Team-building exercises that actually work for your team

Team building quickly conjures images of forced trust falls and a compulsory bowling outing. A shame, because a tight team is demonstrably more resilient in five-setters and absorbs setbacks better. The trick: choosing forms that suit athletes — with a goal, not as filler.

What team building is (and is not)

Team building is not "doing something fun" — fun is at most the by-product. The goal is to build three things: knowing each other (who are you besides the volleyball?), trusting each other (do I dare make a mistake next to you?) and being able to switch together (do we know what we have in each other when it gets tense?). Choose your form based on the goal your team needs now. A newly formed team needs getting to know each other; a team that grumbles at each other in matches needs agreements and communication forms.

In practice: team building with the ball

• Goal hunt: the team gets ten minutes to reach a team score together (for example 25 good passes on the passing drill). If it fails, the team decides the approach for the second attempt — not you. Adjusting a plan together is team building in miniature.
• The silent set: a game form in which only the fixed communication words ('mine!', 'me!', 'out!') may be said. Painfully clarifies who normally calls too little — and gets them used to it.
• Changing duos: deliberately pair players who rarely seek each other out. Whoever trains with the same three friends every week builds a clique, not a team.

Team building when it chafes

The biggest team-building moments are not exercises but events: a painful defeat, a conflict over playing time, two players who no longer look at each other. It is precisely then that you set the culture. After a tough defeat: do not analyze right away, but do stay together — do not let the locker room empty within five minutes. In a conflict between players: first hear them out separately, then sit down together with one question ("what do you need from the other to be able to play together?") and a concrete agreement as the outcome. And if the whole team grumbles: put it on the table instead of training over it. A team that has once experienced that a conflict is discussable and turns out to be solvable is more durably built than a team that never knew any headwind.

Off the court: small and regular beats big and one-off

One big outing a year does less than small, recurring moments: a drink together after the match (also after a loss — especially after a loss), a rotating "team moment" in which a player tells something about themselves each week, or visiting a first-team match together. Involve the team in decisions that concern them too: making team agreements and formulating a team goal together are the most underrated team-building activities there are — they are about something.

Four forms for the season start

1. Two truths, one lie: a classic that works — each player tells three things about themselves, the team guesses the lie. Five minutes per practice, three players at a time, and after four weeks everyone really knows each other.
2. The team map: hang up a map and let everyone point out where they come from, at which club they started and with which coach they learned the most. Yields surprising connections.
3. Strength round: each player names one volleyball quality and one quality as a teammate of the person on their right. Positive, concrete and surprisingly powerful for players who underestimate themselves.
4. The team contract: the group formulates three rules everyone abides by and one ritual for after every won and lost match. Self-devised is half followed.

Choose one or two per season phase — all at once turns your first week into a discussion group. And join in where you can: a coach who also has a lie guessed is instantly a lot more approachable.

Do not forget the edges of your team

Team building fails most often for the players at the edge: the bench player, the newcomer, the quiet force. Deliberately give them a role in forms (the newcomer leads the warm-up, the quietest player counts and reports the team score) and keep an eye on who is at risk of falling outside the group. Small signals — voting together on the player of the match, attention for quiet players — make visible that everyone counts. The winter break is a natural moment for a bigger team moment: no competition for once, but time.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

Choosing a captain: criteria and pitfalls Mental training: handling pressure and serving stress