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 games for team building. How to build a team that can perform at its best (1–10)
A game where you create a map based on information
Group-based map-making is especially useful for departments in charge of outside work, such as sales and retail.
You might remember creating a map of your neighborhood as part of social studies in elementary school, actually walking around to draw it.
Think of this as the grown-up version.
Map-making brings together many skills: the ability to move without consciously worrying about north, south, east, and west; the ability to remember a scene after seeing it once; and the ability to infer the people who live in an area from similar-looking cityscapes.
By focusing everyone’s abilities on creating a single map, teamwork develops naturally.
Baseball Position Guessing Game
In this game, each player holds partial information, and by sharing it, they work together to uncover the answer.
It fosters logical thinking about the collected information as well as communication skills.
Because everyone has an equal opportunity to speak, it can build a sense of unity and help form teams more quickly.
By combining everyone’s efforts, when all positions are finally revealed, players will feel a deep sense of satisfaction and achievement.
Using cards also makes it easy to approach in a casual way.
Marshmallow Challenge
Using specified materials—marshmallows, dry pasta, tape, string, and scissors—you build a marshmallow tower.
A key feature of this game is that you build the tower twice.
In the first attempt, you’re given a set time and aim to make the tower as tall as possible.
What’s crucial comes next: feedback.
The team discusses how to build a taller tower in the second attempt than in the first.
When you start building the second tower based on that strategy, people’s expressions often change, becoming more focused and serious.
This activity helps teams discover challenges and develop the ability to overcome them, and you’ll likely feel a strong sense of satisfaction after the challenge.
Helium ring
It’s a classic team-building activity.
All you need is a hula hoop.
Since many people can participate at once, a larger one works best.
Six to ten people stand around the hula hoop.
Each participant supports the hoop using only their index fingers.
Once the hoop is kept level, the challenge begins.
Without anyone’s finger leaving the hoop, lower it all the way to the ground and then bring it back up to the original height to finish.
Differences in height mean people will crouch to different degrees, and variations in how quickly they respond to the leader’s cues can cause fingers to slip off.
It’s an activity packed with observation, coordination, balance, and more.
2030SDGs
The SDGs are goals adopted by the United Nations that the world aims to achieve by 2030.
The SDGs card game, which is also used as a platform for raising awareness and promoting the SDGs, lets participants simulate a “small world” using cards.
In that world, players aim to reach goals by respecting and supporting one another so that major categories—“economy,” “environment,” and “society”—can be stably maintained.
As these topics are widely discussed in society, the game helps deepen understanding of the SDGs and supports team building.
NASA game
Everyone has their own set of values shaped by their past experiences.
No one has the right to deny any set of values, but when people hold different values, it’s natural for their opinions to clash.
To build better teams, it’s important to understand and respect each other’s values.
In this game, you first determine priorities based on your own values and share them with others.
From there, you’re encouraged to find common ground by making mutual concessions and developing compromises or blended solutions.
paper tower
This is a game that effectively fosters team-building even in a short span of about two minutes.
All you need to prepare is A4 paper.
In a team competition, each group builds a paper tower.
The team that stacks theirs the highest wins.
There are no rules for how to fold or stack the paper.
Communication naturally emerges within each team, creating a sense of unity from working toward a single goal.
Each person proactively senses others’ movements and is naturally given opportunities to fulfill a role.
Werewolf game
If you trace it back, it’s a game based on one created in Russia in the 1980s, and nowadays it’s become a major title you can enjoy on smartphone apps! Players split into a Villagers team and a Werewolves team, and the ultimate goal is to find the werewolves hidden among the villagers.
To do that, you keep holding discussions, while the werewolves try to avoid suspicion by lying and skillfully talking the villagers around.
It’s often called a “game that makes you unable to trust people,” but it’s actually a battle of wits driven by logic.
After playing together a few times, you’ll start to notice things you wouldn’t learn from ordinary conversation—like each other’s personalities and how quick you are on your feet.
It’s a fun way to get to know one another!
Escape Game
There’s an escape game designed for talent development and team building.
When you call it a game, younger people are likely to tackle tough challenges without resistance.
Traditional shout-it-out style training still has its place, but we should actively combine it with new approaches to build a stronger organization.
In the escape game, you start on the top floor of a sealed building and use clues, hints, and items to get out.
Sometimes you might even have to retire partway through.
Let’s make team building a success through an escape game that tests teamwork, role allocation, and a sense of responsibility!
Snowball fight
How about a snowball fight for team building? It may sound like just a game, but there are official rules established by the Japan Yukigassen Federation, a general incorporated association.
I’ve heard there are international rules under different organizations as well.
It’s an activity that depends on the season and location, but if you live in an area where you can play, definitely give it a try! Since it’s a team match, you’ll need to divide roles: attackers who push into the opponent’s side, defenders who protect your own territory, decoys who draw attention, and stealthy players who move under the radar—structures that resemble how organizations are built start to emerge here and there, don’t they? And of course, once the battle is over, it’s all about the no-side spirit!