Anna Maria Richards
There was a time when businesses focused on competition in the workplace to foster growth. However, in recent years, there has been an interesting shift in just how to use a competitive spirit for both personal and business growth. Most companies now understand the benefits of building teams who work together toward a common goal. In other words, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a team to build a business.
Are you seeking to build teams in the workplace who work together well as one functional unit, despite any differences they may have? Why not make teambuilding fun? Here are interesting activities ideally suited to teambuilding simply because they literally force teams to work together and at the same time, they are so much fun.
Book an Escape Room for the Team
If you are not yet familiar with escape rooms, you are in for a real treat. These are specially designed ‘rooms’ where game participants work together to solve a puzzle or mystery. Most big cities have at least one venue for escape rooms, such as PuzzleWorks in St Paul, Minnesota.
By booking a room for your team, you will find that they actually enjoy working together to answer the challenge at hand. It could be solving a crime and it could be escaping from a prison block. It will take the team to find and solve clues along the way. Your team, if small, can join other players or you can book the entire room to yourselves. Even so, you must work together to escape the room.
Primitive Camping
If you have found that your team works relatively well together but still has a bit of trouble working as a cohesive team, this might be just the activity for you. Why not take the group on a weekend overnight camping trip to a local primitive campground? Here there are no amenities and it can get pretty rough battling the elements if you are not an outdoorsy type. It will quickly become apparent where everyone’s strengths lie from being able to start a fire to securely putting up tents.
No RVs allowed! With no amenities to rely on, your teams will need to keep the area well lit, cook on a campfire, and entertain themselves without the aid of technology. It’s interesting to hear what members learn and, believe it or not, the one thing most teams come back with is just how much fun they had relying on each other instead of technology.
What Can Your Team Learn?
In the end, it’s all about where you find weaknesses in your team’s ability to work together. The type of activity you planned must also be geared toward the ability of your crew. For example, it might not be advisable to go primitive camping if you have disabled or older people on the team. On the other hand, if you find that you have team members who just don’t like to share ideas for fear of being bested, an escape room might be just the thing. Remember, that door doesn’t open until the mystery is solved. No matter what you choose, remember to make it fun because that, in the end, fosters growth and a sense of camaraderie.
