In Fast Company’s article “10 unconventional team-building activities that actually work,” published today, Three Arc Advisory’s Meghan Anzelc, Ph.D. shared a successful exercise she used with her team.
“Highlight/Lowlight” exercise
“One team I led had recently been formed, and the team members didn’t know each other well. While there weren’t any real issues with how we operated, I knew that a stronger team dynamic was possible, and both the quality of our work and each person’s fulfillment from their work would be better if we operated as a higher-performing team.
“In one weekly team meeting, I proposed we start the meeting by playing ‘highlight/lowlight,’ where each team member shared one highlight of their prior week and one lowlight. They could be from their work lives or their personal lives; I just asked that they share genuine experiences from the week before.
“The team was very skeptical and had no real interest in trying this idea. I asked the team to humor me for a few weeks and start every team meeting this way. If after a month everyone still thought it was a terrible idea, we’d stop doing it. The first week was awkward, and no one felt like it was a good use of their time. By the second or third week, some teammates raised great things that had happened in the past week, and others joined in congratulating them. Other team members shared lowlights of their week, and many teammates realized they had no idea that their teammate was having a tough time. The exercise built empathy and understanding surprisingly quickly.
“After a month, true to my word, I asked the team if we should stop doing the ‘highlight/lowlight’ exercise every week. No one wanted to stop. It became a favorite beginning to our team meetings, and the language of ‘highlight/lowlight’ was picked up in other conversations. When someone was having a rough day, another teammate might offer, ‘This sounds like a lowlight. How can I help?’ Other weeks when everything was running smoothly, the team would talk about which one of them was going to have the best ‘highlight’ of the week.
“There were a few things that made this team-building activity successful. First, it’s easiest to do this exercise with a relatively small team. Second, the team was willing to try something different that was uncomfortable at the start and keep doing it for a while. That wouldn’t have been possible if my team didn’t have some trust in me to begin with. Third, team members really did enjoy getting to know each other better, and the ‘highlight/lowlight’ activity made it easier for them to connect outside of our team meetings. Years later, I’ve heard from members of that team how fondly they look back on the exercise.”
Read the full article in Fast Company here.