What Is Team Building and Why Is It So Important?

What is teamwork?  The dictionary defines it as a “cooperative effort by the members of a group or team to achieve a common goal”.

Individuals can achieve stellar accomplishments.  Groups of individuals acting together in a cooperative effort can accomplish impossible goals.

A lone hunter can bring down a deer, but a group of hunters acting together can bring down the whole herd.  Something the individual on his own could never hope to accomplish.

How do you bring about greater cooperation, communication and teamwork within your organization?  You engage in team-building activities!

Profile Bingo

This is a fun game that can be used to build communication between team members.  It’s a take-off on the well-known game of Bingo.  To play, print out cards that list traits or experiences.  Distribute the cards to the players.  Now the players circulate and compete to see who can fill out their bingo card.  The game encourages teammates to talk with strangers in a casual manner, which in turn leads to heightened collaboration and productivity.

Field Day

Get your team outside and compete in interactive games.  As a special treat, you can include a corporate helicopter charter to an exotic or remote location.  Divide up into groups and start playing.  

You can play tug-of-war, sack races, capture the flag, softball, volleyball or any other high-energy game.  Combine this with a picnic lunch, and it will be an experience your group will never forget.  

It’s important to remember that you want to foster competition.  Vary the activities so that everyone can participate and have a chance to succeed.  Select some games that allow the less athletic in your group to have a good chance to succeed.

Scavenger Hunt

This is one of the most common team-building exercises.  This can be done inside or outside.  Divide up into groups and search for hidden items.  The group that finds the most items in a given time is declared the winner.

Here are some variations you can try.  Send the participants through various areas of the company.  They are looking for objects unique to different departments.  This gets your employees familiar with all the different spaces and areas of your company

You can try challenging players to get items from or complete tasks with strangers.  Ask them to get a business card from someone in the company they don’t know, sing a song with a stranger or do other fun things to encourage cooperation and communication.

Another variation is the art hunt.  Ask your teams to create a mural with the objects they find.  This approach encourages creativity.

There are hundreds of fun and engaging activities and games you can use to help build communication, camaraderie, and teamwork with your employees.

If you’re interested you can take further education to help you learn the skills of building and leading high-performance teams.

These activities will help new team members to gain a sense of belonging.  It helps them become comfortable with your group and organization.  For your veterans, it helps them develop leadership skills of their own and polish their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.