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Great TED Talk: “The Joyful Perplexing World of Puzzle Hunts”   As a teambuilding scavenger hunt creator, my job is to keep teams of 4-6 people stimulated, challenged and engaged for approximately half a day. Imagine, however, if you were on a team of 60, and your hunt lasted not 3 but 36 hours, with […]

Five Reasons Teammates Don’t Ask for Help – and Three Ways to Overcome It By Dave Blum   During a recent teambuilding scavenger hunt I was leading, a participant rushed up to me – exasperated – and exclaimed “I just don’t understand this clue!”   (see below)   “   So, what have you tried so […]

Excited to be featured on Nancy Becher’s “When Pigs Fly podcast”:   https://www.spreaker.com/user/globalvoiceradio/ep-036-treasure-hunt-to-trust-with-dave- …     Learn the 5 components of trust and much more!

7 Ways to Minimize Competition in Teambuilding (While Maxing the FUN)     How many times have you heard a teambuilding participant say, “Yay, I can’t wait to compete.   You other teams, watch out; you are all going DOWN!”     Sounds fun, right?  Not necessarily.    Focusing on an “us-vs.-them” mentality – with all the […]

Team Bonding, Team Building, Team Development — What’s the Difference?       Do you know that Team bonding, Team building, and Team development are not the same thing?    Michelle Cummings does.  She’s the Founder and President of Training Wheels, a “Creative Resource for Building Teams”.   In this great article from her newsletter, Michelle deciphers […]

Check out my appearance on the Jonathan Senior’s Funky Thinker podcast. We talk about teambuilding, Elvis Costello, Gene Wilder, Elvis Costello and much more: https://funkythinkers.com/dave-blum-team-building-that-is-actually-fun/

7 Ways to Mess Up a Teambuilding Scavenger Hunt       So you want to put on a scavenger hunt, huh? Well of course you do! Why wouldn’t you?!! Done right, a scavenger hunt is a superior way to build community, camaraderie and rapport in a fun, non-formal environment. Muck up your scavenger hunt, […]

10 Ways to Mess up a Teambuilding Program   1) Make the teams randomly.   How many times has a client told you, “Oh, just have people number off—the team makeup doesn’t matter”, only to have the same old clique be randomly placed onto the same team?   This is very common!   Nine times out of ten, […]

7 Public Speaking Tips for Team Leaders (and Why This Matters)       I believe we all can agree that when it comes to teams and teamwork, communication is everything.     For the team leader, however, different situations require different kinds of communication.   In every- day work life, the key leadership communication skill is facilitation.  […]

  Four Steps for Ending Team Back-Biting   In his fascinating TED talk, “How to Start Changing an Unhealthy Work Environment”, psychotherapist Glen Rolfsen suggests that the best way to transform a toxic work environment is to put the kibosh on “back-biting”.   That sounds great, but what exactly is back-biting?   According to Wikipedia, […]