Team Building Activities on Influencing

If you want others to consider your ideas and views, you should be good at influencing them. You can gain support for your ideas and backing as a leader if you are good at influencing others. In an organizational context, especially if you are in a management role, you should be able to influence others to implement your suggestions. There are some teambuilding activities that can help people in an organization develop influencing skills.

Influence refers to the ability to have an effect on another person. You should be able to do this without bullying others or coercing them. Your social skills are a key aspect of influencing others. If you can interact with others in a successful way, you are more likely to be able to influence them. Listening and observation skills also help you influence others, as does your good judgment. You should be able to gauge any information available, judge what is important and successfully communicate your assessment to others.

This activity calls for each member of an organizational team to write down three reasons why the group needs him in a period of five minutes. After that, each member of the team takes turns discussing his reasons and convincing others about why the group needs him. The others award points to each individual based on how he presents his case. Of course, the person who is able to convince others about the importance of his role, and score the most points, is also a good influencer.

The group is told to assume that they are in a yacht that is lost at sea and is sinking. The crew has just fought a fire that destroyed the yacht’s navigation equipment and the crew does not know the yacht’s exact location. The yacht contains 15 items, such as a shaving mirror, a can of water, maps and nylon rope. The group’s task is to rank the items in the order of most importance to the crew’s survival. This exercise too calls for each team member to come up with a list and communicate her rationale to the group. Those who can influence others are more likely to have the group rank the items based on their input.

In this exercise, which has people work blindfolded, the participants will need to be effective communicators to get the group to listen to them. Each team gets into a circle and sits down. Each person is then blindfolded, and the exercise facilitator drops a rope into the middle of the circle. The team’s task is to form a square, with each person holding onto the rope. Once they feel that they have completed this task, they can take off their blindfolds and witness the result of their efforts.