It has been said the first step in a change process is awareness. When we become more aware of our own actions, thoughts, and words, as well as our co-workers, we can become a better team. We can stop judging and start understanding. And ultimately, it will impact our company’s productivity.
This relatively new method of team building, called Awareness Coaching, helps individuals become self-aware — understanding their own strengths, weaknesses, and behavior tendencies and how their actions affect others.
“The all important link between performance and behavior change in organizations is the elusive quality of awareness.” — Jon R. Katzenbach
Awareness coaching in a group, allows the facilitator to guide the team members into specific perspectives about their own behavior and attitudes and how it affects others. It blends one-on-one coaching with group coaching and can be very successful if everyone involved has an open mind to the process.
Using a series of team building activities, the certified trainer can help your team reach personal and group awareness levels that cannot be replicated in the day-to-day work environment. Below are two exercises used by Fun Team Building to get your team started down this important path:
Back-Talk
Individuals are divided up into teams of 4 and this tools is meant to break down communication barriers. Often times individuals assume that people in their department don’t understand them, ignore their ideas, or are resistant to change. This may or may not be the case. It may be the way the message is communicated that needs to change. Both listening and talking are important in this exercise.
Amazing Maze
In this group exercise in which all individuals participate, the objective is to find the hidden path from one end of the maze to the other. This powerful exercise will exhibit the group dynamics and what their strengths and weaknesses are as a team.
Does your team work as a productive unit? Who are the team players? Is there room for improvement in the dynamics of your group? Is your team at maximum potential?
If you want to foster better team dynamics through awareness coaching, look no further than Fun Team Building with Larry Lipman to meet your team building needs! Contact Larry today at 770.333.3303 to learn more about how our organization can help yours!