Do-It-Yourself Virtual Team Building
Team-Building Discussion
Team Check Up (approximately 30 minutes)
With people working remotely and struggling with the demands of work and home, teamwork can suffer. To ensure your team stays healthy, there are three tensions that are critical to manage.
- Acceptance AND Accountability
- Working Collaboratively AND Working Independently
- Task AND Relationship
At your next virtual meeting have your team assess the health of each of these tensions and generate ideas that can take them to the next level of effectiveness.
Step 1 – Send this article (click here to download) to your team members 3-5 days before the virtual meeting.
Step 2 – Schedule a 30-minute online meeting with Zoom or another video conferencing option. When communicating the meeting login information with the team, attach this handout and encourage team members to either print it out or have it on their screen during the meeting (click here to download).
Step 3 – Spend a few minutes welcoming the group and reviewing the key messages from the article. Go around and have each team member share which of the three tensions they feel they are managing best since the COVID crisis and why. Next, go around and have each team member share which of the three tensions they feel has suffered since the COVID crisis, and offer a suggestion on how this could be improved. After hearing from everyone, thank the team for having the courage to share, and reinforce how important it is for them to keep their eye on these tensions and work hard to manage them in a healthy way.
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Icebreaker
The Feelings Wheel (approximately 5-15 minutes)
Carve out some time to deliberately build empathy and understanding before getting down to business at your next virtual meeting. This icebreaker will provide your team members an opportunity to go beyond what they are doing and share how they are doing.
Step 1 – Before digging into the meeting agenda items, share “The Feelings Wheel” on your screen with all participants (click here to download the slide).
Step 2 – Explain that the feelings wheel starts in the middle with the most commonly understood emotions, and then works its way out to be more specific. Have people choose the two emotions from the wheel that best describe how they are doing at that very moment.
Step 3 – If the number of participants is large (12+) you can simply have people put the two emotions into the “chat” feature. If the meeting has a lower number of participants (12 or less) you can go around and have each person share the emotions with the group. The icebreaker does not need to be debriefed, however, acknowledging that we are in a time when people are experiencing a wide range of emotions and that’s expected and OK, can set a healthy tone for the rest of the meeting.
Note – thanks to Brené Brown for making this activity popular during this challenging season.
Have fun!
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