Team building activities have a terrible reputation, and most of it is deserved. Ask any office to describe their last away day and you will hear the same words. Awkward. Long. Slightly damp, usually. However, the problem is almost never the idea of team building itself. It is the execution. Therefore this guide looks at why so many team building activities fail, what the good ones have in common, and how to pick something your people will genuinely talk about afterwards.
Why most team building activities fail
Before choosing anything, it helps to understand how team building activities go wrong. The failure modes repeat with remarkable consistency across companies of every size.
They reward the wrong people
Most classic activities quietly favour one type of person. Sports days reward the fittest. Meanwhile, quizzes reward whoever reads the most. Presentations and improv, for example, reward the loudest. As a result, the same three colleagues shine every single time, while everyone else stands at the edge checking their phone.
Good team building does the opposite. Therefore it should flatten the hierarchy, not confirm it. In addition, it should give the quiet person on the finance team a reason to speak up.
They are forced fun
Nothing kills enthusiasm faster than being told to enjoy yourself. For example, trust falls, icebreaker circles and “share something surprising about yourself” all fall into this trap. Meanwhile, the people who most need to loosen up are the ones who dig in hardest.
In short, enjoyment cannot be mandated. However, it can be engineered. Give people a shared task with a real outcome and the enjoyment tends to arrive on its own.
They are scheduled badly
Friday at four o’clock is not a gift. Neither is a Saturday. For example, an activity that eats into personal time reads as unpaid overtime with balloons, no matter how good it is. Therefore the calendar slot matters almost as much as the activity.
They go on far too long
A full day workshop sounds thorough. However, energy drops off a cliff after ninety minutes. As a result, the last three hours of most away days are spent watching the clock. In short, shorter is nearly always better.
What makes team building activities actually work
The activities people remember fondly tend to share four traits. If your shortlist ticks these boxes, you are already ahead of most companies.
A genuinely level playing field
The best option is something nobody in the room has done before. As a result, novelty removes every existing advantage. Therefore the graduate and the managing director start from exactly the same place, which is rarer than it sounds.
Physical ability should not decide the outcome either. In addition, prior hobby knowledge should not hand anyone an easy win. If your activity has a natural champion before it starts, pick something else.
Real communication under mild pressure
Teams bond when they have to coordinate quickly. For example, a shared time limit does this well. Meanwhile, a task that can only be solved by talking to each other does it even better.
However, the pressure should stay mild. Genuine stress produces genuine friction, and you will spend the following week untangling it.
A clear beginning, middle and end
People need to know when it is over. Therefore an activity with a defined finish matters. It gives everyone a shared story with a punchline. For example, “we lost with four seconds left” is a story. “We did some group exercises” is not.
Something to talk about on Monday
This is the real test. For example, a successful activity generates in jokes, nicknames and running references. In short, if nobody mentions it again, it did not work.
A quick checklist before you book anything
Run your shortlist of team building activities past these questions. It takes five minutes and saves a lot of budget.
- Could someone opt out without embarrassment? If not, reconsider.
- Does it work for a range of fitness levels and ages?
- Does it happen during paid working hours?
- Is it under two hours of actual activity?
- Is there food or drink afterwards, so people can debrief informally?
- Would you personally be pleased to receive the invitation?
That last question is the most useful one. However, it is also the one most people skip.
Team building activities that tend to land well
No single format suits every team. Therefore it helps to know the honest strengths and weaknesses of the popular options.
Escape rooms. In short, they are strong on communication and short enough to hold attention. However, they cap out at around six to eight people per room, so larger teams get split up.
Cooking classes. Genuinely inclusive, and they end with a meal. As a result, the mood lifts on its own. Meanwhile, they can drag if the group is large and the kitchen is small.
Volunteering days. Meaningful and good for morale, particularly for values driven teams. However, the fit varies. As a result, they suit some cultures brilliantly and feel performative in others.
Quizzes and games nights. Cheap and easy to organise, and therefore easy to sign off. However, they reward general knowledge, so the same person wins every time.
Outdoor assault courses. Memorable, certainly. However, that is not always a compliment. Meanwhile, they exclude anyone with an injury, a knee problem or a reasonable objection to mud.
Free roam virtual reality. Newer, and unusually good at levelling the group. Therefore it is worth a section of its own, as below.
Why free roam VR fits the brief
Free roam VR earns its place here because it solves the level playing field problem better than almost anything else. Players wear a wireless headset and walk freely around a large physical arena. Up to eight people share the same game at the same time, seeing and hearing each other throughout.
Crucially, gaming experience barely helps. There is no controller to master and no menu to memorise. In short, you walk, you look and you point. Therefore the colleague who has never touched a console is on equal footing with the one who plays every night.
Fitness is not a factor either. For example, the arena is walking pace, indoors and flat. In addition, sessions run around thirty to forty minutes, which sits comfortably inside a long lunch or an early finish.
The communication side takes care of itself. Teams have to warn each other, cover each other and shout across a room they cannot fully see. As a result, people who never normally speak in meetings end up directing the group, which is usually the moment managers find most interesting.
The mistakes that quietly ruin a good plan
Even a well chosen activity can be undone by logistics. First, do not surprise people. Send the details in advance, including what to wear and how physical it will be. Meanwhile, ask about accessibility needs privately rather than in a group chat.
Second, do not make it compulsory in tone. An enthusiastic invitation lands far better than a calendar block with no opt out. In addition, always give people a graceful way to sit part of it out.
Third, do not schedule a debrief. The conversation happens naturally over food. Therefore book somewhere to eat nearby and leave the flipchart at the office.
Choose something people would pick themselves
In short, the best team building activities are the ones your team would happily do on a night out anyway. In short, everything else is a meeting in fancy dress.
If you want an activity where nobody has an unfair advantage and everybody has something to say afterwards, free roam VR is worth a look. We run corporate sessions for up to eight players at a time across our UK arenas in Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Guildford and Reading. Plan your team building day with meetspaceVR and give your team something they will actually mention on Monday.
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