If you’ve ever had the pleasure of leading a team , you know the importance of collaboration and teamwork. As managers, we are responsible for ensuring that our employees pull together – it’s about the “we feeling” – sometimes through organization, sometimes through fun team-building measures.
We have all been trained from an early age to get along with individuals, to share the burden, to work together, and to rejoice when we achieve something as a group.
Surprisingly, there is still insufficient content and training material to teach leaders how to get their employees to work as a team.
The benefits of team building activities and team building games
Do you still have doubts about the value of team building measures?
Here are some compelling arguments that might change your mind.
1. They have the potential to increase employee engagement.
Organizing team building activities can significantly increase game participant engagement and teamwork. These activities only take a few minutes.
One of the main goals of team building activities is to create close friendships between game participants, which has been shown to increase engagement by 50% and encourage teamwork.
2. Communication skills can be improved through team building activities.
According to a Salesforce survey, the top causes of workplace failure are lack of teamwork and communication, cited by 86 percent of respondents.
Luckily, you can improve your employees’ communication by participating in a number of team building games – they work like “ice breaker”.
3. They can help develop and identify leadership qualities.
Certain team building activities allow individual participants to take charge and lead small groups of people toward a common goal.
You might be amazed to discover great leadership qualities throughout your group that might otherwise go unnoticed.
4. These activities can help strengthen corporate culture.
Finally, team-building events and cooperative games can help reinforce your core principles, bring employees closer together, and strengthen company culture.
Remember that your company and team culture is ultimately what brings your employees together and plays a key role in increasing employee engagement.
So, team building games are activities that focus solely on team cohesion and communication skills.
Let’s start with team building exercises that can help improve camaraderie and communication. The team-building exercise is an essential part of the implementation of the corporate mission statement.
While the goal of any team-building activity is to improve employee chemistry and build a great team, many experts believe the following activities will help you achieve those goals much faster.
The most famous team building game: scavenger hunt
A great team building game, a scavenger hunt is a great way to get your employees moving while encouraging collaboration.
You can do them indoors or outdoors, depending on the space available.
Divide the group into three to five smaller groups. Hide various objects around the site and give different groups the task of finding them.
Aim of the game: The first team to find all items or at least a certain number of them wins.
form pairs
Make several pairs on different sheets (e.g. Thelma and Louise, Salt and Pepper, Mario and Luigi).
Glue these to the backs of your game participants. Let them wander around the room trying to figure out who they are and where to find their colleague.
Not only is this a fun way to bring employees together, but it can also be a good approach to breaking the ice for new hires and new teams in general.
Perfect Square
Take a 5 meter rope and tie both ends together.
Lay the rope on the ground and team members form a circle of four to eight people. Then ask them to take five steps back while blindfolded.
Then instruct everyone to make a flawless square out of the loop of rope.
This is a fantastic fun team building game.
appreciation circle
Form a circle with your employees.
Then ask everyone to share one thing they admire about the person on their left. That can be an interesting story. This is a great team building game.
After the circle has been closed, ask everyone to share something they admire about the last person on their right. This helps to train communication skills. A really fun activity! and a real incentive for communication within the team.
cultural parties
There is nothing easier and more beautiful than acknowledging the differences of others.
If your company is diverse, you can host annual cultural festivals where employees can share their heritage with their peers. This activity promotes the knowledge of the team. A great team building event!
You could even ask for staff to dress in traditional attire and deliver special meals or refreshments. This works best for teams working in different locations.
Increase team spirit through team building activities that encourage creative thinking
Encouraging your team’s creativity can be difficult. Here are some quick team building games. They create healthy competition between team members.
The following team building activities, on the other hand, will get the creative juices flowing in no time:
What’s my name?
What’s My Name” is a fun way to get your co-workers talking and show them new ways to guess the right answers.
The rules of the game are very simple: everyone writes the names of well-known personalities on post-its and sticks them on each other’s foreheads (or backs).
Participants then have to walk around the room asking conventional questions about themselves, e.g. B. “Am I a man or a woman?
The first participant to correctly recognize the name on the piece of paper on their forehead or back wins. It’s a kind of game with the description of the person. It’s just a fantastic team building game.
Battle of the designers
If you are a graphic design agency, why not run a contest to find out which of your graphic designers is the best?
Choose a theme and let your designers create something unique (e.g. logos, banners or posters).
Finally, ask everyone to vote for the best designs and present a trophy to the winner.
Office Pictionary
There is nothing easier and more beautiful than acknowledging the differences of others.
If your company is diverse, you can host annual cultural festivals where employees can share their heritage with their peers. This activity promotes the knowledge of the team. A great team building event!
You could even ask for staff to dress in traditional attire and deliver special meals or refreshments. This works best for teams working in different locations.
Battle of the Air Bands
It’s time to say goodbye to karaoke. It’s time for the Battle of the Airbands!
Divide your group into four groups of four. Have them choose a song and perform it as best they can with air instruments and lip syncing.
You can even buy costumes and props to add to the excitement.
While it’s a lot of fun, engaging in such activities on a regular basis is a way of getting employees used to being uncomfortable.
It is one of the most popular team building activities among multiple teams.
Water Balloon Throw
Fill several water balloons on a hot day.
Divide your team into pairs and have them toss the balloons back and forth, pausing after each successful exchange.
The team with the most “dry” players wins.
Show and tell
In elementary school it was fantastic.
Now that we’re all grown up and doing better things, it should be a lot more entertaining.
Allow your employees to bring a loved item and tell a story about it.
Problem solving and team building activities
Let’s try some team-building exercises that will make your employees think, give them innovative solutions to various difficulties, and improve their problem-solving skills.
debates in the office
The last thing you want in the office is an argument. But listen to me for a moment. One of the favorite team building games and the most popular game in the office is debates!
Quarrels that are amicable and low-stakes are good for teamwork and getting to know each other’s perspectives. You can also help avoid hot real-life situations, and when they do occur, your employees will be better equipped to handle them. Therefore, organize structured discussions at the workplace and let small teams discuss important topics (e.g. from politics, society, the economy or your company/industry). Each team member records their ideas and presents them to the whole team.
Escape Room
Escape rooms are a great way to learn how to manage resources, think under pressure, and work together as a group. However, the budget does not always allow companies to spend a day in a local escape room. What a fun game!
board games
When it comes down to it, board games are always a good choice.
They are great for training resource management, logical thinking, and a host of other mental muscles.
The best thing about board games is that they are really inexpensive and can be played almost anywhere.
Monopoly, Codenames and Scramble are among the most popular games in the workplace right now.
swap puzzle
We have jigsaw puzzles here, but with a difference.
Divide your team into equal groups and give each group a separate puzzle piece to complete.
The trick here is that each set is missing some puzzle pieces that are in the hands of opposing teams.
Teams must negotiate with each other to get the remaining pieces of the puzzle, swapping pieces and even party members in certain cases.
drop eggs
You may remember this from your school days.
Is it possible for one of your employees to devise a mechanism that would leave a raw egg unharmed when it falls from a height of several stories?
The egg toss is a fun way to find out which of your employees can come up with practical solutions – even if they aren’t quite as practical.
Games for virtual team building
Group games, challenges and exercises via platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet are examples of virtual team building activities. Icebreaker questions, virtual campfires, and group fitness classes are examples of the type of activities. These virtual activities are designed to strengthen relationships, improve communication and boost morale. Other names for these activities are “Remote Team Building Activities” and “Virtual Team Bonding Activities”.
Familiar with online team building games, these activities help engage virtual workers.
campfire
Before the event, team members receive a kit with, for example, crackers, marshmallows, chocolate and a small tea light campfire. Team members then log into a video conferencing room to participate in 90-minute activities, quizzes, and historical ghost stories on “camp day.” One of the seniors moderates the entire process.
The Tree and Bob Ross
The game mechanics of “The Tree or Bob Ross” are comparable to those of 20 Questions, Eye Spy and other virtual team building games. A person chooses an identity, which can range from an object to a concept, and begins this virtual encounter. A friend of mine decided on a little rubber ball taking a trip to Canada. Let your imagination run wild and choose extremely demanding personalities.
The person who can identify himself is referred to as “The Post”, and all other players can ask “The Post” as many questions as they like to find out who he is.
Typing Speed Contest
A typing speed race will be a hit at your workplace. The race is a great opportunity to show off your lightning-fast fingers while practicing one of the most important remote work skills: fast and accurate typing.
Members of your team can take the typing test and share their results via Slack, email, or other communication channels. You can also run a typing speed relay, which adds up the team results.
Great indoor team building games
Paper Airplane Contest
Prepare a piece of paper and a pen for each participant. Have participants write their names and two questions on a piece of paper. You can point out that the questions shouldn’t be too personal or awkward, but that’s entirely up to you.
After writing their name and questions, ask each person to fold their paper into a paper airplane of their choice.
Set a timer for everyone to throw their fliers at the same time. While the timer is running, everyone should collect their planes and throw them across the room to shuffle all the papers.
Stop the timer and have everyone pick up a classmate’s paper airplane.
Each group member should hold a paper airplane in their hands at the end of the exercise. You must then locate the plane’s original owner and ask him two questions about his plane.
After everyone has located the owner of their paper airplane and asked them the questions, have everyone stand in front of the group and identify themselves by reading the name on the airplane and read that person’s questions and answers to the group.
Follow the leader
This is one of those team building games where the whole team has to act as one and follow a secret leader who performs simple actions that the whole group has to emulate. Another person – the guesser – needs to figure out who the leader of the group is.
The guesser is selected from the group and leaves the room for a short time. While the guesser is gone, the group chooses one person to lead them. This person makes movements that can be quickly imitated by the others (scratching their head, hopping on one foot, patting their stomach, etc.). When the guesser returns to the room, he or she tries to figure out who the leader is by observing the group’s movements.
Crime Dinner Party
In a murder mystery game, one of the dinner guests secretly plays a killer and the other guests have to figure out who the killer is.
Pick a theme for your company’s murder mystery dinner – any of these free scenarios will do. Ask all guests to dress appropriately for the theme and bring a dish to the crime dinner venue (e.g., company headquarters).
Hand out labels, cards, suspect dossiers and more at the dinner party, following the guidelines of your chosen scenario. Have the staff work together to find out who the mysterious criminal is.
These team building activities put the participants’ presentation and improvisation skills to the test and make the other team members laugh.
charade
Charades is a classic game that you might have played as a kid or at a party, but it can also be used in the workplace for fun team building.
Before starting the game, select a number of categories such as: B. Movies, bands, cartoon characters and so on. Put them in different envelopes. Think of about 5-6 terms for each category and write them down on a small piece of paper and put them in the appropriate envelope. For example, you could classify The Beatles, Spice Girls, The Kooks, etc. under bands.
Divide the group into two groups. Each team takes turns sending a representative to present the items in the category of their choice. While the actor cannot speak or draw, the other members of the group try to guess the item. If the group answers the name of the item correctly, they get a point for each correct answer. The team with the highest number of points wins.
Blind drawing
Form pairs or small groups of your team. In a live situation, pairs are very useful, but small groups, with several people interpreting a speaker’s instructions, are also wonderful practice!
Choose one participant to speak and ask them to describe an object. He then has to explain the item to the other people, who then have to sketch it based solely on the description.
The rule is that the person describing the item must not say anything that reveals what it is or is closely related to it. “One would say of a tree: ‘It is a towering tube with lightning coming out of it at both ends, one reaching into the air and the other spreading in the air.
He has rough, aged skin, and hundreds of children grow up until they are ready to fall at the ends of each lightning fork.
Overall, the game can last up to 20 minutes, with the first phase lasting three to five minutes. If you are doing this activity online, separate participants into breakout rooms or have them text chat to provide their descriptions.
After drawing, give the group time to think. This can be both amusing and educational. When debriefing the activity, ask participants to think about how they communicated, what was difficult, and how they could communicate better next time.
Shuffle the groups and do another round of blind drawing if you want to go one step further. Encourage your participants to communicate with each other.
Team development takes time and effort to build a strong team. Building a united and honest team is an obstacle course. Sure, you can put together a team that works well together. However, if you want to build a team that sticks together, you need to cement relationships through successful team building exercises. And this is where all these concepts come into play. Your organization’s group can do more than other groups
To a team that is happier and healthier than other teams.
