Communication Activities for Team Meetings

Human Pizza

• For an icebreaker activity for your team meeting, try this communication-building exercise. Start by writing sets of cards that have a pizza ingredient written on each one. For example, ingredients such as pepperoni, dough, mozzarella cheese and pizza sauce work well. Make as many sets of these ingredients as you can, making sure you have enough cards for every player. Hand off the cards to the players and tell them they each have to assemble themselves into groups. Tell them that each group needs only one ingredient each but must include all of the ingredients necessary to make a pizza. The players have to talk to each other to figure out which ingredients they have and which they need. Continue the activity until everyone has formed into groups of "pizzas."

Switch

• Play this entertaining communication-building game by first dividing the participants into two teams. Give the first team, Team A, 10 clothing accessories. Items such as necklaces, scarves and hats work well. Tell them to put these on among themselves. When ready, stand Team A at the front of the meeting area. Give the second team, Team B, two minutes to survey Team A to try and memorize the accessories all the players have on. Then, have Team A leave the room and switch the accessories around among themselves. They enter the room for another two minutes for Team B to figure out which items have been switched to which players. The teammates must communicate together to accurately decide which items have been switched. Record how many guesses they made correctly. Then, let Team A have its turn at guessing. The team with the most correct guesses wins the game.

Back-Seat Driver

• See how well your team can communicate together while making their way through an obstacle course. First, create a small obstacle course in an open room using whatever furniture you have available. Then, divide the players into pairs. Each pair decides which partner becomes the leader and which becomes the back-seat driver. Pick one pair to go first. Blindfold the leader and position him at the start of the course. The back-seat driver stands directly behind him. When you say "Go," the back-seat driver has to give the leader instructions to move through the obstacle course without hitting any of the obstacles. If the leader hits any of the obstacles, the pair has to start over from the beginning. Allow all of the pairs to make their way through the obstacle course. The activity should allow your teammates to understand the role communication plays in problem-solving.