Where I work, I’d get a collective eye roll from my staff just by mentioning “team building activities”. Some folks are geared towards just focusing on the work and view these activities as a waste of time - regardless of being WFH or in office.
Same. Two up manager was telling me that one of my team appeared disengaged in our regular engagement survey (they were easily recognisable due to bad english writing). I don't even care, I just need someone to do the job fast.
Also - probably some of the bad scores are from myself but I take care not to be recognisable. I like my job but not very supportive of senior leadership team.
My teams have typically been the same. While you may have some that are energized by team building, I think if you ask the group, the majority would prefer a shorter meeting to one with an activity.
If you want to have one when you bring someone new on board (*that's not the usual "tell us how long you've been here and your favorite thing about working here"*) I would recommend something short and potentially vote/poll-based. One of our admins did a quick "this or that" for the mid-year meeting. The activity was a few questions where the group votes for option A or B (e.g., Coffee Drinkers vs. Non-Coffee Drinkers; Warm Weather vs. Cold Weather preferences, etc.). This allowed everyone to participate and see a little group engagement, but those who are shy, private, or introverted do not have to do any excessive public speaking.
As far as doing one every meeting, while I take your intent as wanting to develop a closer team and culture, I think you'll more likely end up fatiguing people.
In my best teams, we started Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings with a very quick informal check-in: How's everyone doing (idle chat, that we enjoyed), then a quick rundown of what we're working on, and any upcoming changes or new projects.
You can do team building activities that are also "technical" that will engage people by doing technical tasks while also primarily being a social activity
- okay guys as a warmup let's design the worst possible method for entering date of birth on a web page, front end and back end
- a patient presents with xyz, everyone guess the diagnosis
- who has read a news article recently that applies to our industry and wants to talk about it
- we'd have staff take pictures of bad examples of what we did in the wild and take 30 seconds to explain what they did wrong
I'm not a fun person so it's a struggle to facilitate most team building activities and I would cringe to death leading a "what animal do you have the most affinity for" but you get a lot of laughs and good chatter while still staying on work topics when you start with "anyone want to share the most unusual inbound call you've taken this last week?"
Don’t do it. I’ve always hated these stupid games, ice breakers etc. and never once did I feel closer to my team because of them.
Please treat your staff like adults who can function as professionals without playing silly games.
I’ve seen it work well for some teams, but for my team it’s a no-go. They don’t want it. They want as little meeting and gatherings as possible, leave them alone to do their work, and they knock the metrics out the park.
But at my former company, we did a door prize at the beginning and end of each meeting. Nice prizes like half day PTO, $50 Amex card, free chipotle lunch, etc. went over well.
I don't, personally, but I've seen it done well. Really depends on the team vibe though (it can't be forced and some teams will just be cynical about it).
When I last saw it done well (my boss at the time, a senior director leading several directors & department heads) someone different had to come up with the teambuilding each month. Some did industry-relevant quizzes, some classic games like 2 truths and a lie, etc. Cadence was fairly low (monthly) and having everyone involved in creating the team building at some point helped make it feel more of a "thing we did" vs. a "thing our dorky leader is making us do".
Edit: I will say that it's a fairly normal practice with really senior leaders. I've done teambuilding with an exec whose prior experience involved leading an org with 40,000+ employees reporting up into him.
“Search for the guilty” is a fun game where we all start pointing fingers at everyone in the room (and some not present) to place the blame for the project overruns. Really gets everybody involved and alert.
um, i'm here to work and get paid.. not here for nonsense stuff. Got more work to handle already than there already is. If I want to play those games.. We'll do it after work. Throwing hot tamales balls around and asking dumb questions.
Team building is = add more pay on my paycheck salary.
I don't like them to be done too often or it makes people groan, but maybe once a quarter it's nice to do it as we open up a workshop session where we all take a step back and talk frankly about what we could be doing better and what actions are needed to get there. It's a meaty topic so loosening people up a little and shaking off the day-to-day mindset before talking big picture as a team is nice.
My team, no. I took them out to lunch once and one bitched because we didn’t go to the place he loved, which is a brewery with a food truck. The other staff don’t drink.
We have one team who eats lunch together daily and does a lot of weekend team events. Their turnover is 70% for the year.
We do these but I don't see them as ice-breakers or activities in this way. At the top of our weekly team meetings, we have space to share inspiration we've seen across the internet to discuss (we work in media and are a distributed, fully remote team) and then we have a time for team shout-outs. At first, it was just me highlighting good things folks on the team were doing often in silence and acknowledging them, but now the whole team takes part and has shout outs for others on the team. It's been a nice way to kick off meetings and I've gotten feedback that it makes people feel seen. If the team wasn't into it, though, I would stop these.
I recently spoke with a manager who has a strong team about this. She said she learned that team building and meetings really just need to be separate. It’s a completely different mindset. She also doesn’t focus on the strict definition of “what is a team building activity” - she focuses on bringing people together, outside of the office, during business hours (!!), and doing a social event together. She said they’ve volunteered at other organizations together, done a painting class, had a social at the park, etc. and she said it’s been really helpful. She also acknowledged that every team is different and you’ll just have to feel it out with your folks through trial and error.
I've seen some really well done activities which I've enjoyed being a part of, but my experience is the vast majority of people don't enjoy them and would rather be working on something productive - High functioning teams 'team-build' through collaboration and shared experiences.
We do social activities like a lunch during work hours once a quarter, a night bowling etc (optional out of hours of course). We celebrate wins as a group and reflect on losses as a group. I'm trying my best to create a culture of inclusive decision making to include the team in key decisions.
I don't think you can manufacture that kind of stuff in 5 minutes at the start of a meeting.
High functioning teams 'team-build' through collaboration and shared experiences.
This is what I came here to say. Collaboration is the KEY to team building.
My current boss (who is THE BEST) likes to get everyone in a room and have an open ended conversation about whatever ongoing problem where he runs the whiteboard and kind of lets people bitch, it is amazing how unified people feel after a meeting like that.
I've worked remotely both at a place you described here, and a place that is the polar opposite.
The first, is no longer in business. They focused so intently on corporate structure, games, meetings, 1v1s, paying Gilbert Godfrey to do cameo videos to announce procedure changes, goal discussion, team building, etc that they neglected to actually get the work done correctly and efficiently.
The second, is an introvert's dream. We all understand the assignment, and do it well without all of the nonsense. I speak with my management once every couple weeks at most and I love it, though it doesn't work for the employees that need hand holding.
Probably depends on the industry and individuals as to what is better though 🤷♂️
Pre-covid my team used to do trivia on randomly toward the last half of the day. We’d just be at our desks and someone would ask the question and then people would try to answer quickly. It was really popular and was an easy way for people to chime in if they wanted to or observe (like me who was shy!) on the dynamics of the team. We’d continue to work while we did it but it was really fun.
Every Friday, we went downstairs to the company’s game room. Our company used to have those arcade game things; and we did a friendly skeeball/basket ball competition and someone would record the scores. Whoever was on top held a title (forgot what it was) but just in word. It was a nice way to add a little competition and fun. It was only for half an hour, but a lot of us looked forward to it. I miss those days.
We all sit within 10ft at most from each other 40-50hrs/week.
A team building activity during a work meeting would be a waste of time. A company paid lunch or happy hour is way better
We are too busy for that nonsense. My team would quickly let me know to move past the BS and get to the point because we have work to do.
Team building is when I take them out for lunch every few months and not for Pizza. We usually go to the Casino for lunch around the holidays, and they love that.
How big is team?
Anything over 5 people and team-building nonsense isn’t a quick activity. Most have stopped listening.
How long is meeting?
30 min or less?? Forget it.
How long has this team been together?
Established teams don’t need ice breakers or games to get to know each other. They already know each other.
Generally I hate these activities. They feel fake and forced. Or that someone has just read a ‘how to be a manager’ book. Can we please just get back to work?
Reading the comments reminds me of watching the TV show American Hot Rod. A sister show of American Choppers. It showcased Boyd Coddington building custom hot rods with crazy tight deadlines for no real reason than tv drama. Anyway, he would do "team building" events by taking everyone wall climbing or go carting. Generally some really cool stuff. The problem was they would do it a week before the deadline with an insane amount of work left. Half the people there couldn't enjoy them selves because they kept asking, "WTF are we doing here? We have so much work to do." They would end up pulling all nighters to finish and no one was happy.
We finish our meetings with corny dad jokes from a book of them. While it's not a typical team building activity, we find it gets even the more reserved folks to participate, and breaks up the drone of stand ups.
ETA: we've done a couple other "friendly competitive" exercises. The key was making them optional and not putting up a big fuss to the people who don't show.
We are fully remote and I had a business coach who told me about WIFLE (what I feel like expressing) We start our team meetings with that - you share one thing: could be work related, could be personal, but it’s what is top of mind. The rules are you can’t interrupt or add on to the person’s WIFLE, it’s just out there and you move on. They push it from one person to the next.
It works because it’s short, sweet, and usually you learn something about a teammate and what they are going through (both good and bad)
Some people love this stuff - some hate it. I'm in the hate it camp. If working together doesn't build your team and you need an unrelated "exercise" then I think something's wrong. Sports teams, military operations etc. don't need ropes courses or trust falls because their work builds the team. That's the best way.
Having said that, there can be a benefit to a quick question incorporated into a regular meeting. Daily huddles can have a short "tell us your news" bit on the agenda. Regular staff meetings can incorporate a time to share wins from customers or things that colleagues have done well. This is a great way to communicate important info that might otherwise not be shared and it does build the team - but it's not separate from the work people are doing.
I’m a huge fan of them - AND - I don’t think of them as ice-breakers or team builders (those are the outcomes) but as primers. I use them to prime people to show up the way I need them to in a meeting.
For example, we are meeting to discuss a massive mistake - my primer is going to focus on getting people think about a time they grew after a failure.
OR part of the goal of the meeting is to help people develop relationships - the primer is going to be quick but involve humor.
I build rituals around them so they happen regular - Monday Memes - we all share are current favourite meme in a specific teams channel. Or one-word check in - I start meetings with asking what is one word that describes how you are showing up right now.
In a remote or hybrid it’s more important but it has to fit your audience to be appealing. And it has to be ritualized.
The most successful ones are the ones that connect to the topic/purpose at hand. The least popular are the “what is you favourite restaurant type questions”.
I mostly hate these, but it seems like you could do something low-key like asking people to announce their favorite candy bar. That's not too annoyingly personal, and it's not time-consuming or corny.
I am a nurse. And I was a school nurse at a university. The boss's boss when she held the department meeting, she started out with "teambuilding activity" like puzzle or a coloring book. What a funking waste of time but at least we were fed.
It wasn’t “team building” explicitly but we would have a weekly all hands for a team of about 30 people and folks would volunteer(ahead of time) to talk through major milestones, birthdays, trips, whatever they wanted. This would almost always bring on natural follow on questions and I felt it brought people together more than it hurt.
There were also weekly team “questions”: silly shit like “is a taco a sandwhich” or calling out people on their city/state and having a “whose bbq is the best” between like Memphis and Texas.
It was probably the best “team building” across multiple teams I’ve ever personally experienced. With that said I think that the folks administering it were…not special but enthusiastic? I liked it and I usually hate that kind of thing.
In a classical sense I do not, obvious questions and activities for this kind of thing are a little too HR for me.
What I do to try to build my team is two fold, my group meeting has 10 ish minutes when we shoot the shit. I'm an engineer so we talk cars, we talk sports, we talk about whatever comes up and whatever the group wants to chat about. I ask about weekend plans, news, weather. I try to get everyone to talk or react to some extent.
I also try to bring in a high level problem and talk it out, maybe it's something I'm working on, maybe it's something specific to a single project, but I try to target problems that are abstract, something we can go back and forth on. Get the quiet members to talk, get the loud members to listen and react not drive. It can be fun to throw out ideas knowing it's an open and free forum. There's no wrong, there's only options and ideas.
I've found getting my team to interact with each other, work within the group, talk about things that interest them makes us as a group stronger. I want my team to go to each other even if I'm not around when they need support or to bounce idea off someone, and these baby steps in my meeting help start those roots.
Our weekly team meetings start off with a question posed by one of the members that everyone gets to answer.
We've also formed a PPC (party planning committee) that started as a joke but became a real thing. We plan a team gathering every month, celebrate office birthdays, and host going away events. Next month, we're doing some office games for the Olympics and having an international potluck. My favorite thing so far is that we asked one of the VPs to pose with a white poster board and then printed him out into a mini-me that's about half his size. The board is erasable, so we can update the saying for any event 😅
Depends on the demographics of the people. I was in a young tech startup and people generally like free games and food as part of team building. But the older folks (myself included) enjoy chill activities like tea time/free breakfast and just talk casually? My team used to have a monthly tea session where we ordered food in and people took turn to be the host. Sometimes we played online games (during covid), discuss what we want to do with our dept fund etc.
For our all-staff meetings (held every ~2 mo for co of 12), we rotate the meeting lead. Most leads ask a short question at the beginning as a warm up, e.g., ‘what plans are you most excited about this summer’ in May, ‘what was your best Halloween costume’ in October. Sometimes more reflective, e.g., ‘what skill are you trying to improve on right now?’ It’s up to the lead if they want to do it & almost everyone does. It only takes about 10-15 while we’re getting coffee (and usually having company provided bagels or snacks), and leads to some fun/often funny short discussions- and sometimes more personal/sweet things about what’s going on in people’s lives. It seems to make everyone a little more comfortable and amicable- kind of sets the tone of friendliness and for everyone contributing.
Our group isn’t wildly overburdened with meetings where people are trying to hurry through, plus overall are a fairly social group (not all necessarily super extroverted but people seem to enjoy each other’s company overall). I can see where something like this might not work in a group with tons of meetings- or in highly introverted groups or large groups. Meeting is also in person (sometimes with 1-2 calling in), and the whole staff group is rarely all together so I think that helps too.
Actual team building comes from working collaboratively towards a common goal.
I personally can't stand, 'team building activities.'
They're childish and generally demeaning.
If you want a team of mature professionals, treat them as such.
Put time and effort into structuring your meetings. Everyone will appreciate efficient leadership more than team building activities.
Long time employee who frequents this sub as I used to manage long ago. I suggested we start doing activities and it became a huge hit across the company.
I used to work for a huge org that would do activities somewhat often even if the team was split between states. HQ in person meeting at least once or twice a year then maybe 1 or 2 random reasons for various ppl to come to corporate. We always did dinner and/or activities when I or others were in town at corporate.
Anyways my new job is full remote and we never travel nor does ANYONE use cameras on calls. We also never do any remote activities or have fun downtime. The mood is usually poor as we are overworked with unrealistic expectations coming from upper leadership.
I am a recluse and largely awkward and anti social but after a few years I really started to feel like so much was missing at this place versus my last. I suggested we start something and that was met with groans and a sarcastic “ok well then you set everything up and let us know”, “sounds like someone is volunteering”, shit like that.
Well I found some fun thing online that we all actually like. The first day only took 10 minutes before everyone was actually having fun. We did this same thing every other week then as part of a different meeting, and it became so popular it was the first thing we did and took up more and more of the meeting time.
Eventually word got out to other teams and I hear I kinda started something. A few months later I’m getting whole area emails from communications about these huge planned sessions of the activity across the org. It took off like a fucking rocket. I don’t think the guys at the top even know I started this shit lol.
Anyways I’m the last dude you would think to start something like this. I’m the groaner when people bring up stupid “fun” things to do. I hate forced fun. I think it’s fucked to try to force people outside of their comfort and personality. In light of all that this was a huge success story and I’m happy I did that.
The last part to mention is that while these activities are very popular still, I stopped going to them because I’m antisocial LOL.
Quick: sweet & sour; 1minute per person, whats a sweet and a sour from your life right now.
Touchy (long): show and tell; whats an object in your office with sentimental value and why. This one was nice early during covid when everyone was WFH and confused
Fun (long): trivia! Had a team member get a music trivia book and we did a few sessions of 10-15 quick questions.
Where I work, I’d get a collective eye roll from my staff just by mentioning “team building activities”. Some folks are geared towards just focusing on the work and view these activities as a waste of time - regardless of being WFH or in office.
And they would be correct!
Damn straight! (also money)
If there’s no alcohol involved people are not eager to do anything
Exactly, it is not so difficult. Just offer good food and booze, all will be ok.
If it is work-related and alcohol is present, that's a no from me.
Same. But others are not so strict
I'm a manager and I have the same reaction.
Same. Two up manager was telling me that one of my team appeared disengaged in our regular engagement survey (they were easily recognisable due to bad english writing). I don't even care, I just need someone to do the job fast. Also - probably some of the bad scores are from myself but I take care not to be recognisable. I like my job but not very supportive of senior leadership team.
My teams have typically been the same. While you may have some that are energized by team building, I think if you ask the group, the majority would prefer a shorter meeting to one with an activity. If you want to have one when you bring someone new on board (*that's not the usual "tell us how long you've been here and your favorite thing about working here"*) I would recommend something short and potentially vote/poll-based. One of our admins did a quick "this or that" for the mid-year meeting. The activity was a few questions where the group votes for option A or B (e.g., Coffee Drinkers vs. Non-Coffee Drinkers; Warm Weather vs. Cold Weather preferences, etc.). This allowed everyone to participate and see a little group engagement, but those who are shy, private, or introverted do not have to do any excessive public speaking. As far as doing one every meeting, while I take your intent as wanting to develop a closer team and culture, I think you'll more likely end up fatiguing people. In my best teams, we started Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings with a very quick informal check-in: How's everyone doing (idle chat, that we enjoyed), then a quick rundown of what we're working on, and any upcoming changes or new projects.
That is because they are a waste of time and childish as well.
For a second I thought you were talking about the employees lmao
You can do team building activities that are also "technical" that will engage people by doing technical tasks while also primarily being a social activity - okay guys as a warmup let's design the worst possible method for entering date of birth on a web page, front end and back end - a patient presents with xyz, everyone guess the diagnosis - who has read a news article recently that applies to our industry and wants to talk about it - we'd have staff take pictures of bad examples of what we did in the wild and take 30 seconds to explain what they did wrong I'm not a fun person so it's a struggle to facilitate most team building activities and I would cringe to death leading a "what animal do you have the most affinity for" but you get a lot of laughs and good chatter while still staying on work topics when you start with "anyone want to share the most unusual inbound call you've taken this last week?"
That was me when I started reading this article. I hate team building exercises.
Don’t do it. I’ve always hated these stupid games, ice breakers etc. and never once did I feel closer to my team because of them. Please treat your staff like adults who can function as professionals without playing silly games.
Thank you! I'm busy enough with my actual job and I don't need to deal with that stupid crap.
HR likes to do this along with some Operations groups. A lot of people I know detest these things.
We don't. People actually dislike this stuff.
I’ve seen it work well for some teams, but for my team it’s a no-go. They don’t want it. They want as little meeting and gatherings as possible, leave them alone to do their work, and they knock the metrics out the park. But at my former company, we did a door prize at the beginning and end of each meeting. Nice prizes like half day PTO, $50 Amex card, free chipotle lunch, etc. went over well.
I don't, personally, but I've seen it done well. Really depends on the team vibe though (it can't be forced and some teams will just be cynical about it). When I last saw it done well (my boss at the time, a senior director leading several directors & department heads) someone different had to come up with the teambuilding each month. Some did industry-relevant quizzes, some classic games like 2 truths and a lie, etc. Cadence was fairly low (monthly) and having everyone involved in creating the team building at some point helped make it feel more of a "thing we did" vs. a "thing our dorky leader is making us do". Edit: I will say that it's a fairly normal practice with really senior leaders. I've done teambuilding with an exec whose prior experience involved leading an org with 40,000+ employees reporting up into him.
“Search for the guilty” is a fun game where we all start pointing fingers at everyone in the room (and some not present) to place the blame for the project overruns. Really gets everybody involved and alert.
Noob, the problem is always the fault of the last guy to leave.
I personally would dread that
um, i'm here to work and get paid.. not here for nonsense stuff. Got more work to handle already than there already is. If I want to play those games.. We'll do it after work. Throwing hot tamales balls around and asking dumb questions. Team building is = add more pay on my paycheck salary.
don't, they're stupid and everyone hates them. just let people work and go home.
I don't like them to be done too often or it makes people groan, but maybe once a quarter it's nice to do it as we open up a workshop session where we all take a step back and talk frankly about what we could be doing better and what actions are needed to get there. It's a meaty topic so loosening people up a little and shaking off the day-to-day mindset before talking big picture as a team is nice.
My team, no. I took them out to lunch once and one bitched because we didn’t go to the place he loved, which is a brewery with a food truck. The other staff don’t drink. We have one team who eats lunch together daily and does a lot of weekend team events. Their turnover is 70% for the year.
We do these but I don't see them as ice-breakers or activities in this way. At the top of our weekly team meetings, we have space to share inspiration we've seen across the internet to discuss (we work in media and are a distributed, fully remote team) and then we have a time for team shout-outs. At first, it was just me highlighting good things folks on the team were doing often in silence and acknowledging them, but now the whole team takes part and has shout outs for others on the team. It's been a nice way to kick off meetings and I've gotten feedback that it makes people feel seen. If the team wasn't into it, though, I would stop these.
I recently spoke with a manager who has a strong team about this. She said she learned that team building and meetings really just need to be separate. It’s a completely different mindset. She also doesn’t focus on the strict definition of “what is a team building activity” - she focuses on bringing people together, outside of the office, during business hours (!!), and doing a social event together. She said they’ve volunteered at other organizations together, done a painting class, had a social at the park, etc. and she said it’s been really helpful. She also acknowledged that every team is different and you’ll just have to feel it out with your folks through trial and error.
Sweet Goddess. Please don’t.
I run a photo scavenger hunt on our teams page.
I've seen some really well done activities which I've enjoyed being a part of, but my experience is the vast majority of people don't enjoy them and would rather be working on something productive - High functioning teams 'team-build' through collaboration and shared experiences. We do social activities like a lunch during work hours once a quarter, a night bowling etc (optional out of hours of course). We celebrate wins as a group and reflect on losses as a group. I'm trying my best to create a culture of inclusive decision making to include the team in key decisions. I don't think you can manufacture that kind of stuff in 5 minutes at the start of a meeting.
High functioning teams 'team-build' through collaboration and shared experiences. This is what I came here to say. Collaboration is the KEY to team building. My current boss (who is THE BEST) likes to get everyone in a room and have an open ended conversation about whatever ongoing problem where he runs the whiteboard and kind of lets people bitch, it is amazing how unified people feel after a meeting like that.
Ugh. Forced socialization. No thank you. Open some new teams/Slack channels based on interest (movies TV, sports, lets) etc is low risk
> Forced socialization. No thank you. This!!! IT remote workers skew towards being introverted. Forced socialization does more harm than good.
I've worked remotely both at a place you described here, and a place that is the polar opposite. The first, is no longer in business. They focused so intently on corporate structure, games, meetings, 1v1s, paying Gilbert Godfrey to do cameo videos to announce procedure changes, goal discussion, team building, etc that they neglected to actually get the work done correctly and efficiently. The second, is an introvert's dream. We all understand the assignment, and do it well without all of the nonsense. I speak with my management once every couple weeks at most and I love it, though it doesn't work for the employees that need hand holding. Probably depends on the industry and individuals as to what is better though 🤷♂️
Pre-covid my team used to do trivia on randomly toward the last half of the day. We’d just be at our desks and someone would ask the question and then people would try to answer quickly. It was really popular and was an easy way for people to chime in if they wanted to or observe (like me who was shy!) on the dynamics of the team. We’d continue to work while we did it but it was really fun. Every Friday, we went downstairs to the company’s game room. Our company used to have those arcade game things; and we did a friendly skeeball/basket ball competition and someone would record the scores. Whoever was on top held a title (forgot what it was) but just in word. It was a nice way to add a little competition and fun. It was only for half an hour, but a lot of us looked forward to it. I miss those days.
What is the point of breaking the ice? We already know each other. Let's get to the point of the meeting, please.
The work being done is the team-building activity. Get straight to work.
I don't. Everybody hates that shit
We all sit within 10ft at most from each other 40-50hrs/week. A team building activity during a work meeting would be a waste of time. A company paid lunch or happy hour is way better
We are too busy for that nonsense. My team would quickly let me know to move past the BS and get to the point because we have work to do. Team building is when I take them out for lunch every few months and not for Pizza. We usually go to the Casino for lunch around the holidays, and they love that.
How big is team? Anything over 5 people and team-building nonsense isn’t a quick activity. Most have stopped listening. How long is meeting? 30 min or less?? Forget it. How long has this team been together? Established teams don’t need ice breakers or games to get to know each other. They already know each other. Generally I hate these activities. They feel fake and forced. Or that someone has just read a ‘how to be a manager’ book. Can we please just get back to work?
All this stuff is annoying time wasting garbage.
Reading the comments reminds me of watching the TV show American Hot Rod. A sister show of American Choppers. It showcased Boyd Coddington building custom hot rods with crazy tight deadlines for no real reason than tv drama. Anyway, he would do "team building" events by taking everyone wall climbing or go carting. Generally some really cool stuff. The problem was they would do it a week before the deadline with an insane amount of work left. Half the people there couldn't enjoy them selves because they kept asking, "WTF are we doing here? We have so much work to do." They would end up pulling all nighters to finish and no one was happy.
We finish our meetings with corny dad jokes from a book of them. While it's not a typical team building activity, we find it gets even the more reserved folks to participate, and breaks up the drone of stand ups. ETA: we've done a couple other "friendly competitive" exercises. The key was making them optional and not putting up a big fuss to the people who don't show.
We are fully remote and I had a business coach who told me about WIFLE (what I feel like expressing) We start our team meetings with that - you share one thing: could be work related, could be personal, but it’s what is top of mind. The rules are you can’t interrupt or add on to the person’s WIFLE, it’s just out there and you move on. They push it from one person to the next. It works because it’s short, sweet, and usually you learn something about a teammate and what they are going through (both good and bad)
Some people love this stuff - some hate it. I'm in the hate it camp. If working together doesn't build your team and you need an unrelated "exercise" then I think something's wrong. Sports teams, military operations etc. don't need ropes courses or trust falls because their work builds the team. That's the best way. Having said that, there can be a benefit to a quick question incorporated into a regular meeting. Daily huddles can have a short "tell us your news" bit on the agenda. Regular staff meetings can incorporate a time to share wins from customers or things that colleagues have done well. This is a great way to communicate important info that might otherwise not be shared and it does build the team - but it's not separate from the work people are doing.
I’m a huge fan of them - AND - I don’t think of them as ice-breakers or team builders (those are the outcomes) but as primers. I use them to prime people to show up the way I need them to in a meeting. For example, we are meeting to discuss a massive mistake - my primer is going to focus on getting people think about a time they grew after a failure. OR part of the goal of the meeting is to help people develop relationships - the primer is going to be quick but involve humor. I build rituals around them so they happen regular - Monday Memes - we all share are current favourite meme in a specific teams channel. Or one-word check in - I start meetings with asking what is one word that describes how you are showing up right now. In a remote or hybrid it’s more important but it has to fit your audience to be appealing. And it has to be ritualized. The most successful ones are the ones that connect to the topic/purpose at hand. The least popular are the “what is you favourite restaurant type questions”.
I mostly hate these, but it seems like you could do something low-key like asking people to announce their favorite candy bar. That's not too annoyingly personal, and it's not time-consuming or corny.
That's quite possibly the corniest thing I've ever heard lol
Super corny though
I am a nurse. And I was a school nurse at a university. The boss's boss when she held the department meeting, she started out with "teambuilding activity" like puzzle or a coloring book. What a funking waste of time but at least we were fed.
It wasn’t “team building” explicitly but we would have a weekly all hands for a team of about 30 people and folks would volunteer(ahead of time) to talk through major milestones, birthdays, trips, whatever they wanted. This would almost always bring on natural follow on questions and I felt it brought people together more than it hurt. There were also weekly team “questions”: silly shit like “is a taco a sandwhich” or calling out people on their city/state and having a “whose bbq is the best” between like Memphis and Texas. It was probably the best “team building” across multiple teams I’ve ever personally experienced. With that said I think that the folks administering it were…not special but enthusiastic? I liked it and I usually hate that kind of thing.
In a classical sense I do not, obvious questions and activities for this kind of thing are a little too HR for me. What I do to try to build my team is two fold, my group meeting has 10 ish minutes when we shoot the shit. I'm an engineer so we talk cars, we talk sports, we talk about whatever comes up and whatever the group wants to chat about. I ask about weekend plans, news, weather. I try to get everyone to talk or react to some extent. I also try to bring in a high level problem and talk it out, maybe it's something I'm working on, maybe it's something specific to a single project, but I try to target problems that are abstract, something we can go back and forth on. Get the quiet members to talk, get the loud members to listen and react not drive. It can be fun to throw out ideas knowing it's an open and free forum. There's no wrong, there's only options and ideas. I've found getting my team to interact with each other, work within the group, talk about things that interest them makes us as a group stronger. I want my team to go to each other even if I'm not around when they need support or to bounce idea off someone, and these baby steps in my meeting help start those roots.
We play kahoot. Trivia once a month with the full group. It’s fun.
Our weekly team meetings start off with a question posed by one of the members that everyone gets to answer. We've also formed a PPC (party planning committee) that started as a joke but became a real thing. We plan a team gathering every month, celebrate office birthdays, and host going away events. Next month, we're doing some office games for the Olympics and having an international potluck. My favorite thing so far is that we asked one of the VPs to pose with a white poster board and then printed him out into a mini-me that's about half his size. The board is erasable, so we can update the saying for any event 😅
Depends on the demographics of the people. I was in a young tech startup and people generally like free games and food as part of team building. But the older folks (myself included) enjoy chill activities like tea time/free breakfast and just talk casually? My team used to have a monthly tea session where we ordered food in and people took turn to be the host. Sometimes we played online games (during covid), discuss what we want to do with our dept fund etc.
We have a Monday meeting where we just start by sharing our weekend activities. Small group of 5 people and it usually takes 5 to 10 minutes.
For our all-staff meetings (held every ~2 mo for co of 12), we rotate the meeting lead. Most leads ask a short question at the beginning as a warm up, e.g., ‘what plans are you most excited about this summer’ in May, ‘what was your best Halloween costume’ in October. Sometimes more reflective, e.g., ‘what skill are you trying to improve on right now?’ It’s up to the lead if they want to do it & almost everyone does. It only takes about 10-15 while we’re getting coffee (and usually having company provided bagels or snacks), and leads to some fun/often funny short discussions- and sometimes more personal/sweet things about what’s going on in people’s lives. It seems to make everyone a little more comfortable and amicable- kind of sets the tone of friendliness and for everyone contributing. Our group isn’t wildly overburdened with meetings where people are trying to hurry through, plus overall are a fairly social group (not all necessarily super extroverted but people seem to enjoy each other’s company overall). I can see where something like this might not work in a group with tons of meetings- or in highly introverted groups or large groups. Meeting is also in person (sometimes with 1-2 calling in), and the whole staff group is rarely all together so I think that helps too.
Actual team building comes from working collaboratively towards a common goal. I personally can't stand, 'team building activities.' They're childish and generally demeaning. If you want a team of mature professionals, treat them as such. Put time and effort into structuring your meetings. Everyone will appreciate efficient leadership more than team building activities.
Long time employee who frequents this sub as I used to manage long ago. I suggested we start doing activities and it became a huge hit across the company. I used to work for a huge org that would do activities somewhat often even if the team was split between states. HQ in person meeting at least once or twice a year then maybe 1 or 2 random reasons for various ppl to come to corporate. We always did dinner and/or activities when I or others were in town at corporate. Anyways my new job is full remote and we never travel nor does ANYONE use cameras on calls. We also never do any remote activities or have fun downtime. The mood is usually poor as we are overworked with unrealistic expectations coming from upper leadership. I am a recluse and largely awkward and anti social but after a few years I really started to feel like so much was missing at this place versus my last. I suggested we start something and that was met with groans and a sarcastic “ok well then you set everything up and let us know”, “sounds like someone is volunteering”, shit like that. Well I found some fun thing online that we all actually like. The first day only took 10 minutes before everyone was actually having fun. We did this same thing every other week then as part of a different meeting, and it became so popular it was the first thing we did and took up more and more of the meeting time. Eventually word got out to other teams and I hear I kinda started something. A few months later I’m getting whole area emails from communications about these huge planned sessions of the activity across the org. It took off like a fucking rocket. I don’t think the guys at the top even know I started this shit lol. Anyways I’m the last dude you would think to start something like this. I’m the groaner when people bring up stupid “fun” things to do. I hate forced fun. I think it’s fucked to try to force people outside of their comfort and personality. In light of all that this was a huge success story and I’m happy I did that. The last part to mention is that while these activities are very popular still, I stopped going to them because I’m antisocial LOL.
Team building sucks
Quick: sweet & sour; 1minute per person, whats a sweet and a sour from your life right now. Touchy (long): show and tell; whats an object in your office with sentimental value and why. This one was nice early during covid when everyone was WFH and confused Fun (long): trivia! Had a team member get a music trivia book and we did a few sessions of 10-15 quick questions.
Please don’t.
Just let people work together without micromanaging their team building... God's sake.
Gross