April 2025
Connection
“We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Prompt:
Working with people you love, trust, and respect is one of the pillars to creating a great company culture. When we know the people we work with on a deeper level, there is increased trust, more patience, and higher levels of collaboration that take place. Connection is critical among the employees within an organization, and there is a balance between structured activities that help foster that connection, and organic team building that occurs every day in and out of work. As leaders we can be intentional about both of these things. At times it's important to focus on organizing events and exercises that help the team get to know one another, and in other times it's important to create space for team members to connect on their own.
This month we encourage you to take inventory of your team building activities (both structured and organic). Where do you have opportunities to enhance connection among your team? At Footers, our lunch-and-learn's each month are structured in a way where we get to know more about one of our team members. The Footers vacation provides opportunities for organic team building to take place in a space where we are together outside of our normal environment. And at team events, we will intentionally put people in groups with a variety of departments represented so that they get a chance to connect with people they don't typically work with.
Exercise:
Another fun thing that we have done is our, “WTF?! (Who They Foolin’)” activity — get to know each other quizzes — where we test how well our team knows one another. The themes have had a wide range of topics like: colleges, fun facts, middle names, birthplaces, favorite bands, and hobbies outside of work. We encourage you to create a "get to know you" quiz for your team. To start out, we really like and recommend “odd jobs,” but feel free to create your own or add additional categories if you've got a smaller group. Ask each person on your team for their favorite odd job, or most unique work experience. Create a list of all of the team members and their responses and plug them into the downloadable template document below. Then, at the meeting pass them out and have everyone see how many they can get right?! Once everyone is done, go through each job, have people guess, then share the answer. At this point whoever had that job, should tell the story about that experience and how it shaped their career. Go through each person/job, and enjoy getting to connect with your team on what is likely some intriguing new information for many :)
Additional Materials: