A close-knit team is considered as the core of any organization wanting to climb the stairs of success. However, bringing all your team members together can be as tough as writing robust lines of software codes. Hence, we’ve chalked out some team building activities in this blog to make things easier for you.
Introduction
Are you a team leader or a founder? Chances are you’ve either already executed multiple of those tried-and-tested team building activities or come up with your own. Often noticing the displeasing expressions on your team members’ faces with the sheer mention of the word. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that team building activities be purposeful yet fun.
Here’s a list of enjoyable team building activities that will develop positivity at your workplace.
- Community Scavenger Hunt
The scavenger hunt is a classic that works across team sizes, locations, or situations. You can keep the game short or make it a day-long, ending it with a group lunch. It takes a lot of precise preparation but the effort is totally worth it.
A community scavenger hunt will let employees bond, foster communication, problem solving and leadership skills, bridge the gap between different departments, as well as freshers and seniors, in addition to providing sheer fun. You can design the hunt to be simple or complex based on your objective. Although the game can be organized indoors, the outdoor one will be more enjoyable.
- Trading offices
Trading offices is one of those team-building activities that packs in a lot of fun engagement, creativity, and laughter. Wondering what is it about?
In Trading Offices, one team, department, or office will trade spaces with another, although the shift of spaces won’t be permanent. The core rule to remember is that it should be done in a light-hearted way.
Once the trading is accomplished successfully, the new occupants of the space can decorate it however they like or their perception of the liking of that space’s original occupants. You can let the teams do the remodel for the first half of the day and disclose it during the lunch hour.
The whole activity is refreshing, offering fun collaboration.
- Bowling
Another outdoor team building activity that is completely recreational, especially for people who are stuck to their desks most of the time. You can take your entire department to a local bowling arena once in a fortnight. You can then divide the team into small groups or let them participate individually.
The game will help them get out of the rut, exercise, and relax with their colleagues.
- Potluck Lunch
Potluck lunch is a shared lunch wherein, each of your team members will be bringing a dish of their choice or for a mutually decided menu. After all, nothing can beat the bonding and leisure chats that could happen over food.
The activity of Potluck Lunch is great for letting your team know each other better, bringing them closer without seeming it like activity at all.
- Purpose Mingle
Outdoor team building activity seems impossible at the time? Then you can resort to Purpose Mingle, an indoor team-building exercise that won’t take long. In fact, it’s probably the shortest team building activity, taking up only a couple of minutes.
Recommended article: 12 Awesome Team Building Games Your Team Won’t Hate
Purpose Mingle is an activity in which you can make your team members walk around and share their ideas and agendas with as many people as possible prior to a meeting. It improves their focus and productivity significantly while making the attendees more responsible towards their meeting goals. It will also make employees aware of the participants’ agenda.
To make it more interesting, you can also offer prizes, for instance, to the person who contributes exactly as they said.
- Outdoor activities
While team building activities can be both ‚Äì indoor and outdoor; the latter brings with it a more casual and positive environment. That’s because the mood of every team member in an outdoor activity seems to be relaxed, helping them come together and have a good time. It’s great for encouraging effortless communication.
The best thing is you can choose from a variety of such activities, right from outdoor games like a scavenger hunt, photo finish, and team jigsaw to organizing a one-day or weekend getaway.
The Benefits of a Positive Team
According to a study, happy individuals are successful across multiple domains in their lives, particularly at work, than those who find it hard to remain positive or happy. That’s a substantial reason for leaders to build a positive team.
Positivity increases creativity, productivity, collaboration ability, helps overcome challenges, reduces absenteeism, and makes an individual or team more satisfied. The satisfaction brings more positivity, continuing the cycle. So, let’s explore the steps to creating a positive team.
1. Be a Positive Leader
More often than not, a leader has to lead by example. The more positive and happy one will be as a leader, the more of these elements would be passed on to one’s team. Hence, it is vital for you to first work on and attain positivity and emotional intelligence as it is the founding stone for a positive, motivated team.
2. Eliminate Obstacles to Positivity
For creating positivity in the team, it’s imperative to first eliminate all the obstacles to a healthy, happy work atmosphere. Therefore, as a leader, you need to begin by identifying factors that hamper your team members’ motivation, productivity, and satisfaction levels, ultimately causing negativity and distress. Once identified, replace those factors with positive elements and motivators.
3. Manage Positively
Once you’re able to remove the roadblocks, you enter the right space to positively manage your team. For managing your team positively, you can do multiple things, including clearly defining mission and vision statements, team members’ roles, aims that align with the firm, bidding adieu to micromanagement, communicating effectively, creating an open work environment, and developing positive relationships among the team members.
Conclusion
The concept of any team building activity is to do challenging and fun activities together as a group. Add it as a routine task and you shall reap all the benefits you’ve heard it brings along better employee management.
