Tere Pérez was one of my students in Stanford's Leadership Fellows program, and she created this simple but powerful exercise to help groups understand how they could work together more effectively:
Have each member of the team write down their answers to the following statements:
Since we started, our team has become [X].
My greatest contribution to the team has been [Y].
I’ll get more out of our time together if I [Z].After everyone has finished taking notes, address each of the three topics as a group. Be sure to elicit input from everyone--this may require a structured process of reporting out before open discussion.
For Further Reading
Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups, (Vanessa Druskat and Steven Wolff, Harvard Business Review, 2001)
Huddle Up! (Building Group Cohesion)
Photo via the Spline Doctors.
