Friday, October 30, 2009

Teambuilding With Paintballs

Paintball games promote trust and communication.


Corporate team-building exercises foster efficiency, boost morale and address issues that arise between co-workers and project supervisors. Any environment in which people work in close contact with one another is going to result in relationships both familiar and strained, and managers must learn to recognize when it's time to get the group to bond more closely to work more effectively. Team-building activities place the group members into uncharted territory, and they must relearn the fundamentals of becoming a participant in achieving a larger goal. One such team-building exercise that promotes these basics is paintball.


Problem-Solving


Paintball games present challenges that can be applied to responsibility in the corporate world, as certain team members must demonstrate leadership and delegate tasks to individuals in order to win the game. Everyone in the group can offer his ideas for his specific role in reaching the goals set out by the team, such as devising attack and defensive strategies. The objective is often to capture the other team's flag or eliminate as much of the other team as possible. Creative thinking will fuel the game plan.


Communication


Teams cannot win if they do not communicate effectively. Whether the goal of the team-building exercise is to introduce new members of the company to one another or strengthen leadership skills among the group, a paintball team has already lost if the team members cannot connect with one another cogently or properly sync up in the battlefield. Putting employees into situations in which the survival of their team depends on disseminating vital information to one another in a timely and concise manner will hone their skills of communication in the battlefield and enhance their efficiency in the boardroom.


Teamwork


Strategies and game plans are useless without a team to carry them out. Employees will learn the value of teamwork through assigned tasks that will sharpen time-management skills and test their performance under pressure. Above all, this will breed camaraderie and trust amongst them. When people learn to work in concert with one another by doing the jobs that they have been assigned, the team becomes a well-oiled machine. Paintball battles will help employees engender these skills through specific objectives such as defending the team's flag from the enemy, taking sniper positions to protect their fellow teammates and forming the frontline assault groups who will try to capture the other team's flag. The feeling of vanquishing their opponents in battle and the surge of pride and confidence that comes with it will not soon be forgotten.


Creative Thinking


Paintball games are not just limited to teams facing off in battle. There are various other mission-assignment games in which players must solve complex problems as a member of a team with primary and secondary objectives. Challenges will arise throughout the course of the assignment, and players must come up with solutions to obstacles and adversities along the way. This will train the team members to think differently and posit procedural schemes and incidental theories to successfully complete the mission. Getting your team members to think creatively and look at any problem through multiple solution systems will prepare them to do the same thing come Monday morning.







Tags: team members, other team, Paintball games, team flag, with another, capture other