Interactive Team-Building Exercises

Whose Shoes?

• A good icebreaker, especially for more laid-back situations, or ones hoping to become so, starts with all team members sitting in a circle. Everyone in the circle should simultaneously remove their shoes and throw them into the middle. The first person (a volunteer) chooses a pair of shoes and gives a description of who she thinks might wear them, based only on the impression she gets from the type of shoes and their condition. When the describer is done, she must choose whom she thinks the shoes belong to, and then the real owner steps forward, chooses a pair and continues the game.

Move It, Buddy

• Another team-building game created for the beginning of a gathering has the aim of remembering names. Group members stand in a circle with one volunteer in the middle. Those in the circle have a limited amount of time (30 seconds or a minute) to memorize the full names of the people standing immediately to their left and right. The person in the middle will then point to someone in the circle and say, "left" or "right." If that person can't produce the correct name, he goes to the center, and the game continues. If he can, the person in the center chooses another person in the circle to quiz.

Two Truths and a Lie

• Groups whose members know one another moderately well, and are a little more comfortable with their group than they were at the start, can play a game in which each person tells two correct statements about themselves and one false one, changing the order of the statements. The rest of the group must then decide which "fact" is untrue.

Essence Circle

• Designed to be played at a meeting, seminar or camp as they are wrapping up, this game is for people who have worked together on something for a long time and know one another quite well. Everyone gathers in a circle, writes their names down on slips of paper and stuffs the papers into a hat, box or other container. Each person in the circle pulls out a name and describes that person, not by their appearance, name or gender, but by their essence. The group tries to guess who has been described, and the person whose name was on the paper continues the game.