Trust, Team Building, and Survivor…

Friday, April 24, 2009 by Dave Blum Team building is happening all over the world; you’ve got your corporate team building Atlanta, your corporate team building Dallas, your corporate team building Boston, your corporate team building Los Angeles…So why not team building:  Tocantins, Brazil?  Because that’s where the TV show,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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”…