How your team gets along and works together has a huge impact on your company productivity and profitability. The majority of employees will tell you that working alongside colleagues they don’t see eye to eye with can make collaboration, communication, and accountability all more difficult - not to mention the difficulties that come with conflict in the workplace. Team building is crucial for creating cohesive teams and building a healthy culture.

These are some of our favorite team building methods, designed to provide managers with proven techniques and guidelines for building better teams. 

Best practices for strategic team building

1. Assembling the right team members

The most important part of building the right team is choosing the correct people in the first place. The right team members will complement each other and work more seamlessly together. Hiring and assigning people to the right groups and roles will be the first step in creating positive, productive teams.

This method should be your first step and is realistically one of the most important ones, no matter the size or age of your team. 

2. Defining group roles

Every group member should have clear roles and responsibilities in order to work together effectively. It’s up to leaders to know their individual team members in order to assign roles based on their strengths. Though roles might shift over time, every team member needs to understand their duties and functions, along with how their work impacts the larger goals.

Start by taking inventory of your team members’ skills, expertise, and bandwidth. Then, assess the various components of a project and match people accordingly. When everyone is clear on expectations, teams can function smoothly and rely on each other. 

3. Supporting team bonding

Interpersonal relationships are crucial to well-functioning teams. Having social ties along with work makes people more likely to trust and depend on each other. When you don’t want to let down your team, you’re more likely to give your best effort. Leaders should look for ways to increase the bonding that takes place in their group.

Everything from team dinners and happy hours to volunteer events or game days can be helpful in encouraging team members to bond. 

4. Providing valuable feedback

A team will never be perfect so the job of team-building is never done. Teams should constantly evolve and grow, and one way to facilitate this is by offering timely feedback. That means observing your teams’ efforts and seeing where they can improve, and constructively providing information on how they can get better.

Make sure to schedule one on one evaluations where you can have two-way conversations about what people are doing well and how they can improve. Setting up a peer-to-peer recognition system is a great way of obtaining valuable feedback from inside the team. 

5. Getting everyone together

No matter where your team members live, and how much you facilitate virtual bonding, there is no substitute for bringing everyone together in person. A company or team-building retreat is a powerful mechanism for having people meet face-to-face, bond, socialize, learn new skills, and get an extra dose of motivation and morale.

If you aren’t sure where to start in planning an impactful team-building retreat, let Surf Office help. We work with companies of all sizes to plan authentic team-building retreats that bring people together and are stress-free to run.

For a list of team building examples, team building types, and team building process areas, make sure to follow our blog.  

Team building methods that focus on collaboration

6. Icebreakers

No matter what type of activity you come up with, it’s a good idea to kick things off with some simple icebreakers. These brief exercises encourage people to open up, feel comfortable, and learn new things about each other. Browse our lists of icebreaker ideas to get some fresh ideas for kicking off your next meeting. 

7. Team takeovers

Developing leadership skills is helpful in almost any role, as is having appreciation for what goes into managing a project. Consider having each team member take a turn at leading a project or activity. For example, have one person plan your next meeting, from setting the agenda to managing the flow. Initiatives can be big or small, but the important thing is that everyone gets a chance to run the show - from planning to delegating and coaching.

This practice can help to strengthen the relationship between managers and reports, as well as help team members to gain an appreciation of everyone’s various positions and responsibilities. 

8. Adventure activities

Team members need to feel safe and secure in their space in order to propose new ideas or take new approaches. Research shows that the process of trust-building can be sped up by risk-taking and innovation.

Try incorporating adventurous activities into your next team event, such as zip lining, rock climbing, or river rafting. Any activity that pushes people out of their comfort zones can be beneficial for bonding and trust-building - not to mention fun. 

9. Employee-led programs

Why not go straight to the source and ask your team to come up with some ideas for team-building? Instead of dictating all of the ways your team should operate, have your group sit down and come up with some ideas to present to you. You might want to create some guidelines, such as that the entire group should be together for a team-building activity once per quarter. From there, let them figure out what they want that activity to be and plan the logistics.

This will help employees to feel autonomous and empowered, plus increase their communication skills since they need to come to consensus together. Supervise and offer to guide or support as needed, but let your staff come up with team-building programs that will work best for them based on what they know of each other. 

10. Problem-solving puzzles

Overall critical thinking and problem solving will sharpen the skills of your entire team. One of the most important things a team does is solve problems together. Help to facilitate these skills by having everyone participate in problem solving games or challenges that require working together to come up with a solution. This also helps people to learn and appreciate the various approaches that their colleagues take to problem solving and communication. Then they can better lean on each others’ strengths as they work together.

Set up various activities where your team will need to pool their collective knowledge and communicate in order to meet a challenge. Explore some of our favorite ideas on our blog. 

11. Active listening exercises

Communication is essential on a healthy team, and part of that is truly hearing what your coworkers have to say. You may not always agree, but it’s important to understand what people really mean and try to appreciate their perspective. Facilitate more active listening by organizing a workshop. You can even suggest some books or a virtual training session.

There is no shortage of information out there about active listening. Put some of those resources to work for your team to improve not only their listening skills but also their overall communication capabilities. 

For more ideas, check out our lists of quick team-building activities, and outdoor team-building activities. 

Team building methods for conflict resolution

12. Effective communication workshop

As mentioned, communication is absolutely crucial to well-functioning teams. Great leaders will do everything they can to facilitate strong communication skills in their departments. Work with your teams to practice positive communication techniques like active listening, refraining from interrupting, negotiation tactics, proper response times, etc.

Host a workshop where everyone can work on these skills, or bring in a speaker who can facilitate a discussion. You may even find some great articles and send them to the group, then host a brief discussion about everyone’s takeaways. You may also want to check out some group brainstorming techniques to improve communication. 

13. Planned social events

The stronger the connections that your team has, the less likely they are to eventually have conflict. When you genuinely respect the people you work with, you’re less likely to have disagreements, and you’re better able to address them positively when you do. Teammates who have strong bonds will not want to tarnish the relationships they rely on.

The more you can foster these connections, the better conflict resolution will be in your organization. Plan social events like work happy hours or encourage casual conversation within the office (see article about watercooler topics). 

14. Friendly competition

Friendly competition can give employees a low-stakes environment to blow off steam and practice conflict resolution. Come up with some workplace competitions where people can try to “beat” each other in a positive and low-pressure way. For example, you could come up with a fitness or wellness competition where people get credit for healthy activity.

Or, you might want to create a sales contest where people win based on the most phone calls or most appointments scheduled. Think about the metrics that you want to improve in your own organization, and come up with some fun ways to encourage the associated behaviors. 

You might also look into different indoor team-building activities to do at work. 

Team building methods for remote groups

15. Encourage casual conversation

Since there is no water cooler in a remote environment, you have to create your own. Consider setting up an online place where people can connect and discuss anything and everything. This isn’t a channel that is project specific or based on work-related questions, but geared toward purely casual conversation on miscellaneous topics.

For example, set up a Slack channel called “#watercooler” where people can simply get to know each other better, tell anecdotes, share memes or photos, and more. Encourage active instant messaging so people can check in with each other. You may even create a page where you ask a random question each day and encourage participation to learn more about the people you work with and facilitate ongoing dialogue. 

16. Team trivia

Come up with ways for your team to not only get to know each other better, but also your organization. Consider finding creative ways to get a dialogue going and point out interesting facts that will encourage team bonding. For example, you could try “Team Trivia Tuesday” where you ask questions like “Which team member has been to 6 different continents?” or “Who was the account manager on on XYZ project last year?” You can keep questions work or business related, or use personal details for trivia. The important thing is that it gets people thinking about those that they work with and engaged in a conversation that is not immediately work-related. 

17. Team-based contest

Gamifying or making contests out of things at work is a good way to encourage low-pressure competition while getting the results you want. Think about what matters to your company and then come up with some contests to drive positive results among the entire team. For example, consider implementing a group prize for every milestone your team meets in an important project. Maybe every time the team meets a deadline they get an extra hour off on Friday. Or, as another example, if your sales team meets their quarterly goal, they get a free lunch the following Monday. The important thing is that it’s not an individual contest, but a collective one. It takes the efforts of everyone combined, and everyone performing their best, to achieve the goal and “win”. Bonus points if you come up with some cool prizes that are sure to incentivize your team. 

Make team-building special

A best practice is to make team-building a part of your everyday work. From encouraging conversation amongst your coworkers to organizing social events and planning contests, helping your team to relate to each other and communicate better should be ingrained in all of your activities. However, to take things to the next level, plan a few special events where your team can get together and get some face time.

A team-building retreat is the perfect opportunity to check off several of the methods on this list, from icebreakers to adventure activities and more. Surf Office can help you to design the retreat that meets your unique needs and helps your specific team for maximum impact.