Team building activities are very important to create strong relationships among team members, ensure effective collaboration, along with boosting motivation within the team. Such activities not just help in breaking down barriers but also aids in enhancing other important skills like problem solving, leadership, communication, and creativity. In this article, we will examine the various types of activities that can be used in team building and their importance to a team.

The Importance Of Team Building Activities

Team building activities are meant more than just for having fun. They help foster the motivation and the coordination of your team’s members. Some of the importance includes, but are not limited to, the following:

Motivation & Energization:

Teambuilding activities have a significant impress to enhance energization in the workplace, which keeps members active and engaged.

Trust Building:

A successful team is built on trust. With these activities, team members learn to trust one another and build strong working relationships.

Bonding:

These activities foster more social relations which enables the team members to relate to one another on a personal relationship as opposed to just teamwork.

Different Types Of Team Building Activities

Team building activities can be placed in four main categories, each that performs a specific purpose to further develop the different aspects of a team.

Personality Based Activities

Such exercises help to appreciate the individual personality traits of the people on the team as well as assists in creating an atmosphere where everyone’s personality is accepted which aids in better communication and trust.

Activity Based Activities

These exercises place the members of the team into new challenging conditions that necessitate the member’s creative problem-solving or physical powers of activity, coordination, and mutual cooperation.

Skill Based Activities

Skill based activities improve the soft skills of communication, leadership, time management, conflict management, and resolution. To enhance individual and team skills that make the team more productive towards achieving its objectives.

Problem-solving Based Activities

These activities aim to build a person’s critical thinking and problemsolving skills. They are very effective when the team has problems to solve because they teach members how to work together to solve problems.

Popular Team Building Activities

Below are some creative yet simple activities that will help improve team cohesion as well as increase team member’s skills and knowing how to work together.

1. Barter Puzzle

Objective: Develop problem solving abilities, leadership skills, and negotiation strategies.

Activity:

• Form teams of 4 to 5 participants.
• Distribute the same set of jigsaw puzzles of equal complexity to each team.
• The fastest team to solve the puzzle wins.
• To make things harder, mix puzzle pieces within the groups or hide some pieces. This will force the teams to barter and trade puzzle pieces to finish their puzzles.

2. Task Hunt

Aim: Build relationships among members of a team and eliminate ‘groupism’.

Activity:

• Split the team into clusters and give them a set of tasks such as take a selfie with a particular team member or locate a specific object in the office.
• Give them a timeline to accomplish these tasks.
• The group that completes the tasks first wins. This increases teamwork and increases focus beyond group boundaries.

3. 10 Things I Do Well

Aim: Reveal and exploit personal and professional competencies and motivate self-development.

Activity:

• Create pairs or groups of two.
• Every participant needs to articulate 10 personal and 10 professional strengths along with the name of their partner within 15 seconds.
• These statements should be posted in the office and other visible places over the next21 days to serve as a reminder for growth.

4. 2 Truths and a Lie

Aim: Enhanced social interaction and confrontation of stereotypes.

Activity:

• Assemble the team in a circle.
• Each member tells two truths and one lie about themselves.
• The other members try to find the falsehood.
• This activity is entertaining and easy, which allows people to communicate and works well with overcoming prejudice among team members.

5. Memory Wall

Aim: To increase the level of motivation and team members’ reflection of positive experiences.

How To Do It:

• Hand out sticky notes to your team and let them write about all the positive moments they have had with the team.
• After twenty minutes, they will place their notes on a designated “Memory Wall.”
• This step will help members of the team acknowledge their cherished successes and let them strengthen their ties with each other.

6. Game of Possibilities

Aim: To foster creativity and unnatural thought.

How To Do It:

• Split the team up into smaller groups and give one member from each group a mundane object.
• The member is expected to use the phone in a creative way without talking, while the rest of the group attempts to guess what its uses are.
• This encourages innovation and out of the box thinking among the team members.

Main Lessons from Team Activities

• Continuous team motivation activities keep employees energized and available at work.
• As the task solving becomes complex, the team members learn how to work together better and contribute ideas.
• These activities boost key skills like communication, leadership, and time management which are important at work and in life.
• Team building activities promote better personal relations between team members, thus fostering trust and cooperation.

Final Thoughts

Making use of team building improvement activities at the office helps achieve better communication and problem-solving skills and motivates your team to perform. Through fun games, creative challenges, and other skill improvement exercises, a more unified, motivated, and goaloriented team is created. By involving them in these activities regularly, you will cultivate a healthy productive workplace that fosters long term success.

Categories: Team Management Skills