Many larger companies participate in some form of team building or corporate challenge event on an annual basis. This is a way for a bigger company to spend money to outsource organizing team building events.
My experience with corporate challenge activities is that many players join teams for fun, with little concern about winning or competing, but rather just to get out of work.
If you are one of these people, this post is not for you. This post is for those people who want to take home gold! Follow these steps to prepare your team to crush those other companies:
1. Practice - The best way to practice is just to play games. We had an enclosed cement hockey rink close to us, and you want something with fences or boards so the balls don’t bounce everywhere.
2. Cuts - Try to get extra people to come out for practice so that you can make cuts to your team. I know this sounds harsh, but you need extra people to simulate a real game situation. You ideally want to trim your team to half of the people who try-out. Don’t be afraid not to fill the roster to the maximum number of people. Dodgeball games are short and fast, so subs are not always necessary.
3. Rules – Remember to play practice games with all rules in play. The captain should review rules before every practice and every game. There is nothing worse then having one of your players lose a clutch game because he accidentally caught a second ball (if possession of more then one ball is an out). Knowing how the rules work is absolutely key to winning.
4. Discipline – Teams that communicate and work together beat teams that are stronger are faster. Let your captain dictate the strategy, and stick to it. A good example of this is a game plan for what should happen at the start of each game (ie. rush or hang back).
5. Strategy - Strategy to dodgeball? There is a ton of it! This isn’t your elementary sport any more. You can assume that any team that makes it into play-offs will have one or more players on it that play on a regular basis in a dodgeball league. Hopefully you do as well. The next 2-3 posts will contain my strategy tips that I used to prepare a friend of mine for his corporate challenge.
