Looking for an employee motivation method that will earn you points? Try this time management exercise where teams try to get the most points for activities completed.
ConfidenceCenter.com’s Weekly Newsletter – July 16, 2013
Word and Quote of the Week
*** Listen ***
*** “If you’re not listening, you’re not learning”
– Lyndon Baines Johnson
Trivia Question of the Week
Q. What was broken at Oxford, England, on May 6, 1954? (Answer at the end of this newsletter.)
Employee Morale Booster
Activities for Points
Submitted by Mike Rogers
I did the following exercise at a time management workshop. It was a lot of fun.
Divide participants into teams of five to eight. Unveil the numbered list of tasks. Explain that they have ten minutes to collect as many points as possible. They must be safe and they only have ten minutes.
Write out the following list on a piece of flip chart paper. Ensure that it stays covered until the end of the activity explanation.
1. Do a lap around the room (5 points)
2. Create something for the instructor to wear, such as a hat or tie (10 points; bonus 5 points if the instructor actually wears it)
3. Find out something unique about each person on the team (5 points)
4. Sing a song together (15 points)
5. Make a paper airplane and throw it from one end of the room to another (10 points)
6. Get everyone in the room to sign a single piece of paper (10 points)
7. Count the number of pets owned by your group (20 points)
8. Assign a nickname to each member of the team (5 points)
9. Create name cards for each team member (5 points; bonus 5 points if you use your team nicknames)
10. Make a tower out of the materials owned by your group (10 points)
11. Convince a member of another team to join you (20 points)
12. Name your team and come up with a slogan (5 points for the name, 5 points for the slogan)
13. Re-create the sounds of the Amazon rainforest with the sounds of your voices (10 points)
14. Make a list of what your team wants out of the workshop (15 points)
15. Form a conga line and conga from one end of the room to another (5 points; bonus 20 points if anyone joins you)
After ten minutes, add up their points using your pre-designed matrix and announce the winner.
Keep the list of tasks; you may want to tape it to the wall.
How did you decide what tasks to do? How does your process relate to the way we manage our time? Were any decisions based on task dependencies? (name card task Ð nicknames for extra points, and assigning nicknames to the group) Batching tasks can increase our productivity.
What group dynamics came into play? If you knew each other, did it make it easier to engage in the riskier tasks? This comes into play when prioritizing tasks in life as well.
We tend to take less risks and procrastinate those tasks we aren’t comfortable with though they can result in a greater yield or more points. We like to stay in our comfortable zone in life in general, but the greatest successes in life come when we move out of that.
Did any of you change your plans and priorities at the five minute mark? Eight minute mark? Nine minute mark?
How many of you counted the number of pets in your group – 20 points?
Low effort, huge return. Many tasks in life are like that if we can properly identify them.
How many of you attempted to convince another member of a group to join you? How many were successful? Tasks can be like that as well. They seem easy at first, but sometimes we have to change our plans if they aren’t working out.
Answer to This Week’s Trivia Question
Q. What was broken at Oxford, England, on May 6, 1954?
A. The four minute mile
Joke of the Week
Tourists say some odd things when they charter my boat in Key West. “How many sunset sails do you have at night?” asked one. Another wondered, “Does the water go around the island?”
But the most interesting came when I asked a customer why she’d brought along a dozen empty jars. She answered, “I want to take home a sample of each color of water that we’ll be going in.”
Free Employee Morale Video Series
See free videos on how to create employee spirit teams: Get Instant Access to the Employee Spirit Team Magic Video Series
(c) Copyright 2013 Harriet Meyerson.
