The art to any great business is the cohesion of its employees. It is unsurprising that team building and corporate team building events are becoming ever more popular when it comes to boasting morale, improving efficiency or even finding hidden talents within your team. Team building exercises can essentially be broken down into 4 themes; communication, problem solving, planning and trust.

1. Communication

Communication is a vital asset to any team - if members cannot converse or communicate with one another then ideas and development is unlikely to happen. Unsurprisingly the aim of communication in regards to team building is to facilitate interaction between team members often asking them to solve problems that require the team members to communicate with one another. On the flip side of that another approach to a communication exercise is to show the problems with bad communication.

2. Problem Solving/Decision making

Creative thinking can often be a very social activity. Often people work better when bouncing ideas off one another especially when the group gets on well. Problem solving activities focus on the group’s ability to solve complex problems through a consensus opinion. Whilst a solution may be presented by an individual the group will facilitate the development of the idea in to the solution through an agreed trial and error or discussing the logic behind the solution. Often problem solving activities mirror problems that are felt within the employees’ own field of work however more abstract problems are also helpful as they show creative members of the team.

3. Planning/Adaptability

Like problem solving the aim of planning exercises is to encourage participants to work together to solve a problem through planning. Exercises focus on the benefits of working as a team to produce solutions that have been planned out rather than rely on trial and error. Discussion is encouraged and shows team members how important it is to plan and discuss challenges.

4. Trust

Trust exercises are possibly the most complex in terms of theory. Essentially you are trying to instil a highly emotional bond between team members or at least prove that other team members can be trusted! Exercises clearly lean on the message that through trust you can progress and solve problems that are otherwise difficult to solve without trusting one another.

Whilst a few of these themes are quite complex ultimately the goal of any team building exercise is to help participants interact with other team members. Team building events gives businesses the opportunity to show that they are committed to developing the employees’ interpersonal skills and happiness. After all the very best team building exercises are rewarding and fun – certainly not forced and awkward!