The best team bonding activities are those that inspire, engage, connect, and motivate teams. What that looks like will depend on the deeper personal dynamics of your team. Each team has a unique way of interacting and collaborating either from personal experiences or from the culture of the workplace itself. The best team bonding activities are those that address workplace culture. Most importantly, the best team bonding activities are the ones where the main objective is to just have fun as a team. This relays the message that working as one-team is the most beneficial to all parties involved.
Why are Team Bonding Exercises Important?
Having fun as a team through team bonding exercises is proven to build a rapport, cohesion, respect, familiarity and build new channels for future communication pathways. In other words, a team bonding exercise should familiarise your team with each member and build cohesion through shared experience. Giving them something to discuss when they go back into the office.
A well bonded team is a well-oiled machine. Team bonding activities are the best way to ensure that your team is bonded and adaptable, ready to take on any challenge. Team bonding exercises are important because they can also help eradicate the barriers that exist between individuals. These barriers can also exist between managements, leaders, CEOs, and their teams. It is important to show your team that their bosses are human too and can laugh with their team at their own hilarious misgivings during team bonding exercises.
Our Top 5 Team Bonding Activities
Survivor
Try to picture the best team bonding activity. What comes to mind? Is it head-to-head challenges, hands-on puzzles, problem solving using lateral thinking? Survivor embodies these aspects of team bonding exercises.
Survivor is based off the TV-show. However, unlike the tv show teams (tribes) will not be voting off other people in their team (that would be very anti team bonding). Instead, they compete against other teams in all out ‘battle’ competing to outwit, outplay and outlast each opposing team, completing challenges head-to-head around one set outdoor location. This is the best team bonding activity as unlike other outdoor activities where teams compete at different times and different locations, (depending on the size). Survivor brings all teams together in a team-vs-team challenge. Creating a larger sense of unity for your team through the shared experience of this team bonding exercise.
Lego Serious Play
On the other end of the spectrum for best team bonding activities is the Lego Serious Play. This team bonding exercise, tackles challenges and obstacles that the team is currently facing. This is a more serious way of getting your team to engage through team bonding exercises, hence the term “serious” play. This activity is for teams who feel they might struggle to bond, connect and motivate their team through a fun shared experience because there are obstacles in the way that need to be addressed. This event is also perfect for teams who are operating well but may need improved goal setting skills, reflection, or motivation.
Lego Serious Play will allow your team to build storytelling metaphors through physical Lego blocks. These metaphors may represent the path you see yourself on, either personally professionally or both, the way you view company values, customer service or workplace culture. What is special about this team bonding exercise is that you can decide what topics you would like to address on the day. What will benefit your team the most is something that only someone within the team can understand.
Team Masterpiece
The best team bonding activities are those that enforce the notion of one team through a singular message. This message can be anything from company values, to motivating slogans, business initiatives or team bonding exercises.
Team masterpiece is one of the best team bonding activities because it is based on the notion of a single powerful message. This team bonding exercise breaks through negative barriers through creative means. Your group is split into teams where they must create a visual representation of a certain theme or message. Each member of the team must actively participate in the creation of the painting, no matter how bad or good their creative skills are. At the end of the event each painting is brought together to create one Team Masterpiece.
Project Pipeline
One of the benefits of best team bonding activities is the barriers that are dismantled between individuals, as well as managers and CEO’s and their team through the notion of one-team. The barriers that are in place can cause friction between teams. Causing a lack of efficiency due to the hesitancy of teams to address issues with managers.
The notion of one-team is heavily prevalent throughout Project Pipeline. This team bonding exercise will split your group into teams. Each team will be given a certain amount of materials in order to construct their section of a working pipeline. Keeping in mind that they only have a limited number of materials, the teams must then delegate roles and work together to construct their section. After each team has constructed their section, they are called back together again. This is where the bigger picture of the event becomes clear. Each team is told that they must now connect all sections of the working pipeline together. They must pool together the leftover materials and try to complete the task before the buzzer goes off. There is no winning team – this is one of the best team bonding exercises as it requires all-hands on deck to complete.
Tikes on Bikes
Think back to the best bonding experiences in your personal life. What was the situation? Was it hardship, love or care? Was it a shared experience with another person that you can both look back on and be proud? What could bond a team more than banding together as one to put others first. To help and care for others. Charity team bonding exercises are a great way to connect any team.
Tikes on Bikes is the best team bonding activity for charity. What could be more bonding for Australian corporate teams than helping Aussie kids find freedom, independence and light their life with unique unrivalled hope. Tikes on Bikes will see your group split into teams of 6 to construct bikes. The catch is that they believe the bikes are to be raced at the end of the event and a winner will be crowned. However, the true meaning behind the event is revealed as children selected form a children’s charity or local school emerge to accept the bikes. Your delegates may get quite emotional as they witness the children have their first taste of freedom.
Book one of our best Team Bonding Activities Today!
Want to book one of our top team bonding activities for your staff? Get in contact with the team at Pinnacle Team Events so we can help with your team bonding.