Build Through Play: How Team Building Activities Can Help Your Team Grow

Team building is more than just company outings or overnight stays; building a cohesive team is integral to a business’s success.

However, you can’t force people to do team building on their own, unless you put them under certain situations that naturally bridges them together, despite their differences. Like all relationships, it takes a certain amount of effort to know together and learn how to work well together.

How ‘Building Through Play’ Builds Teams

Here at Quest, we believe in building through play. Play isn’t just for children, but for adults as well. It helps people become themselves, comfortable with the people involved in the activity, and bring out their creative potential. Through play, people learn how to trust one another — trust is an important yet fundamental aspect of team building.

Through play, people improve their social skills — adults openly communicate with each other since they feel more relaxed in this setting, thus the probability of strengthening relationships through team building is high.
Through different team building activities, teams share the laughter and fun with each other. It cultivates feelings of empathy, trust, and compassion towards their teammates. A high performing team is a cohesive team. Building a cohesive team through engaging and competitive team building activities can help strengthen relationships, therefore positively improving work output in the office setting.

Benefits of Corporate Team Building

Some believe that team building shouldn’t be done in big groups, but we believe otherwise. Facilitating team buildings and properly grouping different people together helps in breaking the wall that impedes the team’s growth. Whether you’re a large group or a small team, all participants can enjoy the numerous team building benefits below:

Interpersonal Development through Team Building

Companies engage in team buildings to fortify and strengthen relationships within the team. Here are the exceptional benefits of team building for interpersonal development:

Improved Team Communication

Did you know that 86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures? In order to build relationships among your team members, improving communication should be the first priority. Better, clear communication between teammates will effectively help in improving workflow. Various team building activities require constant communication; each team member will have the opportunity to communicate with the other team members. Through this experience, they will carry this over to the workplace. This has been proven by a study from Harvard on The New Science of Building Great Teams. It is important to note that effective communication does not solely rely on the content of the discussion, but it also relies heavily on how the context was discussed.

Strengthened Teamwork Ability

Through various teamwork activities, you can determine each team member’s capacity to perform within the team. By developing their skills through team building activities and other seminars, it’ll be easier to define their roles in a team. You can balance the team by placing individuals with contrasting qualities and strengths, therefore filling up each member’s strengths and weaknesses. Through this assessment, you will create efficient teams that will complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. A study by Dale Carnegie finds that companies with engaged employees “outperform those without by up to 202 percent.” A well-engaged team is a team that equally participates in an activity or towards a certain goal, without leaving anyone behind.

“We’re All in The Same Boat” Mentality

This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are afflicted with the same kind of problem, but think of it as a ship’s crew. A company-wide integration of each of its departments can help improve relationships and innovate thinking. While results of this inter-departmental integration aren’t as much as remarkable with tight-knit teams, the key here is to loosen up and enjoy the workplace more.

Build Your Own Office Culture

People working at Google, Zappos, Twitter, and Facebook are well known to rave about their company culture. Company culture isn’t something you set in the office. Unlike rules, a healthy culture in the office is always in the works. Team building exercises help develop this culture within your office. Your office culture reflects on how your team performs well. In schools, developing a unique culture for clubs and organizations is easier due to their striking similarities in interests. Help create a fun, creative, and work-conducive office culture, making it a nicer place to work at, and not something that is dreadful to come to.

Conducive Working Environment

A conducive working environment isn’t always free food, unlimited coffee perks, or a well-stocked pantry. A conducive working environment is something your people look forward to when coming into the office. It’s the people within the working environment that makes it conducive. Through different team building activities, your team members will develop relationships with their office mates, making every work day something worth going to. It’s important to hold team buildings and company outings at least once a year; this can be extremely beneficial especially for new team members.

Fortified Connections Among Members

Team building is all about strengthening the bond between the people in a team. Exciting team building activities are designed to make it engaging and mind stimulating. Camaraderie cannot be forced, but through team building, you can build new relationships, and strengthen existing ones. In return, communications in the office will be easier and more efficient.

Intrapersonal Development through Team Building

Team buildings aren’t just for interpersonal development. A participant will eventually know more about themselves through various activities, and it helps build character throughout the years. Discovering more about yourself and your potential can definitely help in building your own career path. Explore more about yourself through team building and enjoy the following benefits:

Boost Morale

It’s undeniable that work days can be boring; break the monotony with a company team building activity! It boosts the office morale and motivates each staff to work hard in anticipation of this reward. It’s an opportunity to lift their spirits.

Improved Productivity and Efficiency

A significant boost in morale results in improved productivity. This isn’t just a spur of the moment opportunity, but something that can last long as an after-effect of team building. As work becomes “easier” through effective team communication, it also improves individual performance.

Defining Roles and Responsibilities

Some of your team members may have a hard time in determining what can they deliver to the team, as roles and responsibilities may not be clear to themselves. During team building, it will help tap that hidden potential and you might discover something more than meets the eye. It will help every individual in your team to realize their potential — are they fit to be leaders for the team? Who are the analytical thinkers? Who can carry out work more effectively? These things can be uncovered through the challenging team building exercises.