Are you in search of some team building activities for the storming stage? Storming is the second stage of Bruce Tuckman’s Team Development Model. This is the stage during which conflicts and misunderstandings arise among the employees. If you’re a business leader, you might find it difficult to direct your teams here.
In this article, let’s have a look at the storming stage and 10 team building activities you can try during this stage.
What’s Storming Stage?
The storming stage is the second stage of team development, which comes after the forming stage. Here group members try to communicate their individual goals with their colleagues. So, there might be differences in opinions and misunderstandings. This leads to conflicts and unnecessary confrontations among the employees. Thus, this is a very hard and testing time for the teams.
What Should Teams Accomplish During the Storming Stage?
As mentioned before, this is the stage during which conflicts arise. So, as a business leader, you should properly manage conflicts and direct your teams towards your business goals.
By the end of the storming stage and just before beginning the next stage (norming), your teams must accomplish the following key tasks.
Task 1: Focus on cooperation rather than conflict
Firstly, team members should try to cooperate with each other rather than embroiling in conflicts. In order to accomplish this task, you can try various activities that focus on conflict management and resolution.
Task 2: Communicate openly and effectively
Secondly, team members should learn to communicate effectively by maintaining transparency and mutual respect. You can help them accomplish this by trying several communication exercises.
Task 3: Solve problems instead of creating them
Thirdly, teams should focus on solving problems rather than creating them. In order to achieve this task, it’s important to conduct various problem solving activities.
Task 4: Learn to trust and respect each other
Lastly, team members should learn to trust one another and respect each other’s views. For this, you can try some trust building exercises.
10 Team Building Activities for the Storming Stage
Conducting some experiential activities will give a great learning experience for your teams. Typically, these exercises can help them understand how to properly interact with others and respect each other’s views. As a result, they will be able to improve their skills while having fun. So, here are 10 team building activities that you can try during the storming stage.
#1. Conflict Group
For: Conflict Management and Resolution
Divide the whole participants into three different groups. Then, give the topic “conflict avoidance” to the first group. For the second group, give the topic “conflict reduction”. For the third group, give the topic “conflict resolution”.
Now, let each group come up with 3 merits and 3 demerits on their topic and share them with other groups.
#2. Debate Game
For: Conflict Resolution
Divide each team into two sub-teams. Now, let both of them engage in a small debate in which one party must argue why conflicts are good for a team and another party must argue why conflicts are bad for a team.
After some time, ask the sub-teams to unite and summarize what they understood about conflicts during the debate.
#3. Card Puzzle
For: Conflict Resolution, Communication, and Negotiation
Initially, get some playing cards (one per team) and cut each card into 8 pieces. Now, shuffle all the pieces and give exactly 8 pieces to each team.
Then, ask them to assemble those pieces to make a valid card. However, they won’t be able to complete the puzzle without negotiating with other teams.
#4. Unknown Friend
For: Communication and Trust Building
Ask the participants to write their names on a paper piece. Now, collect these paper pieces and redistribute them to different members in such a way that nobody gets his own name.
Next, let them look at the name, and keep it a secret.
Then, ask each participant to write a clue (not an easy one) on a paper sheet about that person. Now, they need to hold it so that everyone can see it. Finally, others can guess who is that person.
#5. Good Listener
For: Communication and Listening Skills
First, ask the participants to form pairs. Then, give a topic to each pair. Now, one member from each pair should talk about that topic for 2 minutes.
After that, ask the other person to summarize what his teammate said. However, he shouldn’t debate, agree, or disagree – just summarize. Finally, switch roles and repeat the activity.
#6. Business Dilemma
For: Strategic Problem Solving and Decision Making
Start by sharing a business or management-related problem with the teams.
For example:
Two companies, A and B, sell the same kind of product for $500. Both companies work in the same location and make 10 sales per day. Suddenly, Company A reduced its price from $500 to $450 and they started making 15 sales per day. This affected the sales of company B because they are now making only 5 sales per day. Can you help company B to develop a strategy to increase its sales?
Now, each team must come up with a solution to the problem. Also, they need to explain the reason for that decision.
#7. Escape Room
For: Problem Solving and Collaboration
Initially, lock all the team members inside a room. Now, they need to escape from the room by finding the key that is hidden somewhere in the room. For this, they need to solve a set of clues/puzzles that are also hidden at different places in the room.
For example:
Clue 1 – Information technology is making wonders nowadays. (Location: Near computer)
Clue 2 – Reading regularly makes you more intelligent. (Location: Near bookshelf)
Clue 3 – Every drop of water is precious. (Location: Near wash basin)
Clue 4 – This makes the wall attractive. (Location: Near a picture hanging on the wall)
Clue 5 – Don’t throw waste materials. (Location of the key: Inside the dust bin)
You can give them the first clue through a text message. Once they solve this, they will find where the next clue is hidden and this continues. Once they get the key, they can unlock the room.
#8. H2H Problem Solving
For: Creative Problem Solving
For conducting this exercise, you need to split each team into two subgroups. Now, ask each subgroup to create a unique problem.
Then, they need to share it with the other subgroup. Now, each subgroup should solve the problem within a time limit.
#9. Eye Contact
For: Trust Building
Start by asking the participants to form pairs. Now, each pair must stand face to face.
Then, instruct each person to stare into his partner’s eyes. They need to do this for at least 60 seconds. Remember, participants should not wear sunglasses during this exercise.
(Note: This is a psychological game. Having eye contact induces positive vibes among the colleagues, and it lays the foundation of trust.)
#10. Running Free
For: Trust Building and Cooperation
In order to run this activity successfully, you need a large open space. First, instruct the participants to form pairs. Then, one person from each pair should wear a blindfold.
Next, each pair should hold their hands and the sighted person needs to guide his blindfolded partner to walk. Gradually, they need to run fast. Then, ask them to switch roles and repeat the exercise.
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Final Words
It’s always hard to get through the storming stage. Usually, most teams completely get stuck at this stage. Don’t let this happen to your teams. So, as a business leader, you must invest your time in properly directing your teams during this stage.
Hopefully, the above storming stage activities will help your teams to succeed. Just in case you want more insight into building and managing strong teams, you can read my newly published article: “25 Best Team Building Books for Managers and Leaders”.