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We all want to lead and work in teams that work well together. When educators and other staff have respectful and supportive relationships with each other, it creates an environment where children experience security and happiness. It’s easier to build positive relationships with families and it just makes our work lives happier.
Whilst occasionally great teamwork just happens, more often it requires effort and focus from the director, manager or coordinator of the team and all of those within it.
In Early Childhood workplaces, effective leadership and teamwork is not only desirable but is required and the National Quality Standard describes these for us:
Standard 7.1: Effective leadership promotes a positive organisational culture and builds a professional learning community.
Element 4.2.2: Educators, coordinators and staff members work collaboratively and affirm, challenge, support and learn from each other to further develop their skills and to improve practice and relationships.
In ACECQA’s Information Sheet for Quality Area 7 Educational Leadership and Team Building, there are 5 ways listed for building a successful team:
5 Ways to Build a Successful Early Childhood Team
In this article we are focusing on a positive attitude to change. The information sheet says to build positivity, “it can be useful for educators to engage in team team building exercises that are focused on implementing change and quality improvements”.
So here are 3 team building exercises that leaders could facilitate at their staff meeting or as part of a professional development day that are focused on change and a positive attitude. Participating in activities like these is one of the ways that teams can learn from each other through intentional, professional discussions.
Team Building Activity 1: Who Moved My Cheese
“Who Moved My Cheese” is a book written by Spencer Johnson and it’s a story about change and the way different people handle change.
Watch this video together https://youtu.be/VsSNMzgsE7U and if you have more time available you could watch this longer video https://youtu.be/16hxCB1Dvd4
As a group, brainstorm and make a list of things changes that people have seen during their careers either at this service or another setting. These could be small or large changes - an old playground replaced with a new outdoor environment, educators leaving the service and new educators joining the team, a new paint color in the staff room, new standards etc etc.
Discuss the follow questions together:
What are some of the different ways that different people handle or react to change?
What are some ways that we could prepare or anticipate changes in ECEC?
Do you think embracing change quickly is a positive thing?
What are some advantages of adapting to change quickly?
How can we adapt to change individually and as a team?
How could we support each other during a change?
Could this story help us with any of the changes that are happening at our centre or service right now?
Team Building Activity 2: Feeling Change
Do some or all of the following tasks:
Send a text to someone holding your phone upside down (so the letters are up the wrong way)
In pairs, write both your names on a piece of paper. Both people must be holding the pen the whole time.
Have everyone bring a lip balm or gloss to the meeting. In pairs, take turns of applying of putting it on the other person’s lips.
Draw a picture with your left hand (or right hand if you’re left-handed)
(For the more active) In pairs, one person stands on their head leaning against the wall (the partner helps by supporting their legs) and cracks an egg into a bowl.
As a group, discuss how it felt to change the way that these activities are normally done:
What emotions did people experience? Excitement, embarrassment etc
Did people in the group feel differently? How did different people react to the tasks?
What might making a change be frustrating or difficult? How might it be exciting and challenging?
How might these emotions and reactions be similar or different to other changes in your service?
Team Building Activity 3
A landscape gardener ran a business that had been in the family for two or three generations. The staff were happy, and customers loved to visit the store, or to have the staff work on their gardens or make deliveries - anything from bedding plants to ride-on mowers.
For as long as anyone could remember, the current owner and previous generations of owners were extremely positive happy people.
Most folk assumed it was because they ran a successful business. In fact it was the other way around…
A tradition in the business was that the owner always wore a big lapel badge, saying "Business Is Great!".
The business was indeed generally great, although it went through tough times like any other. What never changed however was the owner's attitude, and the badge saying "Business Is Great!".
Everyone who saw the badge for the first time invariably asked, "What's so great about business?" Sometimes people would also comment that their own business was miserable, or even that they personally were miserable or stressed.
Anyhow, the Business Is Great! badge always tended to start a conversation, which typically involved the owner talking about lots of positive aspects of business and work, for example:
And so the list went on. And no matter how miserable a person was, they'd usually end up feeling a lot happier after just a couple of minutes listening to all this infectious enthusiasm and positivity.
It is impossible to quantify or measure attitude like this, but to one extent or another it's probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, on which point, if asked about the badge in a quiet moment, the business owner would confide:
"The badge came first. The great business followed."
2. Imagine the story wasn’t about a landscaping business but it was about your service or centre and do the following:
3. Follow up ideas:
Use this article to support your team in building positive and support relationships with each other. Look for opportunities for ongoing professional discussions around leadership and team building.
Let us know in the comments if you try any of these activities with your team. How did it go? Are there tips that you could share with other people running these activities? How did it help build your team’s relationships?
And for further professional development training, click below for details of a related workshop that can be run at your service at a time that suits you.