Tag: business team building exercises

In business team building exercises, executive team building exercises, Facilitation, improve organizational performance, Organizational Development Tools

I was asked the above question today in Quora and I shared what I thought was a simple response:

“It is NOT “the exercise” but The Debriefing.

Spending some time playing a game or doing some kind of group activity will change nothing because people will generally not reflect on their activity in any way that will set up the cognitive dissonance needed to change behavior. Sure, fun is fun, and the fun can set up a positive memory. And if the exercise is collaborative, then maybe some bonding and trust improvement might result.

I would suggest you evaluate any activity from the perspective of how it might generate solid discussions. If the activity is for collaboration but teams choose to compete rather than work together, can you neatly link those things together in the context of organizational improvement?

If the goal is, for example, “to mine as much gold as we can,” do the teams work together to optimize overall results to accomplish the overall mission, or do they choose to “win?” And, do their choices designed to win actually reduce the successes of other teams?

“Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine” is one such example of a business simulation that has clear metaphors about teamwork and clear, measurable processes to allow for solid discussions about things people and teams can choose to do differently. (Disclosure: My game, sold worldwide for 25+ years.)

There are a few other exercises / simulations out there that allow for good discussions. The role of the session facilitator is critical and the exercise should provide them with solid tools to generate discussions and followup. Little change should be expected from some interactive activity with little discussion and no followup.”

The person asking the question responded as I thought he might because of the nature of the question. He said, “Thanks Scott! This is helpful and you’ve helped me identify a problem with team building exercises I’ve previously been a participant in. They’ve often lacked a debriefing or meaningful discussion of any kind.”

This is actually a very common thought from participants who go through team bonding or even some programs said to be team building. There is a goal of getting through the activity but not a focus on discussing what could be done morebetterfaster or what changes might be implemented.

What are YOUR thoughts on his question? You can respond to that herein or back on the Quora discussion you can find here: https://www.quora.com/What-are-examples-of-team-building-exercises-that-actually-work

For the FUN of It!

Scott Simmerman – “The Square Wheels Guy!
Performance Management Company
3 Old Oak Drive, Taylors SC 29687 USA
864-292-8700

www.PerformanceManagementCompany.com

Press Release on Lost Dutchman’s Teambuilding Exercise 25th year

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On April 20, 2017

In Articles on Teamwork, business team building exercises, Corporate Team Building Games, employee motivation, executive team building exercises

We’re a small business and some things are just normally out of our range of motion but we wanted to do a Press Release about our 25th year of supporting The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine team building exercise worldwide. It has continued to be a fun and interesting and rewarding experience for me to be supporting so many people and trying to have an impact on people and performance.

Joan created and polished this piece, which I think is outstanding given the limitation of 600 words and the focus of making this an integral part of our interesting company story:

Are Team Building Exercises a Waste of Money?
No, According to New Survey

User survey for “The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine”
finds 100% would recommend the exercise to others based on performance and value

TAYLORS, SC, April 17, 2017—While many people believe that Team Building Events don’t generally work, Users of Performance Management Company’s The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine Team Building Exercise hold a much different belief. Based on results received from a Users’ Survey of Dutchman, 100% of the responders said they would recommend the exercise to others based on its performance outcome and value.

Celebrating its 25^th year in the global marketplace, this top performing exercise has helped hundreds of companies generate real discussions about the negative impacts of competition on organizational improvement. Dutchman’s design produces measurable results to clearly show participants how their behaviors sub-optimize outcomes, including the overwhelming choice to compete rather than collaborate.

“A good teambuilding game design, one allowing teams to make choices, can link beautifully to a debriefing focused on making better choices for improving and optimizing organizational improvement. In Dutchman, players readily see the many negative aspects of inter-organizational competition, so we get them to choose alternatives to generate more collaboration and alignment to shared goals and outcomes.”

So says Dr. Scott Simmerman, Dutchman’s creator, a behavioral neurophysiologist specializing in organization performance and Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984.

When about 1/3 of a workforce would forgo a raise to instead see their boss fired, doesn’t it make more sense to build a cohesive team and increase shared goals? And when only 1 in 3 managers are engaged in their jobs, should we not look to do some real things to improve their workplace? Is doing the same thing going to ever generate a different result?

Users value Dutchman because it:

Easily sets up an engaging, fun learning experience with a successful outcome for any group size or type from shop floor workers to senior management.
Contains extensive, flexible debriefing materials with solid links to issues of workplace collaboration, leadership development and motivation.
Clearly shows participants how their behaviors impact ROI for the organization as well as for their own personal improvement.
Offers real value and measurable impact to their organizations.
Motivates people, improves performance results and strengthens communications.

While many things are sold as “team building,” few have actual impact. They may be fun, such as playing paintball, but do they change anything; do they create a viable return on investment for the organization? Dutchman has the backing of enthusiastic users, worldwide, in all kinds of organizations who use it to implement strategies or generate alternative choices.

Dutchman also wins for its various purchasing or rental options and is sold for a one-time cost with unlimited use and no per-participant fees. And, its “satisfaction guarantee” has yet to be necessary for purchasers. Visit PMC’s website or contact Scott to learn how Dutchman will lead to constructive outcomes and teamwork for your organization.

About Performance Management Company:

Performance Management Company designs team building exercises and is the creator of The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, its flagship exercise. It is also the creator of Square Wheels^® images for organizational improvement that are packaged in various Toolkits for Managers and Supervisors. PMC was founded in 1984 by Scott J. Simmerman, Ph.D., Managing Partner and has been selling its products, worldwide, since 1992.

A partial list of client users: http://www.squarewheels.com/clents.html

It continues to be a great trip, working on team building with my network of users worldwide. AND, we are updating the exercise – if you own it, check with me about a free upgrade of the Intro and Debriefing materials,

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant.

One of the best teambuilding exercises in the world, as rated by his users, is The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, which focuses on leadership, collaboration, alignment and focuses on implementing the collective performance optimization ideas.

Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/

Simple, Powerful, Effective Team Building Simulation

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On October 29, 2014

In Articles on Teamwork, business team building exercises, Corporate Team Building Games, executive team building exercises, experiential learning, motivation in the workplace, The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine continues to generate really positive feedback from customers. Since 1993, it has been continuously improved and refined to the point where it runs seamlessly, generates wonderful reflection, and clearly mirrors the organizational culture of the players.

We just had a situation where a senior line manager again rented the exercise for a team building and organizational development session she was leading for her team. The company is an electrical utility and she had about 50 managers in her new organization that she wanted to work with. The Lost Dutchman game was part of her overall goal of getting to know her people better and building some trust.

She had rented the Dutchman game in her previous assignment and had liked the outcomes and discussions it generated. This time, she liked it even more!

The team building exercise sets up situations where players and teams have a variety of choices, and their strategic planning and collaboration within and between teams generates measurable results and a return on investment. When a team plays well, they generate good results. When the team chooses to try to beat the other teams, we generally see measurable sub-optimizing impacts on overall results.

Here are the comments from a young church leader, who had experienced the exercise as part of the DeVos Foundation work with leadership development and the inner city and who then used the game to impact his church and generate much better alignment and team building:

People make choices, and we debrief on the choices made and how those same choices relate to their workplace, their alignment as team members of the group, and how choosing to compete impacts the culture as well as the customer. The goal of the exercise is to Mine as much Gold as we can and the role of the Expedition Leader is to help teams be successful. ALL of this relates very directly to workplace improvement.

We love to get this continuing stream of positive comments and testimonials about how the play of the game impacts people and performance. It is confirmation that our plans have generated positive impacts and changes,

For the FUN of It!

 Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/
Scott’s quips and quotes on Poems on The Workplace is here.

Team Building with Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On August 8, 2014

In Corporate Team Building Games, executive team building exercises, experiential learning, large group team building events, Leadership Development Game, Team work

After 22 years in the global organizational improvement marketplace, The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine still continues to receive the highest kudos from users. Below is feedback just received from new user Barry Howarth, Director of The Engagement People in the UK, who bought the Pro Version of Dutchman a few weeks ago and had this to say after his first run with it:

The event went brilliantly and the feedback was very positive so I am very happy!! The other tasks worked perfectly and the debrief brought the whole thing together.

“Dutchman” is a truly inspirational piece of work which manages to be fun and engage delegates while driving a massive amount of learning at all levels in an organisation.

Barry has plans to run a sessions of 200 people this month. Meanwhile, Robin Speculand, Strategy Implementation Specialist in Singapore and a long-term user of Dutchman has this to say:

I have been using the Lost Dutchman for 19 years and it never fails as a business simulation to stimulate the participants and create excellent learning. Its close link to business reality makes it a winner as well as the energy it creates. I have run it at 8 pm at night after a full day and the energy is just as good as at 8 am.

While some organizations have cut back on team building kinds of events, we’ve found that Dutchman remains one of the marketplace strongholds for helping organizations build collaborative teams. This is simply because it performs beyond the typical team building fun and games. Its quick playing adventure leads to a strong Debriefing that links game play to organizational issues and makes all the difference in exceeding learning expectations.

You can find a complete overview of the exercise by clicking the icon below:

You can review the framework for Debriefing this and other experiential learning teambuilding exercises by clicking on this icon:

If you have the desire to use Dutchman in your organization or to introduce this as a workshop or event to your clients, we’d love to help you make that happen because we know it will make a turnaround difference in the workplace.And it is truly one of the best games for big events, lending itself to aligning large groups to organizational goals or to generate ideas for implementation.

By using Lost Dutchman in a training and development event, you’ll be giving people a learning experience that has been used to create positive impact, worldwide since 1993, one that continues to exceed expectations because of how well it works to cause performance and organizational improvement to take place.

I guarantee that the Dutchman exercise does everything we say it does and I have 22 years of customers and testimonials to support that guarantee. Please also feel free to connect directly with me to ask questions or to get clarification on the offer or the exercise or any of our other products and services.

You can find a link to a compendium of blog posts about using the exercise and in presenting large group team building events here

And let me add one other thought. I really make a big deal out of client support. I will go WAY out of my way to help someone, whether is is customizing some of the materials for a special focus or simply answering questions. I developed and did a webcast on facilitating the game for a very large group of people who were running the game all over the US — we had 50 people on the program and I did it from a McDonald’s half way down to Tampa since I was on the road when it was most convenient. Purchase a game from me and you get as much support as you need! Dutchman is MY baby!

So, please feel free to connect directly with me at Scott@SquareWheels.com or 864-292-8700 to ask questions or to get clarification on the offer or the exercise or any of our other products and services.

For the FUN of It!

 Connect with Scott on Google+

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com or 864-292-8700

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/
Scott’s blog on Poems and Quips on Workplace Improvement is here.

Slideshare Overview of Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, a team building game

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On November 25, 2013

In Articles on Teamwork, business team building exercises, Corporate Team Building Games, executive team building exercises

In the past few weeks, people have been asking me for a fast overview of The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, something more than what is on the PMC website and a fast and clean overview that they could share with their prospects who are interested in teamwork and building collaboration or integrating an exercise into their leadership development materials. They wanted a descriptive overview and not a sales piece, which they would do independently.

The result was a Slideshare program that has just been uploaded, one that covers the basic setup and framework, and includes the key goals and desired outcomes, and goes through a solid overview of some of the key debriefing themes and tabletop questions we use.

The play of the Lost Dutchman game is really designed as, “an excuse to do a debriefing.” By design, we put metaphors in the game that would easily link to issues within organizations in any debriefing of the behaviors and outcomes resulting from playing the simulation:

Turbochargers represent Best Practices, better ways to do things than what are in general use now.
Mud represents the organizational glop, the bureaucratic goo, the cultural practices that tend to take more energy to deal with.
“The Goal is to Mine as much gold as We can,” with the “we” referring to the entire group led by the game’s Expedition Leader and not the more competitive “My Team, My Team, My Team” approach for a tabletop.
The Role of the Expedition Leader is to Help Teams Be Successful, so that the game leadership can act to help and encourage, with the reality that teams generally do not ask for help.

Overall, we designed the exercise so that players can make mistakes but continue in their play until the end. All teams are successful, but some are more successful than the others. We show the results randomly instead of ranking tops down, simply because ALL the results contribute to the overall total ROI — and we also task the top performing teams with questions about why they chose to not assist or support the lower performing teams.

We’ve got tons of testimonials about the effectiveness of Lost Dutchman in a wide variety of organizational settings on a global basis. Feedback from our many users supports our belief that Dutchman works elegantly as a most powerful and easy-to-deliver team building game that addresses the issues of strategic planning and collaboration within and between teams. Below is one of many testimonials and others are also, here, on our website:

Thanks for taking the time to read through this. You will find dozens of other Dutchman articles in my blog around the general themes of improving teamwork, working with large groups, ideas for debriefing and similar.

Energize and positively impact future performance of your own teams, organization or clients with this worthwhile game.

For the FUN of It!

Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/
Scott’s blog on Poems and Quips on Workplace Improvement is here.

Annotated Abstracts of Management Team Building articles

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On August 15, 2013

In business team building exercises, Engagement, executive team building exercises, motivational team building exercises, Organizational Development Tools, team building event ideas, Team Building Games

Many of my posts are descriptive of ideas for business management team building exercises and posts on how to use training events to impact engagement and involvement for workplace improvement. This seems especially true for those focused on executive development, since the actions at the top have so many impacts as they cascade down through the organization.

One of my basic beliefs on these kinds of motivational team building exercises is that these events can be fun but that they can also be inexpensive and tightly linked to specific organizational objectives. One of the things we do is to deliver such sessions and then sell the client the simulation to run themselves through training or other kinds of developmental initiatives. They are really good when bundled into a strategy rollout kind of strategy.

What I did for this blog was simple: I searched my posts on “Motivational Team Building” and came up with about 20 different articles among the 275 in the blog. Then, I selected 5 that seemed most relevant to someone searching for that kind of information.

1 – In Lessons from The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, a game on teamwork and collaboration, we focus on some of the key learning points in our teambuilding exercise. One is that collaboration, even when it is encouraged, is really hard to generate. People choose more often to compete even when it sub-optimizes results. It is also easy to see that the three most important resources are Time, Information and Each Other. We also then talk about the issues of My Team, My Team, My Team and how we can help organizations improve overall collaboration and engagement.

2 – The post, “Maximizing Team Building Impacts with Senior Managers,” addresses how to involve and engage the top managers of an organization with the goal of cascading the teamwork and alignment down. In many organizations, the phrase interdepartmental collaboration is an oxymoron, and it exists because of exclusive measurement systems and the competition between leadership – causing the silos. This article focuses on working with senior management and shares some thinking about how to implement this initiative throughout an organization.

3 – Innovation, Strategy and Motivation is focused on my thinking about the overall effectiveness of a program I did in Mumbai, India for a group of very senior managers. It was focused on my friend Robin Speculand’s approach to strategy implementation and wrapped around my Square Wheels illustrations as tools for generating alignment and engagement. I include links to Dan Pink’s materials on intrinsic motivation and also relate to other resources for impacting people and productivity.

4 – Does Teamwork Work? Issues and Ideas for Improvement is about the basic design of team building programs and their linking to organizational improvement. There are a lot of activities out there representing themselves as team building that may or may not be truly effective in linking to real organizational improvement initiatives and business process improvement. Many might have aspects of collaboration or team thinking involved, but are they really designed to facilitate a powerful debriefing? Dutchman was designed to link to issues of optimizing performance results.

5 – In Workplace Motivation – “I Quit! Nevermind. Whatever…“, there is a solid review of the data and statistics on workplace motivation, which anchors really well to what we can do differently to better involve and engage individuals and teams for performance improvement. The data show that there are just so many people going through the motions of working, and that they could accomplish a lot more if the workplace was more situationally engaging. People can do more, and they will if you allow them. It is a lot about Intrinsic Motivation.

These are a few of almost 300 articles in my blog, ON PERFORMANCE. I hope that you find some of these ideas of use and benefit as you move things forward in your organization or for your clients.

Plus, I am just starting up a blog of poems, quips, one-liners and other illustrated cartoons with captions and slogans. You can check it out at http://poemsontheworkplace.wordpress.com/

We believe that we have some of the most useful tools for communications and organizational development that exist. Our team building games are simple and effective and our Square Wheels toolkits easily involve and engage people to share and implement their ideas for improvements.

Have FUN out there!

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/

Does Teamwork Work? Issues and Ideas for Improvement

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On July 25, 2013

In Uncategorized

There are people who think that no teamwork actually works to improve performance and that the effort and expense are a waste of energy and time. Yeah, maybe. But it does require some planning and alignment to the real issues and opportunities of improving management team building for business improvement.

More and more, I see and hear about some exercises that really sound like mediocre ideas for impacting workplace performance and just do not understand how some of those activities are actually linked to performance improvement. Sure, tossing balls around in a circle with more speed the second time can demonstrate better coordination of a group’s activities and, yeah, seeing that improvement after people talk about how they could do it differently does indicate that teamwork works. But what the heck? How do you really make that activity bridge to improving interdepartmental collaboration when the bosses of those departments are not involved in the activity.

(And I DO think that paintball might be a fun activity to watch as the different department heads duel it out on an individual basis for Leadership Supremacy. But I really doubt that winning that exercise will dramatically improve trust and respect among each other or that is it is an optimal paradigm for building teams within an entire organization — paintball sets up, by design, competing groups with no possibility of collaboration. You know that they sell paintball mortars, right? Designed to kill lots of players with one well-placed shot.)

We know that there are many different kinds of troubles with implementing strategies and there are issues of organizational culture and divergent measurement systems that do NOT lend themselves to organizational team building or organizational alignment interventions. There are a lot of different intra-group and inter-group issues that can be directly addressed with interventions and team building, things that can be readily discussed and resolved once the issues are smoked-out.

PMC has a vested interest in the issue, since we design and sell interactive team building activities focused on resolving issues of engagement and collaboration between teams.

The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, for example, has proven itself in its ability to generate commitment for change and improvement since 1993. It’s about solving problems, strategic planning, and collaboration with others who have information they could share. It is about working with others under the pressures of time, with measurable results.

And there IS a lot of crap training out there calling itself teamwork, in my opinion. I have attended and participated in way too many to pretend that they do not exist. Some are just plain goofy!

Yeah, let’s all cheer for the outstanding bag jumper while it is 105 degrees…

My particular pet peeves are around activities like Firewalking, Paintball and High Ropes — “training events” that have few links to issues of people working together to solve problems, interacting to define things to improve, etc. I just do not believe that “team bonding” is a sufficiently powerful incentive to change workplace business practives.

And Golf as team building? Really? HOW??— Sure, golfers are known as great teammates and team play is crucial to success (Not!). Maybe when the players are boozing it up at the 19th hole, but not during play, most certainly. It is one-on-one-on-one-on one, or maybe two pairs against each other. They cannot help each other, unless maybe reading a putt.

Bowling? Maybe. Cooking? Maybe, if one is running a big commercial kitchen in a restaurant or hotel and each of team is responsible for ONE aspect of that meal and they are collaborating on the overall timing… But just let one try to help another by offering some “help” in the way of advice.

Too many people ride as cowboys in their organizations – they are one-man bands, working alone and not in concert. There are too many workplaces that reward individual performance and then think they can expect their people to work together. In so many organizations — with lots of research supporting this — many of the people are not engaged and many are DIS-engaged. One might not expect much in the way of collaboration from those people.

A recent Fierce, Inc., survey found:

86% of respondents blame lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.
70% of individuals either agree or strongly agree that a lack of candor impacts the company’s ability to perform optimally.
97% of those surveyed believe the lack of alignment within a team directly impacts the outcome of any given task or project.
90% of respondents believe decision-makers should seek out other opinions before making a final decision; approximately 40% feel leaders and decision-makers consistently fail to do so.

But we can motivate people and drive alignment to shared goals. People want to feel successful and not be scared by the risks of performing. We need to get them to a new place, mentally.

In high performing workplaces, you will also see a collaborative culture where people work together to handle issues and solve problems. Granted, that approach may not work too well in places like Real Estate, Mortgage Lending or Stock Market Sales, but we do see a strong need for collaboration and commitment where things like production or product design or customer service come into play.

Take any group of people, give them some common goals, measure them on shared performance, and allow them the ability to help each other and you have the basics for a workplace situation where teamwork will arise. Then, do some activity that demonstrates the benefit of collaboration on the overall results — something like, “The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine.”

Then, debrief that activity and discuss the choices that people made along with the choices they COULD have made, link it to the issues they see in their own workplace, and allow them to make commitments to each other (peer support) and you are highly likely to see improvement (if there is a bit of followup after the session).

Think of all the activities that we engage in where teamwork is absolutely essential to accomplishment — sports is but one endeavor. As my North Carolina Tar Heels demonstrated (yeah, I know about Duke winning the ACC Tourney), their improved collaboration and teamwork was visibly what enabled them to run out 20-3 for the last part of the season. Lacking that teamwork, they started at 6-4… Same players, but a different level of confidence, communication and effort.

And esprit de corps is most certainly higher in those places where people are involved and engaged and working together toward common goals.

Does Teamwork not work? I don’t think so. Teamwork is ALL about group performance. Teamwork always works if we don’t prevent it from working.

Sure, individuals can excel individually, but only through collaboration with others and if they are involved and engaged. Only with motivation can we get a group of people collaborating to high levels of accomplishment and performance.

It is about leadership. It is about identifying opportunities for improvement and then celebrating the successes that are gained.

Have more FUN out There!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant.  Connect with Scott on Google+ – you can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/

Implementing Changes after Team Building Events

By Dr. Scott Simmerman

On June 19, 2013

In Articles on Teamwork, business team building exercises, Corporate Team Building Games, executive team building exercises, Metaphors for business improvement

As I have written elsewhere, companies are spending around $200,000,000,000 annually on “training” based on analyses by the American Society for Training and Development. And a variety of posts in discussion threads on LinkedIn indicate that the “team building game delivery industry” remains fairly robust. Lots of companies are doing events to improve teamwork and collaboration.

But are they really generating successes?

Dissatisfaction with the impacts of team building seem high when companies analyze the impacts of that spending. People may remember all the fun they had or the awful weather they endured or the dangers they faced with the paintballs, but few of these activities tightly link to organizational change back at the workplace. The buzz about Firewalking claims that it is life-changing, but few organizations can demonstrate improved workplace productivity as a result of such events.

Performance Management Company’s approach to team building exercises has always been different (since 1993). We focus on themes like project management or strategic planning or interdepartmental collaboration through metaphor and tight, easily facilitated game design. In The Search for The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine,

we provide people with limited but sufficient resources,
force people to analyze information in a challenge to optimize results,
make tabletops evaluate and share risk, and
then to execute a plan of action within time limits.

The exercise rewards sharing of physical information between tabletops to optimize measured results and links choices and behaviors directly to measured results, much like what occurs in the workplace.

Where Dutchman differs from most other activities is in the debriefing, where we can discuss and evaluate issues like the emotions that result when a challenge occurs, the tendency to compete rather than collaborate, the measured impacts of not sharing information on ROI, and other business factors related to how people and teams perform in the workplace.

(actual worksheets have smaller illustrations and more room for capturing ideas)

The Dutchman game is loaded with a variety of debriefing questions and worksheets that help any facilitator make serious connections between ideas and implementation. The question compendium allows one to easily customize the debriefing to focus on specific desired developmental outcomes.

The main goal in Lost Dutchman is to drive the implementation of new behaviors that will better support improved performance results. Yes, it is fun and challenging, but it is tightly anchored to real-world behavioral change themes for teams and departments. No fluff.

(And it can handle very large groups, elegantly and effectively.
More on that here. And some testimonials are here.)

For the FUN of It!

Follow Scott’s posts on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/scottsimmerman/

Ideas on People and Performance, Team Building, Motivation and Innovation

Tag: business team building exercises

What are examples of team building exercises that actually work?

Press Release on Lost Dutchman’s Teambuilding Exercise 25th year

Simple, Powerful, Effective Team Building Simulation

Team Building with Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

Slideshare Overview of Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine, a team building game

Annotated Abstracts of Management Team Building articles

Does Teamwork Work? Issues and Ideas for Improvement

Implementing Changes after Team Building Events