R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find Out What It Means to ‘Team’

Check out the Complete Guide for Team Building Tips For Cheerleading Squads Summer is raging on, full steam ahead and giving us some of the hottest recorded temperatures in years! So, how do you keep tempers from getting heated in these extreme conditions, and throughout whatever the season has in store? Teach your team the importance of giving respect, and how to earn it themselves. Why is respect this week’s hot topic for the Summer Team Building Series blog? Because respect is the foundation for trust, loyalty, and unity (aka everything you need to have a successful cheerleading team!). Before you have your team delve into respect-focused team building activities, make sure they have a really good grip on exactly what respect is, and what it means to a team. When teams are working together to develop the moves for a routine or stunt, listening to each other is going to play a big part. Make sure your team understands that listening does not mean that the loudest person gets to make the rules. In a respectful relationship, listening means that everyone has a chance to voice her or his opinion and work together to come up with the best possible solution for the team. In order for a team to interact with respect, all members need to acknowledge that their teammates are people; they have their own issues, feelings, and way of thinking. Teach (or remind) your team to make eye contact, wait their turn to speak, and be kind when they are communicating. Every member of a team brings something unique to the mix, and holding each teammate to the standard of equal importance is vital to maintaining team unity. Here are a few activities that you can assign the team that will help teach the athletes about respect, and also help you gauge which individuals or concepts might need more development. Discuss in small groups or as a team what respect means to each person in the group, and why they think respect is important. You can get this activity rolling by reading the actual definition of respect. Break your team into groups and have each group create a short routine with respect as the theme. As a guideline, tell your team that their chants should reflect why respect is important. Keep an eye on the team members in the audience during the performances. Are they being respectful spectators? Have your team brainstorm about the types of words and phrases that people use to show respect. You can also have them discuss the types of actions that people do that show respect. Have team members share excerpts from a book they are reading or a magazine article they saw that features a person or situation that demonstrated respect. Develop a photo scavenger hunt that is all about respect. Have your team members capture photos of people holding doors for each other or helping each other. Once all the photos are collected, you can even have the team make a collage out of them. Have your team members make a recipe that they would use to whip up a batch of respect. Separate your team into pairs of 2 and have them speak to each other at different distances (first close together, then farther apart). Afterward, have the whole group discuss how it felt to communicate at each distance; when did they feel respected and respectful, and when did they not?