk to each other but they need to hide their bet until both bets are revealed at the same time (behind or underneath a player’s hand is usually the easiest way to achieve this.)

Each player chooses whether to bet one, two, or three coins.  The player that bets the highest number of coins wins. If players bet the same they each get to keep the coins and they have survived another round.

A player that consistently bets three or two coins will run out of coins and therefore will not be able to complete all twenty rounds and will lose all their coins. A player that consistently bets one coin risks losing coins to the other player.

Ideally what should happen is that both players come to the realization that if they just agree to always bet one coin at the end of the 20 rounds they will both be 20 coins richer. However, there can be a temptation for one of the players to bet more at or near to the end. If this happens, then it is interesting to play another game with the same two players, or with a fresh player and the player who did not co-operate, and see how the cooperation goes this time.

The obvious goal it to show how working for the good of the group is actually in the interest of the individual as well. And while making a short-term gain can sometimes seem worth it in the long run everyone loses.