How to facilitate a team building retreat

I had the opportunity to facilitate a team building retreat for a small division in my organization last

week. For a good team building event, there are several steps involved. First you need to meet with the

leaders of the team you will be working with. Learn the reasons for the event, what they want to

achieve and the general personality of the team. Once you get a feel for their objectives and make up,

you get to work on putting together an agenda and schedule up follow up meetings to ensure you get

their input during all phases of the planning.

When putting together an agenda, it is important to have fluidity and be building on and towards a final

goal as identified by the stakeholders. Many retreats have a combination of team building with actual

work getting done. I spend most of the mornings on team building activities to build rapport and warm

up the team for the main goals of the retreat. For the agenda below, I started with a one hour get to

know you activity. There were a number of new team members, so the “Coat of Arms” activity worked

well. After that, we did a creative problem solving activity which built upon the morning’s activity

through putting people into groups and inviting them to come up with creative ideas to resolve a

difficult question the team is working on. After lunch, we did a 30-minute brain teaser to wake up their

brains and get them into creativity mode. By the time the team got to the visioning exercise, they were

ready to work given the build up we had during the day. Finally, I budgeted time to review and process

the day and leave action steps to carry the momentum back to the office.

A note about ice breakers and energizers. As you can see from the agenda below, there are four ice

breakers and energizers sprinkled in through the day. I am not a fan of energizers that make people

uncomfortable. This includes energizers that require touching, insinuation (i.e. pass the orange without

touching) and physical activity (i.e. trust falls and ropes courses). I know there are schools of thought

that think this helps people open up, but I disagree. When someone is made to feel uncomfortable,

they shut down and you risk not only alienating them and losing them for the day, but you may

inadvertently introduce a level of toxicity that can permeate the team and derail your event. Energizers

are important as they act as transitions from one activity to the other, can get the brain into a creative

mode and are much the same as stretching or warming up before exercise. Personally, I try to

incorporate thoughtful, fun and thought provoking energizers that are consistent with the agenda. A

great place to find a wide variety of energizers is https://thiagi.net/.

For the facilitators out there, below is the agenda of the latest team building retreat I did. If you are

thinking of putting together a retreat, please consider reaching out. Good luck and happy team

building!

Teambuilding and Vision Development Retreat Agenda

(Team size 10-15 people)

9:00 Arrival, social with coffee and donuts

9:30 Welcome

The team leader will address the team discussing the expectations for the day

9:35 Day overview, clarifying goals, expectations and ground rules

9:45 Opening Teambuilding activity (Coat of Arms)

Objective: Through this activity, team members will get to know each other and learn one new thing

about their teammates.

Flow: each team member gets a piece of flip chat paper. On that paper they will draw (no words) a coat

of arms representing answers to the following questions:

1) What do you do at work

2) How do you like to spend your spare time

3) what is something you think you are very good at?

4) What is something you think your colleagues don’t know about you?

5) What is one of your personal values?

They will be given 20 minutes to complete the task then present to the group.

10:45 Break

Energizer out of Break: Count to 20- as a group they count to twenty, anyone can jump in at any time,

no talking to give instructions, every time there is a mistake, the group has to start over from 1.

Objective: Bring the group back to focus after a break and develop teamwork using nonverbal

communication to complete the task.

11:00 Back of Napkin activity

Objective: Many great ideas have been jotted down on the back of a napkin having emerged during the

course of a non-formal conversation. Using the same concept, in groups and relaxed settings, this

encourages team members to find creative solutions to difficult or long standing issues the team is

facing. This also sets the stage for the afternoon visioning exercise.

Break group into teams of 3-4. Each person gets a napkin and the activity is introduced. Teams are

given a question to ponder and discuss and each person on one side of the napkin can draw/doodle or

write the solution on one side, then their name on the other. After 30 minutes, napkins are collected

and read aloud. The team will do ranked choice voting for the best answers and the top three will be

recognized. This activity will set the stage for the Vision statement exercise in the afternoon, reinforce

creativity in finding solutions and put out “hard” questions the group can work through. Pre-work with

the leaders will determine the question the team will work on.

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Post Lunch Energizer to introduce Visioning Exercise/explain what a vision statement is

Objective: Coming out of the lunch break, these brain teasers will wake up the brain and begin the

creative process needed for visioning exercise

Brainteasers

1) What never asks questions but is often answered? A Doorbell.

2) A farmer had 20 cows. Due to a contagious disease, all cows except 11 died suddenly. How

many cows does the farmer have now? A. 11

3) What goes around the wood but never goes into the wood? A. Bark on a tree

4) A cowboy arrives in town on Friday, stays three days then leaves on Friday, how? A. His horse is

named Friday.

5) Two people have played and competed five games of chess. Each won the same number of

games and there were no ties. How did that happen? A) They played different opponents

6) Name four days of the week that begin with the letter “T” A) Tuesday, Thursday, Today,

Tomorrow

7) Imagine you are in a room full of water. There are no windows or doors. How do you get out?

A) Stop imagining

8) Who travels faster? Hot or Cold? A) Hot is faster cuz you can catch a cold.

9) A peasant has seven daughters. One day, they pick apples but only likes five. However they

manage to share them equally between their 7 daughters. How did they do this? A) Made

apple sauce

10) A red house is made from red bricks. A blue house is made from blue bricks. A yellow house is

made from yellow bricks. What is a green house made from? A) Glass

11) A person pushes their car into a hotel and tells the owner they are bankrupt. Why? A) They are

playing monopoly

12) A doctor and a bus driver are both in love with the same woman, Sarah. The bus driver had to

go on a long bus trip lasting a week. Before he left, he gave Sarah seven apples. Why? A) An

apple a day keeps the doctor away!

13) What came first the chicken or the egg? A) The egg, dinosaurs laid eggs long before there were

chickens.

14) Throw away the outside and cook the inside, then eat the outside and throw away the inside.

What is it? A) Corn on the cob

15) What word in the English language does the following: the first two letters signify a male, the

first three signify a female, the first four signify a great while the entire word signifies a great

woman. What is the word? A) Heroine

1:30 Creating the team’s Vision

Objective: Through a series of structured questions, the team will begin to formulate their vision.

Flow: Explain the importance of a teams vision and share examples of Vision statements from various

organizations. Then follow the steps below:

1) create groups of 3-4

2) On five tables are five questions- each group spends 10-12 minutes on each question and comes up

with answers or adds to the answers, then rotate (60 minutes). The questions will get at Values, impact,

growth and what the team will accomplish. See below:

 If our team took the form of a person, what would he be from a moral and

behavioral point of view? (What are our values)

 What positive change do we want to make on FAS after 5 years? (what will be our

impact)

 Where do we want to be 1, 3, 6 years old on the path of team development?(How

will we grow)

 If in 10 years our team is published on the front page of newspapers, what would

be the headline? (What will we accomplish)

 If a longtime employee leaves after 10 years, what would we like them to say about

the team and WH when they talk about these things? (What is our impact)

3) After 60 minutes, there will be a 15 minute break. During the break the facilitator will review the

answers and group them with similar answers on the flip chart paper.

4) After the break, the team will do a gallery walk, looking for similarities and patterns while searching

for common language and key words. During the gallery walk, the facilitator will write down common

themes, language and main points.

5) At the end of the gallery walk, facilitator will share the main points that were written down and

review with team as this is the base of the value statement. If time remains, the team will make an initial

draft of their statement. When that is complete, facilitator invites the group to identify a team of 3-4 to

further review, leaving the statement to marinate for a time. The team will commit to when they will

have the statement ready.

4:00 Wrap up and next steps

Flow: Facilitator debrief the team on impressions of the day. Two main questions should be asked:

1) What discoveries have you made from today’s retreat?

2) What actions could you take based on these discoveries

4:15 Closing Activity:

Sentence Builder- we are going to make a run on sentence to wrap up and describe the day starting with

the first person, they add a word then each person that follows adds another to make a sentence that

describes the day.

Objective: Use teamwork to creatively sum up the day’s work

4:30 Final thoughts

The team leader will wrap up the conference with their thoughts