#3: Michelle, What Has Been Your Experience Creating Virtual Team Building Activities?

In this episode, we're learning from Michelle about her recent experiences creating, training and leading team building activities virtually. She admits her slow adoption (i.e., resistance) to team building online and then shares how she eventually embraced the challenge and "...now, dare I say, I'm energized by it and actually enjoying it."

Her journey (over less than two months) rolled out in stages - 1) how do we 'tweak' activities we know for the virtual world, 2) once we learn the tech, how do we use the features in the 'platforms' to support team building community building/activities for the virtual format, and 3) Creating activities unique to the space and with more interaction - through the tech and activities.

Michelle emphasizes, virtual team building, "is going to be part of the new normal in our field." And this can be a good thing. Consider this - we can 'extend' our program contact by meeting, and connecting, with our groups before the face-to-face program in order to get to know each other and start laying out expectations. Then, when we meet in person, we can get right to the interactions that make our programs so powerful - we have more time for the problem solving activities and challenges.

"The world is asking us (like we ask our participants) to step outside of our comfort zones to stretch ourselves and learn something new."

Finally, Michelle gives us important advice for designing virtual team building programs - what are the difference and similarities between face-to-face and online and how you want to think about billing for these services. And, she gives us a sneak peak at the landscape and some virtual fun ahead. Dive in! Lots of great take-aways.


Find links to Michelle's virtual activity ebooks and video replays of her online trainings in the Show Notes HERE.

Submit a team building related question HERE

Michelle Cummings - Training-Wheels.com
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