Team building and Trust — A Five-Step Model
Thursday, April 23, 2009 by Dave Blum A few days ago, I mentioned a splendid little book by Hyler Bracey, Ph.D., called “Building Trust–How to Get It! How to Keep It!”. What I like about the book is that Bracey spells out the five elements of building trust in a *very* easy-to-understand, easy-to-remember model, with […]
Workplace Learning and Information
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 by Dave Blum I attended an interesting lecture yesterday evening by Pat Leonard, Executive VP for the American Management Association. The title of the speech was “The Power of Information in Employee Development”. Sounds a little dry, huh? In fact, Ms. Leonard’s content was rather timely, especially in her description of the […]
Teambuilding Ideas: Giving Feedback, Expressing Appreciation
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 by Dave Blum Expressing appreciation is absolutely vital in team leadership, and yet, how often do we managers actually do it with our team members? In his excellent little book, “Building Trust”, Hyler Bracey describes a common leadership myth: “I have to be competent, confident, firm and tough to get people to […]
New Dr. Clue Party & Social Hunts
Monday, April 20, 2009 by Dave Blum I’m excited to announce that my company, Dr. Clue, has opened a brand new party and social division. Although our specialty remains corporate team building activities (in the form of scavenger hunts), we decided that it would be a shame to exclude all the people who have been […]
Teambuilding and Emotions: Express Yourself
Friday, April 17, 2009 by Dave Blum Why is it that Corporate America is so afraid of feelings? Whenever I ask a potential client what they’re looking for in their team building exercises, they tend to answer the same way: “Well, what we DON’T want is one of those touchy-feely, New Age encounter groups where […]
Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 by Dave Blum I try to keep these blogs on topic (treasure hunt ideas, scavenger hunt lists, team building exercises, etc.), but ocassionally something different comes along that I just have to share. That being said, you simply MUST check out this YouTube video. It’s from an English TV show called “Britain’s Got […]
One Last Bit About Game Theory, Team building and Collaboration
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 by Dave Blum Before I move on to a different subject (such as team building ideas, treasure hunt clues, scavenger hunt lists, etc.), I just wanted to wrap up my discussion of game theory with a brief description of the famous “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. The Prisoner’s Dilemma can be described as a […]
More Team Building, Game Theory and Collaboration
Tuesday, April 14, 2009 by Dave Blum Happily, I finished reading “Rock, Paper, Scissors” this weekend and can finally wrap up my book report for you. Interestingly, I learned in the afterward that the brilliant author — Len Fisher — is not, in fact, a game theory expert/mathematician by trade. Turns out he’s a scientist— a […]
Game Theory and Collaboration
Friday, April 10, 2009 by Dave Blum In yesterday’s blog, I discussed the “Free Rider Syndrome” and promised to provide some instruction (from game theory) for encouraging collaboration and cooperation.” Well, sorry to say–I’m not quite ready to submit my report. To paraphrase the X-Files, “The answers are out there” — but, alas, they seem […]
Team building, Game Theory & Volleyball: Who Sets Up the Nets?
Thursday, April 9, 2009 by Dave Blum During the week, my job is to be generating team building ideas, drawing up scavenger hunt lists and concocting treasure hunt clues. On the weekend, however, I try to leave the scavenger hunts and team building activities behind. Saturdays are my day to sleep in, hang out with my wife, and […]