6 Team Bonding Games that are Fun and Productive

When you’re working with a group of people — whether it be at your job, on a sports team, as part of a support group and more — it’s important for you to be able to know and trust the people you are working with. Team bonding games can not only strengthen the bonds between you and the people you are working with, but they are fun. These activities offer an opportunity to get to know your teammates better, as well as develop trust to make for a stronger team overall.

For effective team bonding, we offer this course that will show you the importance of a team, how to strengthen the relationships within the team, how you can contribute as a leader or follower (depending on your personality) and more.

Why a Strong Team is Important

Strong teams get the glory. Just look at Super Bowl-winning teams, successful bands and the nation’s top companies. These examples may be complete opposites of each other, but they all have something in common. They worked as a team to get the success they have today. To learn more about effective teamwork, you can take a look at this blog, which gets to the core of teamwork and what you need to do to be a successful team.

Team Bonding Games

Seminars, lectures and conferences can be informative and worth your while, but let’s be honest, even adults need to let their inner child out and play some games. When you’re playing games, it doesn’t feel like work, so let your team have a little fun while they work toward a common goal. Here are a few examples of team bonding games that might be successful with your team:

• Two Truths and a Lie

This game is not just for team bonding. It can be fun for school buses, parties, and more. While it is a social-type game, it still has important team-building qualities to it. The most important being getting to know your teammates better. The way this game works is pretty self explanatory — you have to think up two truths about yourself and throw in a lie. Then, it’s your teammate’s job to try to figure out which one is the lie. Go through a few rounds of this with different team members and you will come out of the game knowing more about the people around you.

• Catch the Egg

This common game not only promotes teamwork, but helps with creativity and problem solving. In this exercise, people will need to split up into groups. These groups will be given the same supplies. (These can be a shoebox, newspaper, straws, paper clips or anything you think would aid in making an egg catcher). The goal is for each team to create a contraption that will prevent an egg from breaking when dropped high up.

• Wear Your Attitude

Have a bunch of pins made with various attitudes written on them. Make sure to cover the entire spectrum so you are including negative attitudes, happy attitudes, and neutral attitudes. Ask everyone to pick which button best describes the way they are feeling that day. By having people wear these buttons, it will help create transparency within the group. We all have bad days, but instead of letting those around us know we are having bad days, we react in ways that can possibly be negative or hurtful to others. By wearing your attitude, you will let your teammates know if you are in an approachable mood or not. If your mood changes, you can go ahead and switch up your button.

For those who struggle with having a positive attitude that is filled with gratitude, we offer this course that can help improve your quality of life through having more gratitude. The course offers various journaling exercises that can help you be more aware of the things you are grateful for in your life.

• The Bad and the Good

This team bonding game helps put things into perspective for anyone who has had something bad happen to them (which just happens to be everyone). Each team member must think of something bad that had happened to them in the past. It can be personal or work-

related and as recent as they would like it to be. They will then take time to explain the event in detail to their partner. After they have finished telling the other person about their event, it is then up to the partner to pick out the good that came from having that experience. After both partners are finished, they can switch and repeat the exercise. This game helps the participants get through the events that might be holding them back.

• Who Am I?

Write out names of celebrities or famous characters on name tags, one for each team member. Have someone who is not participating in the game stick all the name tags on everyone’s backs. From there, the teammates will have to go up to each other and ask yes or no questions about the person on their back until they guess their person correctly. This game helps create a relaxed and fun atmosphere while having each person work with their teammates to get to their goal if figuring out who their famous person is on their back.

• Goal Sharing

Have each person write down a goal they have and think they can achieve within a year’s time and why they want to reach that goal. Once everyone writes down their goals, have them share the goal with the group and explain why they want to reach that goal. Once everyone is finished sharing, put all the goals into a bowl and have each person pick out a person’s goal. The reason they are picking out a goal from someone is because it will be their job to keep that person accountable for their goal. This exercise not only helps people reach their goals, but also creates stronger relationships through having an accountability partner that is helping them reach their goal. Additionally, have the partners work together on a plan to reach those goals.

For tips on how to reach goals and get maximum performance, we offer this course that helps you to not only reach your goals, but go beyond them. The course touches on topics about self-esteem, finding happiness and balance in life, as well as seven steps to attaining your goals.

Dealing with Conflict

When working with teams, you are going to come across conflict eventually. The key to limiting the conflict you come in contact with is to know how to handle it effectively. If you can do this, your teammates will learn how to respect you more as a leader and problem solver. First you need those conflict resolution skills that are important when working with people who are part of a team. We offer a course that can teach you to do just that. In it, you will learn how to solve conflict in your work life and personal life with examples of many different conflicts you come across every day. Additionally, you will learn about different communication techniques and how to apply them to each situation.

Regardless of working with a team in a workplace, a sport or like-minded group, it is important to know and strengthen the bonds between your teammates. Team bonding games are not only fun for the group, but helps the team grow together. They are not only easy and quick to have everyone do, but builds lasting impressions on your team.