Creative Team-Building Ideas

By Nicole Folken • July 20, 2017

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When people look at their agendas for a meeting or conference and see “team building” listed as one of the events, many let out a sigh or roll their eyes. Although it may not be the most enjoyable event on the agenda, team building is an important aspect of a meeting. It not only brings people together who usually would not communicate or work with one another, it also contributes toward employee motivation and building trust.

Finding creative ideas can be difficult depending on the size of the meeting and personalities of the attendees. Keeping it competitive, yet light and fun, is key. A few different team-building ideas are highlighted below:

• Cooking Challenge: This works well for small or large groups.
  • Rotating kitchen: A few groups make the appetizer, a few make the main course, and a few make the dessert. The winner is selected based on taste, appearance, and texture. There would be one winner for each course.
  • One-dish challenge: Every group makes the same dish, and each is judged on taste, appearance, texture, and team slogan.

• Scavenger Hunt: This is great if the group is not familiar with the city or property at which the meeting is being hosted.
  • Find places or things and take pictures of them.
  • Set up checkpoints with actual people and receive clues to the next checkpoint.

• Minute-to-Win-It Games: This activity works well for competitive, high-energy groups. Each team is given a task/activity that it needs to complete in one minute or less. Visit this link for examples.

Each of these activities brings a different dynamic to team building. If the goal is to incorporate a lot of people from different areas of the company, the cooking challenge or scavenger hunt is a good choice because it is more relaxed, yet still competitive. However, if the goal is to bring together specific staff members from the company who know each other well, minute-to-win-it games are perfect.

The objective of a team-building event is to bring people together in a fun, unique way. Try to avoid highly physical, sports-related, or pool activities as not everyone is comfortable with or can perform them. In addition, keep in mind that some individuals may have dietary restrictions, or there may be staff who are color blind.

Nicole Folken

Nicole Folken is an Education Specialist at Mayo Medical Laboratories. She manages internal education meetings.