Recommended games for team building: How to create a team that can perform at its best
Even though each employee is talented, things just don’t go well as a team…
Many of you may share this concern.
In this article, we introduce “team building” as an initiative to solve that problem.
Team building is the practice of creating the best team—one that can achieve its goals—by leveraging each individual’s strengths.
Through games and activities, you can learn how to understand and appreciate your teammates, collaborate, and accomplish objectives together.
- A simple and fun co-op game that enhances teamwork
- Team-based recreational activities for adults that are fun even with large groups
- [In a Short Time] Icebreakers and Fun Games That Shine at Morning Meetings
- Fun games recommended for making friends with people you’ve just met
- Brain-teasing game roundup
- Company recreation ideas everyone can enjoy!
- Icebreakers that get people moving (for both small and large groups)
- Party and drinking games to liven up a company welcome party
- Break the ice with intros and team battles! Party games to spice up your welcome event
- Ideas for team-based games to enliven a party
- Fun activities that liven up the office: recreation games
- Games that liven up social and networking gatherings
- A fun, everyone-joins-in game that gets everyone excited!
Recommended team-building games: How to build a team that can perform at its best (11–20)
personal history
At the company, a few people will present personal stories such as “Why did you join this company?” By hearing each person’s reasons directly from them, the distance between colleagues can quickly shrink, creating a good opportunity to respect different values.
Beyond reasons for joining, there could be many themes, such as what they’re passionate about or unexpected hobbies.
To strengthen team bonds, the most important thing is to be genuinely interested in one another.
Because it’s about themselves, people find it easier to talk, and their desire to “share with others” and “be understood” may come through strongly.
Finding commonalities
Even when meeting someone for the first time, finding commonalities like hometown or age can make you feel the distance naturally shrink.
In psychology, this is called “rapport,” which fosters a sense of mutual understanding—namely, the building of trust.
At company gatherings, simply identifying as many “common points” as possible helps you increasingly feel that the other person is similar to you, which positively impacts the development of teamwork.
The topic can be anything—family structure, favorite sports, how you spend your weekends—finding shared subjects will naturally make the conversation livelier.
BBQ, camping
In today’s world, even inviting someone to dinner after work can be contentious, but a barbecue held during training hours is something everyone might enjoy.
Capable men—like SMAP or Mokomichi Hayami—can cook too, so the idea that women cook and men just eat might already be outdated.
Role division is essential for team building: a grocery-shopping team, a fire-starting team, and so on.
Some people demonstrate leadership, some reliably complete assigned tasks, and some bring harmony to the group—barbecues and camping tend to reveal a person’s true character.
Cooking
After entering junior high or high school, there are often overnight training trips or cooking practicums at a time when you still can’t match everyone’s names to their faces.
The idea is to use collaborative activities as a springboard to smoothly build the class community.
It’s the same for working adults: doing something together can really bring people closer.
Simple cooking is fine, or you could make it feel more like training by trying your hand at lesser-known dishes from other countries.
Budgeting for ingredients and planning backward from mealtime to schedule the cooking both involve all kinds of calculations.
Deciding on roles—who cooks and who cleans—and having each person carry out their task also incorporates many elements that form the foundation of a company’s organization.
There are rental spaces where you can book a kitchen, too.
Companies with more men, please give it a try as well.
Straw Tower
It goes by various names, but when it comes to training, it’s as famous as the straw tower or the egg drop.
The “straw tower” is an activity where teams compete to build the tallest tower using straws, scissors, and tape.
Small teams split up, devise strategies, create prototypes, exchange feedback, and then take on the real challenge.
You can shorten or extend the time limit depending on the number of straws used.
It incorporates many essential elements for building organizations—observation, decision-making, and action.
It’s especially recommended for companies with large groups of freshmen!
Trump Negotiation Game
This is a game where you complete a deck of playing cards through conversations, negotiations, and trades.
It’s played in groups of four.
First, take one playing card and cut it into four pieces.
The shape can be rectangular, triangular—anything is fine.
Do this for all 52 cards, cutting each one into the same shape.
Then divide all the pieces into four equal sets and hand them out to the four players.
Lay your pieces face up and work to reconstruct the original cards.
If you’re missing pieces, you gather them by negotiating, trading, or receiving them for free from others.
As you watch what others have and complete your own deck, it becomes a perfect activity for fostering casual conversation.
Pair Matching Game
Just before building an organization, how can you remember people’s names and faces? Using business cards with photos is one option, but if you’re thinking, “If only there were a quicker way to build rapport…,” this game is for you! It’s a game where, in a group of about 20 to 30 people, you find someone who shares your birth month.
You can approach anyone—start by shaking hands.
Then, without speaking, use only your hands to communicate your birth month to the other person.
If your birth months match, you form a pair and are out as winners.
If not, you move on and shake hands with someone else, continuing the game.
The handshake brings people closer, and sharing the same birth month brings you even closer at heart—perfect for building camaraderie!
human disentanglement puzzle
More and more companies are holding sports days.
The idea is to leave the usual desks behind, temporarily forget the boss–subordinate relationship, move our bodies together while sharing the highs and lows, and strengthen teamwork through that experience.
Exercising together also seems to bring people closer at heart.
The human “tangle” game is one such activity.
First, five or six people face each other to form a small circle and hold hands at random with people who are not next to them.
Then, while gradually spreading out and without letting go of hands, they work to untangle the human knot like a puzzle.
I’m sure it’s an activity that will help everyone get along better!
Balloon shotgun
How about using a game that’s enjoyed in elementary schools and nursing homes as a team-building activity? The game is very simple.
All you need are a long table, balloons, and paper cups—though you can substitute something else for the cups.
Split into two sides across the long table.
Line up many paper cups on the tabletop.
Using only the air from inflated balloons, knock over the paper cups and blow them into the opponent’s side.
The team that gets more cups to fall into the opponent’s area wins.
It seems like a natural sense of camaraderie would develop through this recreation.
Domino
The origins of dominoes don’t seem to be clear; it’s said they have connections to Chinese mahjong and Western playing cards.
In fact, dominoes are like playing cards in that you can use domino tiles for various games.
These days, though, dominoes are more famous for “domino toppling” than for their original games.
Domino toppling, a symbol of perseverance and concentration, is perfect for team building: you can split into teams, plan colors and patterns, and create surprising mechanisms.
Here’s hoping everyone gets to know each other better as they topple—and get toppled by—dominoes!