Shared Effort - The Importance of Teamwork . Download training materials and resources.

Shared Effort - The Importance of Teamwork

About

Time:
This exercise will take about 10 minutes to complete. In total, allowing for discussion, we recommend allowing 15 minutes for completion.

Aims:
• To illustrate the nature and importance of teamwork in a fun way.
• To help teams define teamwork.

Group Size:
This module is suitable for use with groups of almost any size.

You'll Need:
• One ‘Bendy Person’ for each participant
• One A3 sheet of paper for each participant. (Please note that A4 is not large enough.)

Notes:
This icebreaker is based on an idea contributed by Kim Davies.

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We recently used this icebreaker to commence regular operations meetings. We wanted a short exercise to highlight the importance of working together as this had been an ongoing issue with the operations team. We did change the exercise slightly and used miniature pots of play-doh instead of bendy people. the task was exactly the same but the individual could have either 1 or 2 miniature pots but if it was 2 they had to mix the pots together to make 1 piece. The paper had to have a min of 1 cm gap between the table and the paper all around. The play-doh could be molded into any shape. The exercise worked really well and the point was very much made that the team needed to work together. We did have one person who wanted to continue on their own but the team sorted them out. Everyone took their play-doh away to use as a destresser. Would highly recommend this exercise for highlighting that working together achieves results.

Stephanie Fry rated this item with 5 stars.

I used this on a management development programme in a workshop on 'Building the Team'. As the workshop was about teams, it didn't take them long to work it out. It did, however, clearly highlight the main point that when working together we can often achieve more. Plus, it was fun and certainly broke the ice! I will definitely use it again.
Rebecca Peat rated this item with 4 stars.

I used this one at our HR team away day as an icebreaker. The Magno Men generate a lot of conversation even before you provide the brief and the exercise itself is very simple to run. I was worried that the group would figure the task out in seconds but actually it took them just over five minutes. Lots of opportunity to debrief which we didn’t need on this occasion but I would definitely use this again in the content of team working skills. The only problem I have with this exercise is that the Magno Men are quite expensive so people would have to hand them back at the end.

Previous Member

I run courses in communication for multi-disciplinary cancer teams. Tried the Hair-ee Mango Men exercise not long ago with a tricky team. One surgeon persisted in trying ... alone and only after 10 minutes of failure attempted to do the task with one other member of the group. Provided me as the facilitator with an instant appraisal of the problems likely to be encountered over the next 2 days ! Thank you.

Previous Member