If you are in charge of planning a corporate retreat, you may already be wondering about the various team-building activities that you may want to undertake. At their core, team-building activities are all about putting people in situations where they have to work as a team. It means developing a sense of trust in your co-workers. Over the years, a number of specific activities have been found to be super effective at building these values. In this article, we list for you some fun and effective corporate team-building activities.
Scavenger Hunt
When it comes to team-building activities that have stood the test of time, scavenger hunts are up there with the best of them. Scavenger hunts involve finding a prize by following a number of clues. The reason why scavenger hunts are so effective is that they also involve an aspect of problem-solving. This means that teams often have to brainstorm, narrow down options and finally settle on a solution. This is exactly the same process that is used to solve problems in the business environment.
Human Knot
Another simple yet effective team-building activity is the human knot. Here, participants sit across a table and crisscross their hands in such a way that their arms become entangled. The challenge here is to disentangle your arms without letting go of each other’s hands. To do this, the group needs to find a very specific way to move their arms to disentangle them. All the aspects of group problem solving are brought to bear in such a scenario. Only by coordinating their moves can a group win this game, employing techniques that make problem-solving in the real world easier.
Blind Retriever
While all our previous activities have focused on building a sense of group trust, the blind retriever activity brings communication into the picture. The game involves teams of two to three people. One of the group members is blindfolded and the challenge here is for him or her to find hidden objects on the sole basis of verbal instructions from his or her teammates. In addition to group problem-solving skills, the game adds a communication challenge to the activity.
Group Juggle
The aim of this activity is to promote a sense of teamwork. the group will form a circle and pass a ball among each other. In addition, each person is required to say their name when they are handed the ball. To make things more complex, additional balls can be added to the activity.
Active Listener
Just like the blind retriever game focused on communication, this other one targets listening skills. To do this, get your team into a meeting-style formation. Deliver a short to medium-length speech that must purposely be delivered in as boring a manner as possible. however, ensure that some snippets of information are weaved into the speech in a way that they don’t immediately jump out. Such snippets could be statistics, names of towns, or anything the speaker wants them to be. After the speech, individuals are required to remember as many of these snippets as possible. The game can be played as an individual or group challenge.
