Team building is not just a quality that helps kids during school, or sportsmen in their game or employees at their workplace; it is all about developing a healthy attitude to face life. People who have the ability to work in large groups, who are able to coordinate with other people around them and work towards a common goal are obviously more successful than those who look down upon others, prefer to work alone and frown at other people’s success. Team building is an important quality that should be inculcated in children from a young age, so that they grow up to be responsible and sensitive adults of the future. So, how does one do this? The answer lies in the fun activities for team building mentioned in this article. Have a read.

Fun Team Building Activities for Children

Schools should make it a point to introduce children to team building activities from a young age. There are many fun team building activities that children will enjoy. Some of them are as follows:

Sports: The best and perhaps the simplest way to inculcate team spirit or a team building tendency in children is to encourage them to play group sports. Soccer, volleyball, cricket or any other games that the children can enjoy together as a team tend to instill a sense of team spirit in them.

Tug of War: Yes, a simple game like tug-of-war can help in developing team spirit. The children find it a great source of entertainment, so that’s a bonus as well. To make this simple game more interesting, you can modify it by making it a multi-way tug-of-war instead of the conventional two-way-tug-of-war.

Team Drawing: Provide the children with a huge blank canvas and provide them with drawing and painting material. Ask them to make a single picture, which should be painted collaboratively. You can also make multiple groups of students and make it a competition, which would encourage the children to do better.

Cooking Tasks: Give a cooking task to the team of children. For younger kids, keep the task simple enough, like making sandwiches or decorating cookies. For children who are old enough to use the oven, assign difficult tasks. Ask the children to cook up a complete meal starting with the appetizers, followed by the main course, the side dishes and the desserts. This way they’ll even learn to work under pressure.

Treasure Hunt: Yes, most of us have played this game as kids. It is a fun game where every team gets clues that lead to the next destination, where the next clue is hidden. The hunt for the treasure continues till the team finds all the clues and the final treasure as well. Requiring good team coordination and collective movement, this is a simple and fun game that instills a team building spirit amongst children.

Fun Team Building Activities For Adults

As responsible adults, we often need to work in groups or at least coordinate with a group of people and function as a team, no matter which profession we are in. Team building activities for adults instill a team spirit as well as act as an icebreaker. Here are some fun team building ideas you could use at office:

Share it All: This is a very simple team building activity which can help develop team spirit in the corporate atmosphere. Divide all the people in groups of four or more as per the team strength. Make sure that the groups formed do not contain people who are always seen together. People who generally do not interact much with each other should be put in one group. Ask every team member to share his three most impressive moments in the company. Ask the team member to try to find common experiences with each other as they share their experiences. After all the small groups have finished sharing the experiences within themselves. Ask the group to interact with all the other groups. This is a great team building activity, which will help bring colleagues closer and result in a better work atmosphere as well.

Corporate Olympics: Sports are almost synonymous with team spirit. To allow your office employees to participate in sports competitions is perhaps the best way to inculcate team spirit in them. Also there are inter-company tournaments, which encourage the employees to work cohesively as a team while aiming to succeed. Group games are the best way to inculcate team spirit amongst adults as well.

Team Outings: Having fun together is a great way to strengthen the team building process. Go for an outing as a team. Instead of just having corporate dinners and brunches, try to go out for a hike or a full-day picnic together. People tend to open up and mix up with each other on such trips. Outings are an informal, effective and fun way to help the process of team building.

Drama and Arts: Conduct small drama or dance workshops for the employees. Choreographing a group dance will definitely serve as a great team-building activity and will be fun for sure. In case you are not sure about the dancing activity, you can also conduct a drama workshop and let the employees direct and organize a short play on their own. Indulging in dance and drama will definitely be a stress buster as well as a fun team building activity. In case there is a good movie, which highlights the importance of team spirit, you can organize a special screening of the movie for your team. However, make sure you let the team member know the reason for which you will be watching the movie.

Many such fun team-building activities can be conducted to convey the importance of team spirit to one and all. So use whatever you think will appeal to the group that you intent to teach to work as a team, and see the result. They might work slow, but they’ll definitely do the job!

Companies need to organize team building games in which team members are required to work together. With the help of a team building exercise, a company aims to bring its employees closer to each other. Companies should look for fun-filled games that encourage team effort. Games where employees end up competing with each other and performing individually prove to be unproductive.

Offsite and corporate events provide an ideal opportunity to hold team building activities. At such events, all the employees of a company are at one place. A team building activity should allow employees to interact with each other. Employees should get an opportunity to share their ideas and contribute in team planning. It should also be a recreational activity for the employees. Corporate treasure hunt proves to be very successful at a team building event, as it allows team members to work together as a unit. In this game, a team has to make strategies. Therefore, it allows team members to share their ideas. These sorts of games require teamwork and get every member of a team involved in the game. The main objective of team building events is to help team members to know each other better.

A team building event in general is used to improve communication, build morale and provide entertainment to all. Companies can consider simple social activities, team bonding sessions or personal development activities. Team development activities help individuals and groups to try different ways of solving a problem. There are some events that are held on a large-scale, such as Amazing Race and Corporate Survivor. Amazing Race is a major TV show wherein teams race around the world and compete to reach different destinations. A number of companies hold similar competitions. Such games involve a series of challenging tasks and require proper planning and coordination between team members.

The idea of word games is a general phrase meaning any exercises that consist of words as opposed to physical action. This may involve tasks related to vocabulary, or it could possibly involve role-playing and problem solving.

An Example of a Word Game
One popular game involves putting two acceptable words together to form a new word, not already part of modern vocabulary. The game starts with an explanation of what portmanteau words are, and then the team builder asks staff to create their own new word, according to the claimed aim. Yes, everything has a aim, especially in business. The reasons why a team would need to come up with a new word could be: a new brand name or corporation, a new product, a new initiative (plan) for a corporation, a name for a major organisational problem that needs to be addressed, a name to describe valuable features in staff, or negative behaviour by clients, or the name of a conference.

What is involved in the creation of these portmanteau words? considerably more than just guess work. Players would need to research word origins, word definitions, common interpretation of words, how words are used in communication, as well as a more innovative and efficient utilise of language. This event may sound complex but since many of the game specifics are flexible, it is a word game that can be used for all ages and levels of experience.

Other Word Games
Word exercises could also refer to personality tests, for example the Chain Link Game (called by a hundred different names) where players respond to a series of questions that act as quick personality tests. Players name word associations after hearing another word, pick people to associate with colours and select numerical sequences. What follows is a thorough psychological examination, which is somewhere between the truth and a far-fetched fantasy, in which a person’s career, outlook on life and even love life are detailed. Some chain link exercises even incorporate names of popular songs into personal associations and thus can affiliate what a person is thinking with the song he or she lists. This is another kind of word game that can be extremely fun and is effective as an ice breaking event.

One important element to remember is that word exercises are adaptable. You ought to not adapt your team building goals to fit the game, rather adapt the game to give further attention to your main points. You can adapt the game according to the size of your team, according to challenges and topic matter that you want highlighted, and according to the goals that you are stressing.

The concept of working in a team is a concept that every human being will use all the way through their whole lives; at school, at workplace, in sports and in their personal lives as well. Learning to work with others is really very beneficial for you as it teaches you to trust and how to be trustworthy for others too. A perfect way to develop this quality is through team building training or activities.

Team Building Activities are the most flexible activities that are implemented not only in business field but in every field of life. Also it is not only taken for the knowledge, enjoyment, developing logical reasoning, analytical abilities and visual abilities, but it helps an individual to develop perfect qualities like leadership skills, communication skills, listening skills, time management, trust among the co-workers, respect for contemporaries and like.

A perfectly organized team building activity will perk up your confidence in fruitful manner and pull together coworkers may be in sports, society or company events. Team building exercises training or activity is a big project and requires lots of preparation or games to create an enjoyable and pleasurable environment for children, employees or for a community. There are different types of activities are conducted like team day activities which will last only for a day or the other activities which will take place for even an entire weekend.

However organizing a successful event for a children or a corporate firm will require lots of time and good team building ideas that will surely help in developing a perfect team building quality. If you are searching good team building ideas then go for online way. Online you will get huge collection of sites that will give you funny and exciting team development activities ideas for you. Also you can buy various tools for making your activity amazing and interesting one.

There are plenty of naysayers that will tell you that team building events never achieve anything. Perhaps those folk have never attended a professionally run, focused team away day, but I know from my own company’s events that a good team day can deliver fantastic results for individuals, teams, departments and indeed whole organisations. It just needs some planning beforehand. Starting with what the team session should be targeted to deliver.

There are an infinite number of team aspects that any team away day organiser might want to target, yet our experience is that most don’t really have a defined objective or two in mind. So this article covers the most common that we come across in the hope that it helps a reader who is charged with organising a team event a few good ideas. In alphabetical order then:

Bond the team. This can be achieved with a shared experience that everyone in the team is up for. But I do mean everyone. Paintballing with someone who hates violence of any kind or a trip to the pub with someone who is fundamentally against alcohol consumption on religious or any other grounds can split a team. So make sure everyone buys in to the idea.

Break down barriers. Activities that encourage individuals to work together and across teams fit the bill here, especially ones that requires a range of skill sets to tackle.

Break down cliques. Many options will work here. Just be sure to mix up the teams before commencing the activity.

Build team morale. Undoubtedly you will want something that generates huge amounts of belly laughter during the day. Just be sure that everyone is laughing with one another and not at one another.

Build team trust. Collaborative team activity work best here. Avoid out-and-out competitive ones and focus on ones that highlight how a team needs different strengths within the various team members to succeed.

Chance to collaborate together. Obviously, avoid strictly competitive exercises. If it is a small team of, say, 12 people or less, find something they can do together. If the group is larger, ensure that the activity encourages inter-team collaboration.

Chance to talk. This is more to do with the agenda than the activity. Build in plenty of breaks and a long lunch. Organise the lunch so that those that will most benefit from talking together are seated together.

Communication. Teams can always benefit from improved communication. intense, learning-focused activities that put the team under pressure are most suited to really offer improved communication opportunities.

Competition. The majority of team activities are competitive, so this should be easy to deliver. Just be sure that you really do want to pit team members against one another before choosing this.

Consolidate conference messages. Completely off-the-shelf options will not deliver this. You need tailorable or individually created options to tap into your own conference messages and build upon them.

Consolidate relationships. The key word here is “consolidate”, so your participants already have a starting point at the very least. You probably want ones that offer a real team challenge for the participants to get their teeth into, along the way uncovering individual strengths that the team can tap into and build upon.

Cross team working. Collaborative options clearly an option here. However, there are plenty of competitive ones that have collaborative aspects to them and these may be even better at highlighting how cross-team working benefits even busy, inward-focused teams.

Decision making. Plenty of exercises need decision making – in fact few do not. But if this is a real focus, you want to pick activities that can help lead into a training session on various decision making techniques. So you will want an activity with some weight and gravitas that needs different types of decision to be made, probably under pressure.

Develop leadership skills. While fun option can benefit from teams appointing leaders, the heavyweight learning-focused variety will be better at offering real insights into effective leadership behaviours and techniques.

Get to know one another. Most options will give you this, but some offer better platforms for revealing more about individuals than others. Check out those that focus on team and individual strengths and weaknesses.

Have some fun. This usually means belly-laughter type fun, so pick something that everyone can enjoy, get into and have a laugh. Just be sure it doesn’t involve anything that might embarrass colleagues who are not of the “game for a laugh” type.

Identify individual strengths. Closely tied to the next potential outcome immediately below, the best activities here will be learning-focused with plenty of debriefing time allocated on the agenda. Just be careful that in uncovering individual strengths and weaknesses that you do not do so in a manner that embarrasses or alienates individuals. It may be that you hold back debriefing individuals for one-or-one sessions after the event.

Identify individual weaknesses. Pretty much exactly as for the outcome directly above.

Identify team strengths. This (and the next potential outcome) is fair game for a debrief on the day. Again you will want a learning-focused option and not one that only delivers belly laughter.

Identify team weaknesses. As directly above!

One team focus. Here you will want an activity with strong collaborative credentials. Plenty of competitive options offer collaborative elements so your choices are far from limited.

Opportunity to relax. Sounds like a quiet, gentle option could be in order. But people can also relax when the activity is high energy, providing it is not a pressurised one.

Opportunity to reward team. Usually, belly-laughter generating activities fit the bill best here.

Overcome specific team problems. By definition, you need a learning focused option. More than that, you need to be sure that the activity will offer direct parallels to whatever the team problems are, so that the safe environment that is the team away day can be used to successfully identify team actions to overcome the problems.

Problem solving. Activities that offer real challenges to the team are necessary here. Ideally, the debrief time should be sufficient to allow the team to explore better techniques for solving problems and have a facilitator capable of throwing a few techniques into the mix.

Spend time together. Well, you’ll be hard pressed to find an option that doesn’t offer this!

Stimulate team. The word “stimulate” suggests that the team should take away a new impetus as a result of the activity. This is turn suggests that whatever they do should end with an agreed action plan. Thus a leaning-focused challenge is the best kind of activity to select for this.

Strategic direction. Few activities offer a good understanding of what the word “strategy” actually means and what “strategic management” is actually about. So be selective and ask the question “how will this activity help the participants understand more about strategy and strategic direction?” If the line goes quiet, move on quickly!

Understand each other’s roles. There are two options here. Choose an activity that is capable of being tailored to focus on team roles or make sure plenty of non-activity time is built into the agenda to chat about them, perhaps using the activity as a catalyst to that discussion.

Understand impact on others. For this, you will definitely want to choose a challenge-based option that puts the team under pressure, allowing real individual and team behaviours to come to the fore.

Phew! Thanks for bearing with the article and I hope that it helps all my readers widen their horizons on what team building days can actually deliver by way of team outcomes.

Fun team building games can make or break your next office team event, and here are three easy exercises that only take a short time but can have huge team building impacts.

Team Building Game #1: GETTING RID OF YOUR BIG BUTS

Each team member is paired up with one other person. The directions are easy. First, choose who will go first in the conversation. Then the first team member simply states, “Let”s plan a vacation, and let”s go to”" and they fill in the blank. From then the ground rules are simple. The second person”s response must begin with, “Yes, but”.” And then finish the sentence. At that point each person”s response to the other begins with those two simple words, “Yes, but”"

After just a few minutes stop the conversations and ask how far they got in their vacation plans. Then make a switch. Now the second person begins the conversation with, “Let”s plan a vacation, and let”s go to “.” and they fill in the blank. Now the responses must all begin with, “Yes, and”" Let the conversation proceed for a couple minutes then stop them and ask, how well the vacation plans are going?

A quick debrief is easy, focusing on how important the words and attitudes are in conversations. We need to be cognizant of our precise words and make sure our “buts” don”t get in the way of positive outcome conversations.

Team Building Game #2: TEAM IDENTITY

This one takes a few supplies, but encourages sharing and appreciation among team members. The supplies are a large piece of poster board, some markers, construction paper and glue. Other supplies can be used as well depending on the creativity of the facilitator and team members.

Each person is asked to think about three things that characterize their strengths; why they are important and what they can contribute to the team. After some thoughtful time and each person writing those things down, the team comes together and shares their thoughts. Then with the information they decide on a team name and design a coat of arms to describe their team, taking into account the strengths of the individual team members. The strengths will overlap and one of the objects of the coat of arms is focus on the strengths of the group, not just the individuals. In fact the importance of the coat of arms is that it reveals the team, not the individuals. All identify with the team name and are contributories. The individuals should come to recognize part of their identity is in the team, and as part of the team.

Team Building Game #3: THE POINT OF THE GAME

Here”s a fun and “pointed” game that only takes a few moments, but the debrief could go on for a long time.

Begin by having everyone stand in a circle. The facilitator simply points at one person, that person then must point at another person, who points at another person, who points at another person” this goes on until everyone is being pointed at. Of course, no one is allowed to point at a person who is already being pointed at. Once everyone is being pointed at and is pointing at someone, they can drop there hands and apologize for being so rude as to point in the first place.

Now the instructions are to stand perfectly still and look at the person you were pointing at for five minutes. You must remain perfectly still, the only movement you can make is to mimic whatever movements the person you are observing makes (example- twitching nose, shifting weight, scratching arm, adjusting glasses, coughing”).

At the end of five minutes (it will seem much longer), call the group to attention and asked “What happened? You were supposed to be standing still.” The debrief is easy, who started what actions? Did you know if your “role model” actually started an action? Do you know if you started any particular action? How does this mimic activities in the work place? How is it that negative behavior is mimicked? How do we stop negative behavior?

This simple game should be short and very pointed with a good amount of laughter and suggestions during the debrief.

People learn best when they are having fun. So use the fun team building games to have fun and build your team so it will be the most effective group it can be.

In my over four decades of working in the hospitality industry in a number of countries, I have gained mixed feelings on professionalism by witnessing various styles of functioning. Some sweet and a few sour ones. This article, the first in the series, is intended to address both styles, the sweet ones must know that if they lose the path what lies on the other side and the sour one to note that with a slight change in their management approach what harvest could be reaped.

One operates hotels or for that matter, any business, with the sole objective of generating profits and growing profits to sustain future growth, unless one is in business to book losses for reasons best known to them. We all understand that the most important person who can influence the business is the customer, if he is happy and satisfied with the product and services, he comes back again and again and if he is not, he comes to you twice, the first and the last time. It is for the owner or the manager to choose the option. The success mantra is to ensure that he keeps coming back.

If you want to achieve success, here are a few people management styles you should avoid.

People management team building

Select the cheapest; remember, you are cost conscious, not a miser. What is in paying more, why should I throw my money down the drain?, Select people with qualifications? What is in a degree, it is enough that they can communicate with the guest, in any case everyone needs training, and you will train them in technical skills. At the end of the day, add up the savings that you made by selecting substandard staff. Leave the training aspect to the manager, if he cannot train, fire him; get someone who can train people to your requirements.

If you confront a smart candidate during selection process, let him know that you are smarter because you are the owner. Ask him a question like okay, lets see, now tell me how would you sell an elephant to me, ask him his salary expectation. Shower him with you smile while he replies to you. Offer him half of what he asked for. Dont stop here; convince him that he does not deserve what he has asked for. Ask him okay, I will give you what you have asked for but what will you give me in return? Chances are that he will look baffled, now go for the kill, and tell him that is precisely why you deserves only half as you cannot commit even the returns to me.

Now lets say you have succeeded in your approach and a new sales manager has joined you. Your first task should be to communicate to him in your style, that you are the boss and the buck stops with you, you call the shots on rates and type of business. So call him to your office on a Monday morning at 10 am sharp. Once your secretary informs you that Mr. Sales Manager is here to see you, tell him to wait, there is no hurry, he is your employee and it is your time. So, finish your early morning coffee leisurely, finish the crossword that you are mid way through and then call him in. Of course you are courteous, ask him to take a seat and start your meeting with him. You should ask him about the market, business, and competition and give him your perception on these topics. Keep smiling all the while. Keep your frowns reserved for use down the line, the meeting has just begun, you are softening the manager.

It is almost certain that the manager will communicate about the tough market condition, the unholy competitive atmosphere, unethical rate war to woo the customer and of course the shortage of people under him, non cooperation from other departments and his efforts to do the best despite all these odds. Now, now this is what you were waiting to hear because you love to reply to these so called excuses. Tell him precisely what you feel about them, let the market be tough, let the competition be rough but where on earth a guest is going to get a product like this, tell him not to compare this hotel with any other, they have no product, no style and no standards, remind him that we have no competition in the market. Dont stop here, you should also settle the price front once and for all, tell him that if he wants to offer the room for $ 100, he is not required as you could put a rate sign outside the hotel and fill it up. With this you have achieved what you wanted to. But wait, the meeting is not over as yet. What would the people outside think if the meeting is over in 45 minutes of its start. So continue

Your next topic should be to brief him on some golden principles of selling that you feel are worth their weight in gold. The manager must be made to understand that you are the boss not only because you are the owner but you are also wiser by virtue of deeper knowledge that you possess in managers area of functioning. Here you would teach him the way he should perform his functions, maintain reports and records and submit them to you. On a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Remember to insert in between a few words of wisdom the master sentence well these are my views, but you are the professional and know how to do your job best, let him think between the options, after all thinking throws the best alternatives. Your meeting is not over before you make Mr. Sales Manager understand his reporting relationship. Here, you call in the General Manager, let him also join.

Once the General Manager comes, tell him that you know and understand that his time is very important and cannot be wasted, hence you are not inviting him to sit, let him continue to stand; Let Mr. Sales Manager feel Oh! My, I am sitting and my boss standing, okay, I see things. Tell the General Manager that you had to call Mr. Sales Manager directly to brief him about the hotel and his functions, a job that he should have done. Anyway, make sure that the General Manager gets the message that Mr. Sales Manager is reporting to you and not him. Thats how you make your team; you are the owner, the boss and it has to be your team. After all lets agree that a ship can have only one captain.

So at last, the official agenda is over, but what, you forgot the finishing touches, look at these hoteliers, they call it garnishing, let me apply some. Getting up from you chair, inform Mr. Sales Manager that he could look for a rewarding career with you provided he came up to your expectations and suddenly, as if you have remembered something, ask him how many calls did you do today?, answer obviously is going to be that he could not have made any calls as he was sitting with you all this time. Here give your bouncer garnish what, today is Monday!, my God, you should have told me in the morning, how much business I have lost, now this is what I call as an excuse, no..No, and in the same breath add, tell me which days you dont make calls, Sir on Saturdays and Sundays, Okay, lets meet on every Sunday, say 4 pm, it is settled, and inform your the General Manager, your boss also, he should be present in these meetings.

Dont you see how smart you are, killing multiple birds with one stone, and think what you got, now both will work 7 days a week, a 28% discount on their salaries. This sets the agenda for the Sundays meeting, to extend it to 24×7.

You are free to publish this article without any change in the content electronically, in print, in your e-book, or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author resource details are included.

Ram Gupta is a professional consultant with specialization in hospitality industry. He has over four decades of experience in Asia, Far East, Middle East and Europe. He has been associated with over two dozen luxury hotel projects and a number of state of art wellness centers and spas. His web site can be viewed at and can be contacted at

There are many tips that can be useful in providing team building ideas, team building training and team building workshops. To build effective teams at work, co-workers can begin to set ground rules to ensure collaboration and not competition.

Another team building idea is that teams can post these ground rules in their work area to ensure that people read and follow them. Because the team created the rules themselves, they are more likely to follow them. Team building training is also useful for building effective teamwork.

Team building training can include classroom as well as outdoor formats. Team building training allows a group to become aware of effective teamwork approaches and skills. Once a team understands these, they can decide how to use these skills within their own team. For example, team building ideas inside of a team building training can include the notion that team members have different work style approaches, strengths and weaknesses.

Once a team can understands these issues, they can begin to compensate for weaker areas and leverage their strengths. Many times these team building ideas help a team achieve a more effective performance. Team building workshops help teams because they are informative and interactive as well. Team members receive information and than can take part in team building interactive laboratory experiences. Outdoor team building workshops help teams interact more effectively and with more trust, cooperation, communication and commitment.

While some people may focus on specific ideas to build and motivate their teams, others find the teams develop naturally with excellent leadership. Team leaders can develop a high performance team by ensuring that all members are listened to and respected. Some leaders decide to hold community building sessions to build teams and team work skills. Sessions like these allow workers to say whats on their mind without fear of penalty, or rejection.

Other ways to build teams include offering team members a chance to fully understand the purpose of the team and to help workers reach their performance potential by helping them build task as well as team skills. Workers that understand the direction they are heading in and their importance of their role in achieving this direction are more effective.

Finally, it is imperative that team leaders develop common procedures, policies and work team approaches that everyone understand workers will have less to argue about when they have clarity on the team goals, roles and the processes and procedures to complete outputs.

Are you able to conduct cooking team building programs where we are located at our corporate team building retreat?

Our main office is located in the Los Angeles area but we travel to where ever we are needed. In fact, we conduct most of our cooking team buildings at the location that needs us the most, at the hotels where you are holding your meetings, corporate team building retreats and conferences. We save you time from not having to interrupt your busy off-site meeting to look for us, we make it easy and come right to you. In fact, we have conducted our cooking team building programs in just about every major metro area in the United States, from large city venues in Washington, DC, New York, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco area to more rural settings in small towns in Iowa, Ohio and Kentucky.

And because we are not relegated to conducting your culinary team building at a specific time as other team building programs need the daylight to function, we fit easily into any full conference schedule at your corporate team building retreat.

Also, we save you money in coming to us. There is no need to rent a bus or other transportation to find us since we come right to you. And in the case of some larger groups of 100+, this added expense could add up very quick at your corporate team building retreat.

And for the groups that are not meeting off-site, we still are able to come right to you. Our second most popular type of venue is conducting our cooking team buildings right on your corporate campus within your meeting rooms or in your companies cafe dining room during off-peak hours.

Because our unique process is a true cooking team building that uses food and cooking to bring your groups together, it frees us from the constants of having to be in a kitchen and allows us to do this anywhere with your teams at your corporate team building retreats! And because your team is challenged to create a delicious meal without the use of a kitchen, you’ll benefit more as a team, knowing that if you can do this anywhere, you can do anything!

If you found this “inside information” helpful, make sure you get my free guide, “20 Things You Must Know Before You Choose the Wrong Team Building Program for Your Group!”

It’s FREE and it contains 20 of my best tips in choosing your own team building program for your group.

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A great corporate team building program always has three essential parts that are vital to the success of the team building event.First, you want to add interactive activities that build camaraderie. You also want to teach valuable lessons about company interdependency. Finally, if you want a great corporate team building program, add a “Wow!” moment along the way.

Interactive Activities that Build Camaraderie

Interactive activities are the first essential component of a great team building event. For instance, a group can really find a lot out about their fellow team members when given challenging questions that require them to seek the answers from others in their group. This not only encourages valuable interaction but they enjoy learning about each other in the process. Also, when tasks are given that require a variety of skill sets, team members find out about the various talents and skills that make up their group.

Teach Valuable Lessons on Company Interdependency

You also want to teach valuable lessons about how all of the component departments (divisions, regions, etc.) of a company are interdependent with each other. For example a good way to learn this lesson in a team building activity is when “competing” groups are “stumped” in solving puzzles and answering questions unless they collaborate and cooperate with the respective competition [other teams]. It’s kind of fun to witness the green light go on when people realize that when we all work together for the overall good, everyone comes out a winner.

Add a “Wow!” Moment Along the Way.

The most important part of great team building is the “Wow!” factor. When a group takes part in a team building program and are pleasantly surprised, or emotionally touched, I would call that a “Wow Factor”. At a philanthropic corporate team building program in Toronto recently, most of the group were completely surprised to learn that the bikes that they had built as part of the activities at the event were being donated right then and there to boys and girls from a local charity. The adults who built the bikes were just as excited as the kids streaming into the room who received the bikes. There have been many moments where tears of joy were shed, but there is a special “Wow” moment that stands out in my mind. That occurred at an event in Virginia, when a chaperone with the children from the charity shared with the team building participants that most of the children were receiving their first new bikes in their young lives.

So if you want to create a great corporate team building program, add interactive activities, teach valuable lessons about interdependency, and add a “Wow!” moment along the way that leaves your team feeling really good about the activity as a whole.