Introductory activities to Building trust

[Aave1973]

Exercise 1 : juggling balls

Objectives
The purpose of the introductory activity, designed for a new team or group, is:
• To introduce team members to each other and to build connections
• To being a process of collaboration and shared learning that characterises effective teams
• To recognise the different skills and qualities that individuals bring to the team
• To identify similarities and differences, as the first step in identifying potential team roles

So….at a very simple level, we want an introductory exercise that does the following things:
1. Introduces team members to each other by name and helps them to remember those names
2. Begins to identify different people’s skills or experiences and suggest what they might be able to bring to the group
3. Starts a process of working together, demonstrating early team cooperation and showing how teamwork can be improved over time

Material needed : 5 à 6 juggling balls

Steps

1. Form the group into a circle, standing. Begin by giving the ball to one person. Person 1 ensures to have eye contact with another person and then throws the ball to that person and states his/her name e.g. “Ann”. Person 2 receives the ball and says his/her own name, before passing to the next person.
2. Once all names have been stated, a 2d ball is being introduced. Persons are now asked to mention the name of the person they are throwing the ball towards. Ball 1 is still in the loop as well (associated to your own name). Each balls should follow a different pattern but each pattern associated to a ball should be repeated the same way over and over again.
3. Now a 3d ball is being added, and when throwing this ball, the persons need to share their favourite food.As before, the ball should be thrown following a new pattern to be repeated over and over again
4. A 4th ball is being introduced, and should always be passed to the person on your left saying “hello”
5. A 5th ball is now added, where persons will share one of their specific skills when throwing the ball or something that makes them unique in this team.

Move out of the circle, break into trios or small groups and open a discussion around what the team members feel is important about teamwork in general, and more specifically, want they want to experience as a member of this team.

Collate the information, ask for a group member to present it back and you have the basis for your ‘contracting’ process – the setting of expectations and ground-rules about how the group members want to work together throughout the training programme and beyond.

Exercise 2 : mouse traps

Objectives
Building trust in a team is essential. Trust tends to be developed slowly but some simple exercises can give people an experience of interdependence and how it feels to rely upon someone else in the team.

Material needed:
– About 30 mouse traps
– Blindfolds for 50pc of the participants

Steps :
– Display all the mouse traps in the room
– Ask participants to pair up and ask one of the persons in the pairs to lift up hands. Those persons will be blindfolded for the exercise and are required to be barefoot.
– All blindfolded persons are aligned on one hand of the room and will be requested to reach the other end of the room, with the support of their pair’s guidance. Their pair can only use words and should never be guiding them by holding them. Ideally all these “guides” should be positioned on the side (e.g. all on the left side of the blinded persons) and behind a line positioned on the floor so that they can not speak closely to the person they guide.
– The winner is the team which blindfolded person reaches the other end of the room the first
Note: the challenging dimension here is that all guides are speaking together and creates chaos for the person following the instructions

– Change roles and continue to experiment with how each partner experiences dependence and support. A new instruction is added, namely that the guide can only use ONE word to guide the other person (by doing so, we increase the level of difficulty (perceived risk). (Note: the trick here is that pairs should be creative enough to reflect on different intonations/speed etc to code directions.)
– As before, the winning team is the one which blindfolded person reaches the other end of the room as first.

Have pairs debrief on their experience and more especially
– What was difficult for them in the exercise?
– To what extend were they fully trusting their “guide”? Which thoughts did they have about the exercise? Which thought were they holding about their “guide”? What is the leader doing that builds trust? What causes anxiety?
– What would help to trust the “guide” (more) quickly? And look into both expectations about the “guide’s” skills etc, and also what the blindfolded person needs to let go to trust other (so look outward AND inward)

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