Popular Teambuilding Programs and Exercises
We're Golden
  • Primary Benefit: Every Team Member is Important
  • Typical Length: Half Day
  • Key Messaging:
    • Everyone is significant.
    • Everyone has something to contribute.
    • We must remove the layers of clay that are covering our “Golden Essence”.
    • Teams bring out the best in us.
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  • Background: The framework for this program comes from a true story dating back to the 1950’s about a golden Buddha at a monastery in Thailand that was discovered by mistake after several hundred years of being in plain sight.
  • Key Elements
    • Vision
    • Personal Responsibility
    • The Power of Teams
  • Engaging Exercises
    • BEHIND YOUR BACK: A fun and engaging exercise that allows teammates to recognize each other’s positive qualities and attributes through an anonymous and non-threatening format.
    • FLICK IT: All they participants have to do is flick a ping pong ball off the water bottle. A very simple exercise that few can do, and an amazing real time demonstration of how vision, speed, flexibility, fear, and culture affects our behavior, and our results.
    • GREATEST TEAM QUESTIONS: Participants interview each other and discover the power of questions and presence. They’ll also learn about their RAS (Reticular Activating System) and how to get their RAS in gear!
    • ESKIMO TOSS: An amazing teamwork and trust experience that makes for a very memorable photo op as well! These pictures will make a perfect addition to your website or for individual post-event photos to anchor the event.
    • Also includes a variety of powerful video clips to complement your theme, message, and event objectives.
Meta-MORE-Phosis
  • Primary Benefit: Steps and Structure for Transformation
  • Typical Length: Half Day or Full Day
  • Key Messaging:
    • Success and Significance
    • Everyone has a “To-Do” list, but few have a “To-Be” list. True success requires both.
    • Become someone worthy of your dreams.
    • The Meta-MORE-Phosis system can be used for individual or organizational transformation.
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  • Background: The content and structure for this program is based on Doug’s current book project by the same title, and is the culmination of the 15 years of research, speaking, motivating, and inspiring organizations and individuals alike to think and perform at a higher level.
  • Key Elements
    • Expect More (Direction, Goals, Vision, Standards)
    • Become More (Skills, Mindset, Beliefs, Virtues)
    • Feel More (Motivation, Connection, Energy, Passion, Loyalty, Trust)
    • Think More (Strategy, Awareness, Approach, Synergies)
    • Do More (Execution, Courage, Habits, Fears, Resolve)
  • Engaging Exercises
    • SPIN: All improvement begins with a Vision of how it could be! An amazing real time experience, followed by Doug’s mind-bending insights and entertaining stories, illustrate the importance of this time proven philosophy.
    • CHANGE GAME: An eye-opening exercise that exposes our personal tendencies toward change in a fun, non-threatening format.
    • MEET and GREET: A super energizing exercise that illustrates the way we currently communicate our state of mind, and how just a few small changes can dramatically improve our interaction and connection with others.
    • DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?: This one is truly unbelievable. Doug says this is the best exercise he’s ever seen to awaken our consciousness to how easily we are mentally conditioned to see the world. We are all conditioned to see certain things, usually problems, and miss the opportunities that are right in front of us. The good news is that with just a little awareness, this insight can work in our favor and give us an advantage, especially during difficult times. This game provides a souvenir for your employees to use at home or back at the office to share this life changing experience with others.
    • BREAKTHROUGH: WOW! An incredibly inspiring experience that eliminates limiting beliefs, engages team members to cheer for each other, and passionately internalizes the power of modeling, energy, and teamwork!
    • Also includes a variety of powerful video clips to compliment your theme, message, and event objectives.
Powerful Beyond Measure!
  • Primary Benefit: Creating a Peak Performance Mindset
  • Typical Length: Full Day
  • Key Messaging:
    • This program provides a complete shift in personal and team identity.
    • Our mindset affects everything
    • We each have greatness inside us! Our main barrier is our own self-defeating thoughts and limiting beliefs.
    • We must “Be The Change” we wish to see in the world, in our home, and in our company.
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  • Background: This is Doug’s longest running program title. He’s been using many elements of this program since the very beginning of his speaking and teambuilding career. The program title comes from the opening remarks of Nelson Mandela’s famous 1994 inaugural speech - “Our Deepest fear is not that we’re inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are Powerful Beyond Measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
  • Key Elements
    • Personal Leadership
    • Energy
    • Appreciation
    • Presence
    • Vision
    • Beliefs
    • Happiness
    • Life Cycle
    • The Pygmalion Effect
    • Conditioning
    • Possibility
    • The Dance of the Spirit and the Flesh
  • Engaging Exercises
    • HULA HOOP RELAY: Surprising team-building exercises. Exceptional way to clarify principles of continuous improvement.
    • POSSIBILITY: Before we can create a truly compelling vision, we must first embrace possibility. These are terrific, surprising, and captivating
    • BOTTOMS-UP: Encourages creativity, flexibility, possibility, utilizing all resources, and the powerful effects of modeling and beliefs.
    • BLIND DATE: Six different critical leadership skills and principles included in the integration of this extraordinary exercise including being fully present, trust building, responsibility orientation, expanding resourcefulness, asking not telling, and the Pygmalion effect.
    • FRENCH CONNECTION: Surprising game about resourcefulness, rules, and sub-grouping.
    • SEE WHAT I’M SAYING: Connection and listening exercises reveal our ability to communicate non-verbally at an extraordinary level. This segment will help turn around some of the most challenging relationships and enhance leadership effectiveness.
    • PIECE OF CAKE: The main point of this game is the power of collaboration. Team members pair up to perform a simple request, but the power of brainstorming and shared synapses quickly becomes evident. This exercise is a great lead in for a brainstorming session on a current business issue.
    • BREAKTHROUGH: WOW! An incredibly inspiring experience that eliminates limiting beliefs, engages team members to cheer for each other, and passionately internalizes the power of modeling, energy, and teamwork!
    • Also includes a variety of powerful video clips to compliment your theme, message, and event objectives.
Harness the Power!
  • Primary Benefit: Utilizing Natural Laws - Work Smarter, not Harder
  • Typical Length: Half or Full Day
  • Key Messaging:
    • We’ve been taught a lie. Knowledge is not power. Actually, it’s potential power. Real power comes from “Enlightened Action”, (also called Wisdom).
    • With every force there is an equal and opposite force. Unless we acknowledge the forces in play around us, we are often working against ourselves, and sometimes the laws of nature.
    • If we work in harmony with the forces around us success becomes almost effortless.
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  • Background: This program is a real world, fun, and simple application of some theories and natural laws that often go unexplored by mainstream training programs. Doug doesn’t profess to be a leader in quantum physics or in a neuroscientist, but he can help your team generate new ideas and perform at a higher level by exploring these scientifically proven concepts.
  • Key Elements
    • Opportunity - How to magically create it
    • Acres of Diamonds - Use your gifts
    • Focus - Change your focus, change your outcome
    • Strategy - Work smarter, not harder
    • Timing – Identify your current season. We can’t plant seeds in the winter or harvest in the spring.
  • Engaging Exercises
    • Law of Energy and Vibration: All improvement begins with a Vision of how it could be! An amazing real time experience followed by Doug’s mind-bending insights and entertaining stories illustrate the importance of this time proven philosophy.
    • Law of Rhythm: Everything has a natural flow and rhythm. Swimming is much more difficult if you are fighting the current or swimming against the tide. Doug will help your team explore what forces are at play in your setting (natural and man made), and how you are working with and against them.
    • Law of Cause and Effect: All actions of a consequence. Your team will explore if their behaviors are consistent with their desired outcomes, or do you need new approaches. Modern police trainings, for example, now teach de-escalation techniques, not just command and control.
    • Law of Polarity: There can’t be good without bad, up without down, or cold without hot. All bad events also inherently include something good. Which one you focus on is your choice.
    • Law of Gestation: All living things, including our thoughts and ideas, have a period of incubation Sometimes great ideas just need time.
Jerks, Nerds, Sweeties, and Yahoos
  • Primary Benefit: Personality Styles, Communication, and Connection
  • Typical Length: Half or Full Day
  • Key Messaging:
    • The history and validation of personality assessments.
    • What variables make up your behavioral design (personality).
    • Natural Style (Personal settings such as home or with friends)
    • Adapted Style (Workplace settings)
    • Understanding of “Self” - Explaining the assessment
    • Understanding of “Others” - Diving into the differences
    • Analyzing the “Team Wheel” - What are our strengths? Blind Spots?
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  • Background: Doug is a certified behavioral consultant which means he can provide the assessment instruments, breakdown their results, create a “Team Wheel” that graphically shows the dynamics of your team(s), and teach your teams how to use the information to improve communication, hire people that are a fit, connect on a deeper level, and decrease workplace tension.
  • Key Elements
    • Identifying and understanding the team’s different Personality Styles
    • Self Perception / Others’ Perception
    • Communicating Do’s and Don’ts
    • Strengths and Weaknesses
    • Workplace Motivators
    • Behavioral Hierarchy
  • Engaging Exercises
    • Pair up and discuss elements of your reports.
    • Pair up with a new partner and discuss your “Normal” versus “Adapted” graphs. Accurate? Discuss.
    • Customized team discussions based on current issues and objectives. (i.e. Team dynamics, Communication breakdowns, Cultural initiatives, Business issues, etc.)