Team building is a great way to foster camaraderie among employees and develop relationships within the team. Team building activities are beneficial to employees and companies as a whole, even if they’re not always well received. Finding and organizing team building activities that your employees will enjoy is a crucial step to cultivating a vibrant company culture.
Team-building events can be the basis for improved morale between colleagues. Leadership strengths can be identified by management. The value of cooperation will be taught to coworkers. The employees can also show off their talents outside the workplace. Who knew that your account executives are such passionate singers?
Table of Contents
One Word Ice Breaker
Team size: More than 3 people.
Time: 5 to 10 minutes.
How to play: Write down one word that comes to mind on a post-it. Put these words on a whiteboard or make a presentation. If you’re having a meeting about your annual holiday event. Everyone would take a moment to respond with the first thing that comes to their mind. If the team is responding with words like stress or exhaustion, you might want to think again about your process.
This is a good way to gather opinions, thoughts, or feelings about a meeting that most people can relate to. You can look around the room before talking about something. You might find things to talk about that will help everyone.
Two Truths And One Lie.
Team size : 5-8 people.
Time : 30 minutes.
How To Play : New recruits may have a hard time adjusting to different personalities in the office. To make it easier for people to talk to each other, companies can make a game where they tell the truth and lie.
This game asks people to tell two true stories and one false story. This can be done over a break or during lunch.
When everyone is together, they tell the truth and the lie. The listeners have to guess what is true or false.
Two truths and a lie is an easy game to play to break the ice between workers and a new coworker. They make it easy for coworkers to get to know each other.
What do we have in common?
Team Size : The number of people in the group is 20 to 50.
Time : You need to spend 40-60 minutes.
How To Play : It can be hard for employees in big companies to get involved personally. When different groups of people don’t talk to each other often, doing a simple task can make things better.
The common game can be done in-person or online as team building. During a company lunch or video call, people from different groups are divided into groups.
In these units, members are supposed to find out about 5-10 things they have in common.
You might have a favorite pizza flavor or enjoy classical music together. It takes a lot of probing to learn about shared experiences. This will make coworkers learn a lot quickly.
Lost On A Desert Island
Team size: 5-20 people
Time : 45-50 minutes
How To Play : Team members of any age can enjoy learning more about their colleagues. The premise of this game centers on players lost and stuck on a deserted island.
They share with each other, one item they would bring along with them and why.
This gives coworkers an intimate look at objects and feelings held dear by group members.
Frostbite
Team size: 5-6 people
Time : 20-30 minutes
How To Play : This game will require a team leader and subordinates. Also necessary are sticky notes or post-its, toothpicks, thick cardboard boxes, and a fan.
Participants pretend to be in the Arctic without paying attention to the office or other surroundings. They are being taken on an arctic show that they need to survive. Team members need to build a shelter to survive. In a democratic setting, teammates choose a leader to lead them.
The team leader will tell you how to build the structure. He is unable to take part because he has frostbite from the journey. While blindfolded, team members build the structure.
This task will teach supervisory skills and instruction-taking skills. Members also learn how to manage their time.
Human knot
Team size: 8-16 people
Time : 20-30 minutes
How To Play : This game is ideal for large teams and can really push people outside of their comfort zones. When the team is together in a circle, they join their right and left hands with someone opposite them. Teammates cannot hold hands with the person next to them.
When all members have their hands in a knot, the game requires this knot to be untangled without releasing their hands. It requires communication and careful instruction to be successful.
The team that stands in a perfect circle with their hands together wins.
The egg drop
Team size: groups of 5-8 people
Time : 20-30 minutes
How To Play : The egg drop is a fun activity to determine how well team members work together.
The team that builds a surface to withstand the fragile egg drop wins. It’s however important for each participant to feel like a winner. Team members can discuss collaborative skills learned from the task.
Team members use different materials to create a structure to hold an egg that is falling.
Swift swap
Team Size : 10-20 people.
Time : 10 to 15 minutes.
How to play: Divide your team into two groups and line them up next to each other. Team A gets a quick observation period of 15–30 seconds in which group members have to remember as many things about the people in front of them as they can. Then team A turns around while team B changes as many things about themselves as they can.
Anything from changing the line up order to swapping shoes or changing your hair is fair game. After about 45 seconds, team A turns back around and gets 5–10 minutes to figure out what changed. You can change the time depending on how many people are there.
This game is a great way to break up a long day and take everyone’s minds off work for a while. Your team can practice communicating without speaking during the swapping phase.
The Bottom Line
Exercises that improve teamwork and critical thinking help new members of the team adjust to group dynamics. They also polish communication and critical thinking skills for experienced teammates. These challenges provide an opportunity for team members to learn how to communicate with each other and to rely on one another. Group exercises can help employees build their skills and learn how to work together.
Also Read : 7 Expert Tips To Navigate Favoritism Challenges As An Effective Leader
