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Build Your Team

Help your chapter members bond with a fun team-building exercise. It can be as simple as a follow-up to your next chapter meeting or complex enough to take up a whole Saturday.

“Sometimes the simplest tasks make great team-building experiences,” Durham says. “Ask a group of people to accomplish a task, and they will naturally take on different roles.”

Try some of these ideas for starters:

• Get together your fellow chapter members to plan and prepare a meal, and invite all your parents to enjoy it.

• Play a game of Capture the Flag or volleyball after your next chapter meeting.

• Plan a weekend trip to a ropes course or rock-climbing wall.

• Build an FFA-themed holiday parade float and enter it in an upcoming parade.

• Organize a fundraising event that benefits either your chapter or a local charity.

• Tackle a community service project such as landscaping a local park or painting a house for a senior citizen.

• Chat with other FFA members at state and national conferences and borrow some of their team-building activities.

• Look for resources on team building at bookstores, online or in The Core, an FFA catalog you can order online at ffaunlimited.org.

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FFA Feature

Go, Team, Go

FFA members link up to build spirit, gain useful skills

The trust fall game helps team members become comfortable with one another.

November 2007

You’ve heard the saying, “Two heads are better than one.” The old adage simply means that some problems are more easily solved with two people working together instead of one person working alone.

If two people have a better chance at solving a problem, just think what 10 or 12 can do. FFA presents countless opportunities to learn and practice teamwork, from competitions such as livestock judging and parliamentary procedure to officer teams pooling their efforts to accomplish a chapter’s goals.

It’s no secret good teamwork skills pay off once you enter college and the workforce, so why not start developing those skills now? You’ll be amazed at how much your chapter can accomplish with a
little teamwork.

“Teamwork boils down to personal relationships, which students will need all their lives,” says Renee Durham, education specialist for the National FFA Organization’s Leadership & Education Program Delivery team.

“After high school, they’ll need teamwork skills on college campuses to accomplish projects in classes and work through issues with professors.”

After college, teamwork becomes important as you develop in your career.

“We’re constantly working on teams in FFA and interacting with others,” says Joshua Bledsoe, senior team leader for National FFA’s Leadership & Education Program Delivery team. “If we help students develop teamwork, it ultimately benefits their personal growth, leadership and career.”

National FFA President Beau Williamson regularly practices teamwork skills with his fellow national officers. He believes what makes or breaks a team is trust.

“On a team, you really need to sit down and be honest with each other,” Beau says. “Every team has conflicts. Challenges you face on any team you join are differences in views, opinions and personalities. Only the great teams work through those to become something amazing.”

Serving on state and chapter officer teams and chapter committees are great ways to build your team skills.

“Officer teams are important as well as committees,” Bledsoe says. “Through our National Chapter Award program, committees help entire chapters accomplish success. Officers can’t do it alone, and advisors can’t do it alone.”

One of the most important things to remember when working on a team is that each person contributes to success, whether they’re leaders or followers.

“Remember what your teammates’ needs are, and make them feel important – always build each other up,” Williamson says. “Being around talented people will help you develop in ways you never imagined. In my life, being on a team has taught me so much about life, who I am, what I value and who I can become.”

Durham and Bledsoe often work together in their jobs, and they’ve come to appreciate each other’s individual talents – something that commonly happens in a team setting.

“Renee is incredibly creative – she has great ideas,” Bledsoe says. “And if you give me ideas, with work, I can make them happen. We take each other’s strengths and combine them to get results.”

If leadership is one of your strengths, keep in mind you can only lead a team successfully if you become the type of person others want to follow.

“Leadership is influence,” Durham says. “I am comfortable leading, but I’ve learned through my FFA experiences that my influence is much greater when I use the strengths of the people around me.”

That kind of attitude helps leaders and followers appreciate the value of teamwork.

“We teach servant leadership in FFA,” Bledsoe says. “As we are put in positions of leadership, we realize it’s not about us – it’s about others. And that environment of service directly influences how we operate as a team.”

Story by Jessica Mozo
Photography by Brian McCord

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