Games That Teach Teams: 21 Activities to Super-Charge Your Group! [Paperback]

Steve Sugar (Author), George Takacs (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787948357 | ISBN-13: 978-0787948351 | Publication Date: October 15, 1999 | Edition: 1

Building on his first book, Games That Teach, Steve Sugar, along with George Takacs, tackles teams and team learning through the use of more than 20 competitive games and interactive learning exercises. Using the comprehensive facilitator notes, you'll be able to customize these innovative games to suit the training needs of the teams in your organization.

Games That Teach Teams:

• Gives your teams the opportunity to discuss serious team topics in a non-threatening setting
• Includes a matrix indicating which games are most appropriate for specific team isues
• Contains sample exercises using game "frames" that allow you to create your own games
• Is completely reproducible, saving you time and money!

"Games That Teach Teams is packed with activites that can help your team increase its ability to learn from its successes and failures and its ability to work together."
—Rick Mauer, consultant; author of Beyond the Walls of Resistance

Editorial Reviews

Review

"At last! A practical workbook on how to use games effectivley as a team training tool. Anyone working in or with teams will find something very useful here." (Phillip H. Hudson, director, Graduate School, USDA)

"Packed with activites that can help your team increase its ability to learn from its successes and failures and its ability to work together." (Rick Mauer, consultant and author of Beyond the Walls of Resistance)

About the Author

STEVE SUGAR is a writer and teacher of performance games. He is the author of five performance measurement game systems that are actively used in the U.S. and over 20 countries. His games focus on his teaching philosophy of "fun with a purpose" — encouraging adult learners to demonstrate newly learned knowledge and skills in individual and team formats. He wrote the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer book Games That Teach (1998). Steve has taught experiential learning in the graduate curricula at the Johns Hopkins University and the New York Institute of Technology. He is on the faculty of the University of Maryland; a member of the Human Resources faculty, Johns Hopkins University; the Leadership Development Program, Federal Center; and the Education Development faculty, USDA Graduate School. He lives in Elliot City, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore.

GEORGE TAKACS is a trainer and consultant specializing in team building, and a teacher and course developer at the University of Maryland (UMUC) and Georgetown. George is currently creating a course in Organizational Development that will be available over the web. He lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. He may be reached at [e-mail].

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pfeiffer; 1 edition (October 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787948357
• ISBN-13: 978-0787948351
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,649,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Genuine fun, genuine learning, any time, any place, January 19, 2000

By 

Bernard Dekoven "Major Fun" (Indianapolis) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Games That Teach Teams: 21 Activities to Super-Charge Your Group! (Paperback)

Games that Teach Teams by Steve Sugar and George Takacs, is a collection of 21 well-documented, carefully detailed, copy-ready games that help teams learn about cooperation and creativity, management and goal-setting, decision-making and communication -- and secondarily fun. It's the secondarily fun part that caught my eye. Any method that helps people develop team skills that has anything to do with fun is a method worth learning. Far too many team-building activities are built around "tasks" and "worksheets." These exercises are built around fun.

Each of the 21 games is described as a "frame game" The authors explain how ach game can be modified to focus on a different combination of skills or respond to a different team setting and composition, giving the reader more of a comprehensive instructional strategy than a collection of games. The authors also recognize that it's not just the games, but how they are led that makes for a good learning experience, taking great pains to detail facilitation techniques for each activity. They even include a table that carefully documents the skills that each activity emphasizes.

I was especially pleased to discover the inclusion of games like "ww.where and ww.when" that are specifically designed for building "CyberTeams." Here is an area of team development that is much neglected and critical to the successful deployment of the kind of communication infrastructure that technography is designed to implement.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Thumbs up for this great teaching tool!, May 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Games That Teach Teams: 21 Activities to Super-Charge Your Group! (Paperback)

I manage an office of 70 lawyers that needed team building skills, but have a deep scepticism about the usual drills. I found this book to be clearly written, well organized and easy to adapt to my training needs. We used several of the games at a recent office retreat to great success. I strongly recommend Games That Teach Teams to anyone who wants to get their team to work, and play, better.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Context, Very Practical, December 21, 1999

By 

E. Willmore "JoeW" (Annandale, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Games That Teach Teams: 21 Activities to Super-Charge Your Group! (Paperback)

I've read this cover-to-cover and had a chance to actually use a number of the activities in it with some of my clients. This book is a rare combination of background and context that will provide a powerful grounding for new trainers, inexperienced facilitators and managers asked to help build a team while also combining great explanation and setup for a wide range of activities that senior practitioners and OD professionals can use immediately. The explanations for each activity are clear and also cover what could go wrong as well as how to modify the activity and debrief instructions. I found the matrix in the book (talking about what activities could be used for what kinds of teams and what kinds of dynamics/needs) to be especially strong. If you do OD, facilitation,or work in teams, this is a very useful book. I don't find many games and activities books that are appropriate for a wide range of users--this one is. I very highly recommend it.