Team Challenge Games Encourage Employees To Work Together
The work place environment is often not easily adapted to by employees. It’s a radical deviation from the human element of society; people are forced to work in isolated cubicles under bright lights. Everyone strives to be what they think the best is that they can be; competition and stress levels are high. When people from many different walks of life have to come together to unite under a common cause, tensions often arise. Its common knowledge that the stress level of staff is directly related to the overall business performance. A business is exactly like a complicated machine. If one component isn’t functioning optimally, the entire team is challenged.
For proper collaboration to occur, people need to overcome their differences and fears. This is where team challenge games can be a very useful tool. When people are given a trivial common goal, such as in “Team Feud” they become so focused on achieving it that they forget their differences. In doing so they often expose their insecurities to the group, and instead of being judged for them, the group sympathizes and overcomes them. This tends to create an atmosphere of incorporation during the team challenge as opposed to isolation and alienation which can often occur in a corporate environment.
Seeing someone at their weakest often creates empathy in those around, and this carries over to the workplace. Team challenge games aim to draw employees closer together. Since the goal is trivial, employees are under less pressure to achieve it, and can therefore experience more freedom then they usually do in their work situation.
Inter-personal relations aren’t the only area that effective team building challenges. Most of our team building events present the team with a novel, unique problem. To solve it, critical and lateral thinking skills need to be employed. Since the challenge generally breaks down borders between team mates, thinking structures and perspectives are easily shared, and this tends to cultivate these skills in the group.
Planning and role clarification are other things that are improved by a team challenge. To solve the problem or win the prize, a careful action plan needs to be devised, which outlines each specific member’s role in the problem. To beat the challenge, each person needs to understand their role and fulfil their specific goal. This means following leadership and active participation. Solving the problem as a group stimulates ownership and cohesion. The seven basic rules of team building according to “Team Building Tools for Students” are:
- Know your team members
- Communicate accurately and unambiguously
- Accept and support each other
- Check for understanding
- Share understanding and ideas
- Check for agreement
- Resolve conflicts quickly and constructively
As you can see, there is much more to a seemingly trivial team challenge then meets the eye. Not only will it improve your employees thinking skills, it also encourages acceptance, cultivates unity, and helps to create an inclusive and productive workplace culture. If you have any questions as to the number of different activities we offer, why not contact us on 877-616-5634.