I had the pleasure of speaking at the New York Library Association’s annual meeting this past Saturday, November 8th. It was held at the Saratoga Springs City Center center in Saratoga Springs, NY (luckily I just played golf there this past summer, so I knew right where to go).

This was my second time speaking to this crowd, and both times it was on the same subject, the creation of Effective Teams. I talk a lot about self organizing teams, and how to empower team members to be trustful of each other, and create an environment where people are willing to work together (but independently of management).

I decided to use a team building game based on the book ZOOM to (hopefully) highlight some of the points I’d be making throughout the session. If you haven’t seen Zoom,it’s pretty cool. It's a picture book (of about 30 or so images). The first pictures go something like this:

1. Close up of large red rooster comb
2. Rooster head and neck
3. Rooster with children in foreground
4. Rooster in distance, children in foreground in a room with an open door
5. View of farmhouse and children in a room with open door, animals in foreground in yard

You get the idea, the pictures are zooming “out” (or "in" depending on your viewpoint).

Anyway, I distributed a single picture to 25 of the attendees in a folder. They had strict instructions to not show the picture to anyone else, but they could talk to each other about what their picture showed. The idea was to figure out the “Story” that was being told.

It was amazing to see little groups form all over the room (looking for commonalities). Then groups starting changing, and then they realized they needed to talk to each other, then leaders formed, etc…they really saw how a disorganized mess could come together ! It was lots of fun.

If you’re doing a team building exercise or need an ice breaker, I highly recommend this!