Corporate Team Building and Fun Can Be In the Same Sentence

Sometimes a big business has to take a step back with its employees and self assess to understand how everyone works together. It sounds boring and probably hard to do, but some team building exercises have proven worthy and fun.

So the top executives want to find out what their workers can do by doing a little experiment that should be "fun" for everyone. You'll probably get a bunch of rolling eyes. However the feedback can be quite valuable to find out the strengths and abilities of people to see how effective they are together. This is usually done through an exercise that takes the focus off of their daily routine and puts them in a realm where the most basic components of decision making and delegating are put to the test.

The team building event will usually involve various scene changes. Corporate adventure is another way of going about doing corporate team building by putting employees in an exciting, risk-taking adventure outdoors. Some corporate team building stunts go as far as whisking everyone away to a whitewater adventure to tackle a grade III rapid. Some are tamer than that, usually depending on what budget the company has and insurance policy (whitewater can be unusually ruthless on the accounting staff).

Some businesses seek something as exiting as an adventure series of team building that gets people interacting outdoors, but without the risk. A clever new adventuring game for team building is the scavenger hunt.

Bean Counting Cubicle Dweller to Sherlock Inspector

For those unfamiliar with the scavenger hunt, it's simply a game that pits teams competing against each other. There are a series of clues that involve some type of critical thinking between each member in the group to find the answer. The answer will usually lead the group to a destination where another clue lies. The game will have the groups travelling within a range of different locales; some famous places for scavenger hunting are college campuses, museums or anywhere with distinct landmarks and geography. Eventually the final destination is reached by following each clue in sequence. The group that finds the final answer in the shortest time wins.

For those familiar, the sport of scavenger hunting has grown further than what you may remember as a child, or the simple clue seeking Easter egg find mission. In a corporate team building setting it would normally involve an emcee setting the stage and outlining the rules of the game. They would stoke the creative juices while putting up the parameters of the game. The organizers usually give clues on sequenced cards with written questions or photos for the group.

With a good scavenger hunt, questions do not center on a specific task where one person may be better than the other within the group. For instance, someone knowledgeable about the art pieces at the Museum of Fine Arts (if the hunt takes place there) will not necessarily have an advantage over someone who may be good at word games because the questions are varied enough to touch on many different skill sets. One could be trivia based, another could include a hidden anagram or a word may allude to a dual meaning that unlocks to reveal the answer.

Good questions typically ask varied and unusual questions that touch on such a variety of subjects that someone in every group will usually have an answer.

About the author: Art Gib writes for Watson Adventures (http://www.watsonadventures.com/corporate.html) who emcee and stage a variety of different private scavenger hunts for businesses. They have had many high profile corporations use their service for corporate team building outings.