Silent Team Building Game

In this article, I introduce you with a silent team building game and explain the physiological importance behind it. You can adjust the duration of the game, add or skip some elements according to the needs of your team.

Time for reflections within a team is priceless. Either you have a new team member or you just want to refresh the energy, reflect on a working environment or simply to communicate in a different way, team building game can really be a healing activity.

Silence, in general, should be a priority when thinking about the work environment. Having a place where one can work in silence increase focus on solving problems. On the other hand, noise can decrease the level of motivation for work after some time.

In this article, I introduce you with a silent team building game and explain the physiological importance behind it. I will present you a simple silent game. You can adjust the duration of it, add or skip some elements according to the needs of your team.

Why a silent game?

Usually, our brain gets too many orders. This makes us think about quick conclusions and efficient solutions. We have to think fast and react even faster. We are constantly in the ¨Monkey mind¨ mode, jumping from one thought to another. But what happens when we change a brain mode and switch off our ability to verbal communication for a while?

When we give our brain opportunity to do things without being destructed by noise or goal-oriented tasks, we proceed things and actions differently. There is a place for emotions and physiological levels of our contribution to a team or a project. In silence, our brain finally has its time and freedom to reflect on internal and external states. Doing things in silence or by listening to relaxing music can release stress and body tension. That’s why we suggest that you combine both for your team building activities.

When we are in silence, we learn not only to be focused, but also to be an observer and not to jump to conclusion. We also learn to be patient and to wait for our turn to express our ideas and to build on ideas of others.

Instructions

Let's say that you have one team of nine employees. For this activity, you can split them into three, three persons for each team. Before starting the activity, prepare three tables with flip-chart papers on them, some markers, some acrylic painting, liquid tempera paint, face painting, some clay or really anything you can think they can use to make a painting or a college. Put some nice relaxing music on and without giving them any instructions, tell them to start. Also, tell them that after some time you will ask teams to switch tables. Activity should last until they all make one or two turns. If they look at you all confused (because they always get instructions, orders, and rules) and ask you what should they do, do not answer to them. Just tell them to start.

If you want your activity to have a shorter duration, you can tell them so change tables after 4 to 10 minutes. We suggest to let them do each table longer, If possible. This means that your activity can last from 30 to 60 minutes. When the activity is finished, you should do a short talking session and ask each participant how does she or he feel about the activity, how does the activity reflect a current project or anything that is going on in a given moment. Make sure that they feel safe about sharing these insights with a group. If you think that someone wants to keep this experience as private insight, you should unquestionably respect it.

What might be some possible introspection?

Some participants might conclude that they are possessive towards their projects, some might understand that they want to have more freedom in expressing their ideas. Some might also realize that it is not about mastering a task, but about collaborating and sharing. Most probably everyone will understand that they have to rely on each other and let go of judgments. Since you don´t give them any rules and instruction, they should understand that they maybe also limit themselves unconsciously. These are all very important and essential thoughts for the well-being of one individual within a team. By giving such experience to your team members, you let them know that their full capacity matters and their state of mind means a lot.