Team Building Activities: Values Definition

Team Building Activities – Values Definition is a group activity meant to come up with a set of organizational values that everyone on the team believes in.

Every organization believes and stands for certain things; like work-life balance, like fun, or maybe integrity and so on. This activity will seek to discover the group’s corporate values through discussion and open sharing.

Purpose:

  • To understand the role of values in an organization
  • To create a set of common values that everyone in the team can identify with

Team Size:

Dependent on the key decision makers or management of the team. It can range from 5 – 15.

Materials Required:

Values Definition Sheet
A Flip Chart and Markers

Time Required:

1 – 3 hours

Instructions:

1. Divide the participants into groups of 4 to 5.

2. Spend some time talking about the importance of values in an organization. You may need to do some research on some values that top organizations adopt and present it to the participants.

3. Give everyone 20 minutes to brainstorm about this question: If there were values that you would associate with your organization, what would it be?
Allow them to freely brainstorm and put all these words on the flip chart.

4. Remember not to filter, but just allow ideas to freely flow.

5. After all the words are on the flip chart, allow each group to decide TOP 5 values that they feel the organization should be associated with.

6. Then, each group should use the Values Definition Sheet to explain the values they have selected in the context of the organization. For example:

  • CHANGE – We believe in constant innovation in our products and services.
  • INTEGRITY – We believe in upholding the truth in all our dealings and interactions with one another.

7. From there, each group should fill in the last column of the Values Definition Sheet: The expected behaviors flowing from these values. For example:
CHANGE – All employees should spend 10% of their work time thinking about improvements to their current processes. All employees should be given 100 hours of training a year to upgrade themselves. And so on…

8. A sample is given in the Values Definition Sheet.

9. Each group will then place all the information on the Values Definition Sheet on the flip chart and present it to the participant body.

10. The participants will then pick out the top 5 values of the organization that they think most strongly represent what they believe in through a process of discussion.

Debriefing Notes:

  1. Does everyone enthusiastically agree with the values that have been agreed upon?
  2. What changes must be made to the organization to achieve these values?
  3. On a personal level, what does it mean for you to hold on to these values? In the workplace? In your life?

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2 thoughts on “Team Building Activities: Values Definition”

  1. Deborah Swanston

    I have been trying to find the Values Definition Sheet, please can you provide a link to that.

    Thank you

  2. Deborah Swanston

    Sorry, need to read things in an organised fashion, found it. Thank you, very useful.

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