Team Building Activities for Professional Teams | Jack Mondel | Professional Overview

Working together as a team is known to be more productive and effective than individually. A good team can also be a lot of fun to work with, but team building can be hard at times. For instance, eye rolls can occur more frequently during team-building activities than high-fives.

Workplace team-building activities can be used for various reasons, such as if you’re planning to implement an initiative or just want to have fun with your coworkers.

If you’re planning on organizing a team-building event, avoid the idea of holding competitions such as egg and spoon races and hot dog eating contests. Instead, focus on developing fun and engaging activities that can be used for the entire office. We’ve collected the most popular team-building activities that can be used for the workplace, such as problem-solving exercises and small group activities.

Solve a puzzle

A simple and effective team-building activity is to solve a puzzle, which can be a brain teaser or a set of 500 pieces. Give your team a time limit to complete the task, and make sure that everyone contributes to its success.

After completing the puzzle, take a minute to reflect on the team’s performance. Ask your team members to share their thoughts on the puzzle’s strategy or decisions. Doing so can help open up conversations about each member’s unique perspective.

Count to 20

This simple and effective team-building activity can be used for a couple of minutes to bond. Everyone must sit in a circle, and the goal is to count the number of people who started the count off or said a number at any given moment. However, if two of them do so at the same time, the count stops. This game requires team members to be aware of their surroundings and collaborate to reach the end.

Compliment Circle

Various forms of this can be used to encourage team members to express their appreciation for one another. For instance, you can spend five minutes doing this by having each member compliment one another.

You can compliment someone on their proposal or give someone props for bringing in a snack for the team, or even thank the entire team for their work. Each team member can address their colleague to the right side of the room so that everybody gets a chance to shine.

Untangle a human knot

This simple and effective team-building activity is a camp favorite that can be used to solve a problem. For this game, all team members must grab each other’s hands while sitting in a circle. The goal is to untangle the chains without breaking them. However, you can also make it even more challenging by restricting the number of people who can talk or putting a time limit on it. This activity requires a bit of legroom, but it can be a fun team-building game if you’re up to it.

Host a lunch and learn

Unsung talent can be used to bring everyone together. For instance, if one member has exceptional skills in one area, such as knitting or speaking a language, you can host a lunch and learn session for the team. During this time, they can teach others a new skill. You can also encourage your team members to practice giving presentations and mentoring each other.

Originally published at https://jackmondel.com on November 17, 2022.