Playing the Game: The benefits of corporate team building.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Getting people to work together as a team can be a challenge, especially if those people have different learning styles or don't process information the same way. Trying to find a way to teach employees how to respect each other's differences while maximizing each team member's individual strengths isn't a game--but maybe it should be.

What many business owners have learned--and what team-building companies promote--is that learning should be fun. "When employees feel that something is an obligation, like a lecture or listening to a keynote speaker, they tend to zone out," says Todd Rice, director of THEY improv. "But when something is more interactive, they open themselves up to it; they have fun, they are engaged, and their brains are working at peak efficiency.

"In many cases, it instills confidence in people, especially when they feel like they are part of a team," he continues. "Many of our workshops are comedic in nature, so people get applauded for laughing and joking. That positive feedback is so vital in learning; it makes them feel that they are doing something right."

Playing Is Learning

Team building can take many different shapes--employees may perform improv, work together to get out of an escape room, build robots, try to best each other in races, take a ropes course, or even work together for charity. Depending on what a client wants, games can be designed to meet specific learning goals or to provide tailored experiences.

Venture Up, which has been offering team building services for more than thirty-five years, offers clients a choice of three different categories of activities: strategic games, competitive programs, and charity-based events.

"Our strategic games, which can be held in any conference room or meeting space, are designed to build collaboration," explains David Lengyel, managing director of Venture Up, "Teams split and re-split, which creates different dynamics and encourages cross-collaboration."

Venture Up's newest release, Case-Based Training, is a good example of a strategic team-building exercise. "This is a reverse escape game-type challenge, which is great for all abilities and can easily be set up in a general session conference room, utilizing a two- to three-hour window," says Lengyel. "Instead of trying to break out of a room, teams try to break into locked cases, and this ultimately brings everyone together while they are sharing information."

The company's competitive games include Amazing Races...