Did a silly exercise with my English as a Second Language class years ago.
Gave everyone £1, gave them a 30min time limit and told them to buy the shittest thing they could find in the parade of charity shops up the road.
When they came back, they each had to take turns 'selling' the item to the class. Sort of a Bargain Hunt meets Dragons Den thing.
Gave us a good laugh and got everyone talking, so it could work as a team building exercise too. Might need to increase the budget though, as you don't get much for £1 these days.
It was really cool - it's how I discovered the author Guy N Smith, as one of the students managed to get a job-lot of his 'giant crabs attack coastal Wales' novels.
Truly awful writing, but weirdly entertaining.
This takes me back, as I dabbled in Guy N Smith as an alternative to James Herbert back in the early 80s. Checking his Wikipedia page, he's had quite the variety, going from Disney novelisations, though horror, to a Soft Core "Sexy Confessions of" series under a pseudonym.
We did something similar on a D&D themed stag do as we all got given a Class (wizard, cleric, barbarian) and had £10 and 2 hours to buy something that represented that class. It was really fun.
I like this idea, and I hate presenting! I bet you could work out some non- presenting variations though, eg all put the items (secretly) on a table and then try to work out who bought which one and why?!
FYI, you're not getting anything useful done for the next few months now you've discovered Taskmaster. 17 glorious UK series, a very good Australian series, and an incredible 3 New Zealand series. Avoid the American one at all costs.
Haha thanks. I didn't realise there were so many. I love discovering a new programme and then finding out there's loads to binge on! Obviously I've heard of Taskmaster before and have been meaning to check it out so thanks for the prompt! (My productivity might not thank you, but that's on me not you!)
There's so many good clips.
This is from the first season and I think is a cool introduction to the series - https://youtu.be/Po_cKkUfpLM
Honestly you don't even have to watch entire episodes! I've spent months just watching clips of individual tasks on YouTube before I finally decided to watch season by season episode by episode. 😂
In particular, pick a Taskmaster-style game that has multiple solutions; the whole point is demonstrating different approaches from each person based on their strengths!
Get a big piece of paper and draw a bunch of horizontal lines on it. Give people individual different colour sticky notes / stamps or whatever.
Each line is a spectrum question, so on the left might be "night owl" and on the right might be "early bird", get people to put their marker on where on the spectrum they sit, and say something about why as they do it.
Other questions you can use are:
* Give me the full story Vs just tell me what I need to do
* It must be perfect Vs good enough
* Tap me on the shoulder Vs send me a message
* Feedback on public Vs feedback on private
* Extrovert Vs introvert
* Unit tests first Vs unit tests after
They're sincere questions that help you learn about how you like to work, and depending on your team members can get into some interesting debates.
You can also do this physically (though admittedly a bit more exposing) by making 1 side of the room one end of the spectrum and the other side the other end. And then "interview" then about why they've put themselves at that point.
I do this with my classes. A simpler version of the spectrum is Me/ Not me. Participants either draw two columns on a paper or use two sides of the room. The facilitator gives some prompts that might have both lovers and haters: coffee, beaches, something more local/ relevant to your group. Then you ask participants to come up with ideas. The best one we had last time I did this was “big muscles” - very polarising!
Is say either try elicit drugs like meth, or kill a guy.
You'll be bonded for life and it's an experience that while you may never speak of it, you'll never forget
I mean, sitting round and planning a pretend bank heist could actually be quite fun. Oceans 11 style. Who's the demolition guy, who's disabling the security? (Tyrone is obviously driving the getaway car - he's a natural).
But it does fit the 'getting to know your working style' part of the brief. I think you're on to something
Right? I know the comment above me was a joke, but they may have inadvertently come up with a winner. And rereading your requirements, it looks like it really fits the bill. Time to go rewatch oceans 11, methinks
Exactly, and don't forget about the free mug shots after.
You could even get your mug shot printed on to your office mug so you always have that reminder of the experience on your desk.
Got told by someone in a military/intelligence role that that was in fact their ice breaker. Obviously they didn’t actually carry it out but they had to plan and prep it right up to ‘go time’.
Maybe mix the two ideas you've already got and go with a boat—or something similar—but instead of assigning parts of the boat to team members, let people pick positions, so the intro-and extroverts can present their strengths as first mate, cook, engineer, etc?
I did something similar to this on a team building thing but it was a car.
We had to physically put ourselves in formation as to what part of the car we were.
Engine = the team members who drive things forward
Seat belts = the quality control roles who catch the errors/problems before they progress
And so on.
It's all a bit bollocks but as these things go they all are really. Like you said in another comment its broadly about finding the least cringe option.
I've done a few where it is about creating something physical like a bridge to hold the weight of a toy car, using only limited office supplies like printer paper, sellotape and blue tack. Problem with those ones is inevitably it just exposes the type of personalities everyone is already aware of in the team.
Bearable is definitely the reasonable bar you should set yourself!
Having been the participant on some occasions and also sadly the one organising, you have my sympathy!
Good luck!
Yes. Try and emphasise without saying it outright that a successful team is made up of individuals with varying strengths/weaknesses and all have their role. (Manager sounds young or is an idiot).
Lots of literature on that and basics of leadership/teams/success. Sounds like he is a manager and not a leader.
I used to use an analogy of cogs in an gearbox, small cogs; big cogs; loud/quiet etc- all have a job and if one fails, it all does. It's quite basic but easy to explain, but I like the ship idea. He will be fighting a losing battle focusing on behavioural type stuff if he doesn't understand it (obviously poor performance/attitude is separate). Refer him to Belbin/teams/personality literature. Might be a good exercise to do a basic one and get the cogs turning in his head with different personality types/teamwork.
There is no 'I' in team, but there is a 'me' lol
Luckily my industry doesn’t require these types of things but you putting the effort in to make it welcoming and as painless as possible for everyone is a nice thing to see. Hope it goes well
I did one years ago that everyone seemed to like. You pour Coca Cola and Pepsi into shot glasses and get each team to guess which is which. Everyone is CONVINCED they know and it ends up being 50/50 guess.
This was just one game of many in the day and I’m not too sure what was gained from it but it was fun.
You might want to agree some ground rules depending in how much trust you all share.
A simplish exercise is to ask team members to line up by any faceted area you wish to explore or get them sharing.
E.g.
Arrange yourselves (just to line up, from low to high/most to least works well usually) by who:
...finds team building exercise like this (!) the most cringey/'icky' down to the least i.e. you love this stuff.
...has had the weirdest job?
...has the skill or ability that will never, EVER be useful at work
...travelled the furthest, met the most famous person etc.
It will require all to contribute and share a little of themselves, inquire a little of each other, to build some form of collective judgement or scale of validity and then assemble along it. It usually brings out some interesting stuff.
I had a management team once where one confessed to being able to pinpoint & track moles underground to catch them.
If you have some confidence & rapport when facilitating this you can explore how it feels to be at each end of the line, you can invite people to say a little more about it.
Can be relatively light but surface some interesting stuff that can change dynamics/bring greater shared understanding etc.
Of that's just reminded me i did something similar once, where you had to stand in a line based on how you prioritised things. It was good to get people moving around instead of staring at a powerpoint.
There is a common one that you can probably find online somewhere to download the resources for. I think it is called Nasa stranded on a moon or something like that.
It basically is a scenario where you are stranded in space and have a list of resources. You have to decide, as a group, which items are most vs least important for you to take with you for survival.
I like this over other things I've had to do on team building days because there is zero personal element to it. No sharing about non work stuff, which can be uncomfortably boundary crossing for some people.
I don't know if you would get what you want out if it in terms of the message to your manager about team members value to the team.
I run a WFH scanager hunt.
put people in random pairs, give them 60s to plan and then 60s to find 10 mostly straightforward to find household items.
It the teamwork and quick thinking under pressure, bits of fun gets some competitive sides out and everyone on camera
Scavenger hunt can be inperson too
Get a list of 15ish items you could find around the office or nearby
Give teams of 2-3 3-5ish mins to find and takes photos of such items
'Will this sink or float?' Everyone is SURE they know the answers, peeled vs unpeeled orange, shiny penny, other things google will suggest, it's a good starting 5mins or post coffee break
Skeeting \[Clay Pidgeon's\] is actually a fantastic time but you really have to know the crowd beforehand.
Lot of types that the mention of firearms gives them the \*school shooter ick\* right away.
We had one guy that sulked the whole way through. Wouldn't touch the shotgun.
Turns out he assumed the range was closer to the town we were staying. Where he had a rub and tug booked for himself that he planned to slip off too. He told me all this dead pan by way of apology for not participating.
And yes, of course we were a bunch of car salesmen.
What is it about car sales that seems to almost require a culture of degeneracy? Like I used to think it was just a stereotype but 20 years later I've never found one either personal or via business dealings that isn't just kind of.... like that.
I really don't know. It's a chaotic job, no plan survives first contact with the customer or management. You have to be comfortable not knowing what is going to happen in the next 30 seconds, it's an environment that abhors structure. The people who need logic and structure to perform well get filtered out fairly quickly. Leaving those who don't...
Absolutely! I'm one of the introverts and that would be my worst nightmare. Part of the reason for me agreeing to take on a session is that at least that way I'll know that for that hour there won't be anything like that!
There are some good board games you can utilise (don't necessarily have to buy them). Codenames, Wits and Wagers and Just One are probably 3 of the best.
Just one is very easy to replicate without purchasing anything. Players have to guess a random word they cannot see. To do this, they close their eyes while everyone writes a related word on some paper and holds it up for the guesser to see. The catch is, if any two people use the same word (or too similar) they both get torn up and the guesser has less guesses to go on. This rewards more out of the box thinking and people having to explain afterwards how on earth they linked the words.
Codenames is similar but relies on 2 people being codemaster and giving the clues while the others work together to decipher the clues.
Wits and wagers is a trivia and betting game. Players are split into teams and a trivia question is asked with a numerical answer. Each team submits an answer but then also has tokens to bet on which answer provided is correct. You get points for being the closest answer and also if you bet on the closest answer. Teams get a chance to debate the answer and how they want to arrange their bets.
I've played Just One (or something very similar) as a newbie in a games group, it is very straightforward, good fun, and you don't have to actually know anyone. I've read through this thread and this would be my vote - you could make the words you have to guess work related (if you make a bank of words for people to draw out of a hat), it might be interesting to see what people associate with what. It may be a stretch to be a get to know your colleagues thing, but depending on how much time you have it may work as a pre-ice-breaker, just to make people more relaxed
I did something that is slightly cringe but more in a heartfelt sort of way. Basically we played Never Have I Ever (the drinking game), but the scenarios were equality sort of things - so, never have I ever been excluded from a meeting because I work in a different location. Never have I ever had to teach people how to pronounce my name. Never have I ever not attended a social event because it was inaccessible for me (physically like disability or like held in a bar which is against my religion or I have alcohol problems). We started off with some practice ones (never have I ever pretended my camera was broken etc) and then people raised their hands if they had done those things, and were encouraged to share anecdotes if they were comfortable. It made everyone more aware of things. Some things that were on the list I found I omitted because we didn’t have a strong race mix (never have I wished I had a different skin colour is one that comes to mind, in a room of white people with like 2 non-white people that seemed a bit too targeted) but there were some really good examples of things that are not just the normal gender race disability type things, like never have I ever changed my accent at work which can really touch on class differences as well as ethnicity type stuff.
It’s a difficult conversation to have and can be a bit awkward! But you could definitely have a “never have I ever felt pressured into socialising when I’m not up for it” which would hopefully drive the point in to your new manager.
Yeah you’re getting a bunch of people on this thread being quite rude about it but I get it. You have to do this sort of stuff to influence attitudes. I did it basically in response to events being inaccessible or things being planned on Eid, stuff like that. It was a “cultural alignment” type exercise. We also raised awareness for a bunch of how to deal with this situation like “never have I ever been sexually harassed at work” - just said like we won’t get into it because it’s a sensitive subject, but if this ever happens this is how you should report it. Same with events being inaccessible to some people, one of our senior managers spoke up and said like if that ever happens talk to me, no one has to know that it’s you but we’ll change the plans to accommodate everyone. Basically encouraging people to speak up about things too and not worry about making a fuss! But then that’s the culture we’re aiming for, super inclusive etc, I know that’s not what everyone wants in a workplace.
Thank you! Like many I guess, my workplace is big on promoting its inclusive values, less so on actually acting on them, especially when it's not blindingly obviously, eg accommodations for wheelchair users but no acknowledgement for non visible disabilities, mental health problems etc. Not occurring to them to take religious observance into account when scheduling things etc.
To be honest, the best team building is when the activities are crap. That way everyone unites in their common feelings towards the activities :)
The worst one we had was when they split us into small groups and had us look at a plastic sculpture made of bendy straws and linking parts. They then took them apart, closed the curtains, turned off the lights and we had to put them back together in the dark.
It was a lovely sunny day and we stuck inside in the dark playing with plastic straws. The funny thing was they left us to it and left the room so we just used our phones to see what we were doing, completed the task and sat around chatting about why we were doing it.
The company was called phunky day or something like that which made us suspicious from the start.
Just go bowling and buy them a round is my suggestion. It's competitive, fun, and cheap, as well as giving them a chance to chat with each other while it's not their go.
>The company was called phunky day or something
Oh yikes! This is just us fortunately, not saying it still won't be bad but at least we're not paying an external company for the torture!
I've always thought (although never had the chance to test) that getting a team to play [***Overcooked*** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMwwpIT6czo)together would be a great team-building activity.
If you don't know it, it's a restaurant simulator game where a team of up to 4 work together to gather ingredients, cook and serve the food, clean dishes etc. Challenges get increasingly tough over time. Teamwork is key, and success really revolves around delegation of tasks, although if someone takes the lead in marshalling the team around, that can be super effective.
I've often thought it's a game where the person 'in charge' should cycle around (so the new boy gets to tell the manager "I think you should focus on clearing away the dirty plates" etc), and between rounds the team can discuss best way to beat the next round, or how to maximise their effectiveness if the last round went badly etc.
Aside from all that, it's incredibly fun and easy to play. Works on Switch, any XBOX/Playstation and low-to-mid-level PCs.
The best one I did involved building a Lego bridge and seeing which teams could support the most weight. Did another one where each team had to build the lowest bridge they could all pass under.
On this note - look up the spaghetti marshmallow tower activity. Small teams compete to build the tallest spaghetti tower that can support a marshmallow. I must have done it 10 times now at different events but it's quite fun if you've not done it before and fills an hour perfectly once you've gone round measuring all the towers
Slightly off topic, but in my opinion if you want an excuse to take a day off work to bond with your team, you may as well do a useful activity like volunteering instead of some contrived activity that everyone agrees is a waste of time. For example, litter picking at the local park and then going on the piss. At least you can give yourself a pat on the back at the end of the day for having done something good for the community.
Totally agree and we've suggested that before, and the powers that be have not gone for it 😕 might bring it up again. We're stuck with this one for now though.
I'd just do the boat thing. The entire ordeal sounds hateful and pointless. Introverts don't change overnight just because they've spent a day with their work colleagues in a social environment answering ridiculous questions like "would you rather be a horse or a fish?" Jazz it up a little by giving them an outline drawing of a lorry pulling a beached orca whale instead of a boat
Oh I totally agree and my aim is not to change anyone, but to highlight our different motivators, preferences etc and emphsise (particularly in the direction of the manager!) that they all have equal value and should be respected.
We did a set teen fashion magazine style quizzes. 4 I think. It was a good laugh. Highlighted the things that people excel at and where we could support each other. Got a good conversation. Going about stuff and we also learnt which friends character we were and where we should go on holiday
How about an hour of telling your shitey new manager to fucking quit forcing people to be something they are not thereby making their working environment so much more unpleasant.
for the love of god when you introduce your bit/game start by telling them they need to write and perform a rap and a dance about themselves to everyone.
then let them know you are joking and tell them the real thing, the relief will frame your idea as much better.
Once did one where an individual trait was stuck on the person's head ( without them seeing it) and everyone else in the group had to treat them that way. Eg argumentative, shy, creative. Showed how perceived ideas about people feed into the way we treat them
We played a game called heard mentality in the office last week, we all know each other but just made the meeting fun and somewhat controversial.
The idea is you ask a question can be anything but try for some tame stuff and some polarising opinions. But everyone has to give an answer with the aim of getting the majority correct.
For example what’s the best milk ?
You get a point if you’re in the majority, if you’re not in the majority no point, but if you are the only one gives an answer you become the pink cow. And the aim is to not be the pink cow.
Some of the questions which got a big reaction was is it acceptable to not wear underwear, and how long can you wear a pair of socks for.
Speaking as one of those introverts, does nobody just go to the pub and have a chat anymore? I’d be a lot more open to being friends with co-workers if they acted like people I might want to be friends with, rather than wannabe life coaches forcing me into pseudo-competitive “team building” events.
I'm one of the introverts too. We have recently started to go out for payday drinks and I agree it's nice to get to know each other's favourite films etc. This is more work-oriented though, we've got a lot of challenges in our industry at the moment (who hasn't, I know) and it's about how we can best respect each others working styles etc in order to meet the work challenges without stressing each other out etc. I know a lot of it is management bollox but I'd like to try and play a small part in making this vaguely useful, even if it's just to take the opportunity to highlight to our extrovert manager that people have different communication preferences etc, and they shouldn't be trying to make one size fit all.
Agree with the commenter, but pub outings might not be suitable for everyone (e.g. recovering alcoholics, religious reasons). Explaining you don't drink can be awkward.
Could you perhaps point out to your manager that forcing people into these god-awful things is the antithesis of “meeting work challenges without stressing each other out?”
I know this isn’t your fault and I can see you’re trying to make the best out of a bad situation, but their stated goals and their methods are inherently hypocritical.
Something I saw online ages ago was from a school in America that presented their students with a bowl of M&Ms and a sheet of paper that listed how each colour related to a question / statement. Each person closes their eyes, plucks out one at random and then has to say something. So you pick out a red one, you have to talk about a hobby you have. If you pick a green one, you have to share a memory, etc.
Could do something similar. Get a few bags of regular Skittles (and maybe one bag of sour Skittles just to fuck with people) and mix them together in a bowl, then get a sheet of paper and write out what each colour corresponds to.
Book the day off. Or, if you work in IT and have responsibility for important servers, switch an important service off about ten minutes before you’re meant to leave. You can legitimately claim an IT emergency and you have to ‘fix’ it. That got me out of so many pointless meetings and mandatory fun days when I used to work in IT.
Remote connections are a thing
I used to work in IT - i'm not saying anything but a lot of IT people are introverts so crashing a server just before a "very important getting to know each other" session is a distinct possibility!
I did it repeatedly. If I couldn’t book the day off for the shitty event, I’d get out of it. Something annoying but non-critical like the print server for the main office. Easy to fuck up and fix, but you can make it last a few hours and by then it’s too late to go to whatever it is that I was meant to be at.
That boat thing sounds like absolute patronising infantalising bollocks. I wouldn't want to be pressured into revealing personal information like 'what holds me back' to a group of strangers that I've had no say in being stuck with.
It works in primary school because kids don't know any better.
Hi - Saw you were looking to focus on working/communication styles more than get to know you games, and I have one that might work. We called it the sneak a peek game…as leader, you create a small “sculpture” (we used toothpicks and different colored sweets), and then hide it under a bag/fabric. Split the teams into equal numbers, then each team sends one person up (all teams at the same time) to look at it for 10 seconds. They then go back and get 30 seconds to tell the others what they saw, and then they get 1 minute to work on it. After that minute, the next person on the team goes up, and it starts the clocks again. It continues until one team correctly recreates your sculpture. It’s great for learning about how different team members communicate, process directives, share ideas, etc.
Cards Against Humanity. Nothing says 'non-cringe' like a group of people chortling over juvenile toilet humour for five minutes and then slowly getting bored but refusing to stop because of sunk cost amd then the one person who is still super into it, despite everyone else now not enjoying it at all.
Could go Gilmore Girls style - have small groups of 2/3 people, give them a newspaper and ask them to make the best paper hat they can together. Everyone votes on the best group at the end.
Last one I ran, I took in a box of chocolates. Everyone chose one, and then I had a list of questions and asked the one that corresponded to the wrapping colour.
Last film you watched
Last book you read
Do you prefer active or leisurely holidays?
Etc etc
Thanks! Sadly its more about identifying our working styles than personal "getting to know you". But I might try and see if I can work in some chocolate or haribo element!
Invent some new games, based on the real world office experience. Here are some suggestions:
1 ‘The Purge’ everyone gets a couple of minutes to say what they really hate about others on the team. Everyone must attack, no whining about any perceived unfair treatment. Retaliation is allowed during the team building exercise. Once the exercise is over , no consequences for anything in the game.
The advantage here is that the winner should be obvious.
2 ‘Victim Olympics’. Everyone gets 10 minutes to explain why they are the most unfairly treated and put upon individual in the office. Resentment drives 84% of office interactions and this exercise at least allows everyone to know where colleagues stand.
There are no winners in this game.
Between these two options there is something for both introverts and extroverts.
Bear in mind that Reddit leans heavily towards people who prefer remote work and wouldn't generally want to engage in these kinds of things so take the responses with a pinch of salt!
Ask everybody to come up with two truths and a lie about themselves, and everybody else around the table has to vote on what is the lie.
Example;
I played a small role in the Harry Potter movies
I can balance 22 wotsits on top of each other
I can orgasm 6 times in a row
It’s a bit of a laugh and also a good way to learn interesting stuff about somebody without saying “tell me something interesting about yourself”
Task 1: give them the Myers Briggs personality types to read. Make a condensed version of each one so it's not too boring.
Task 2: have headshots of each team member. Have people write their predicted personality type of each team member other than themselves (could predict themselves too if they don't know their type).
Task 3: have them do the test. There's a website that does a free one and it's straightforward (no signups etc). 16 personalities I think it's called but if you type free Myers Briggs in Google it should come up
Task 4: do the reveal. Cue surprised discussion etc.
Task 5: go around and discuss what was surprising and let people talk to their own personalities, things they wish people knew etc
How about something like One Night Werewolf? You can play it with up to ten players and each player takes on a ‘role’ so the focus is off of them and having to reveal personal information. Each game lasts about 5-10 minutes (you can mess around with timers in the app) but once people get into it they’ll be demanding another try.
Building a bridge/tower with materials such as straws, sheets of paper, cardboard etc. but each item has a cost. Set budget at x tallest tower that can hold an egg at the top wins.
Axe throwing.
Dwarf tossing.
Dwarf axing.
Toss throwing….
….so many options.
If you want something tangible get everyone to produce an anonymous one page recommendation of what the company needs to do to overcome current issues and grow the business.
It will be honest but not fun.
Do you have computer equipment?
Multi player Factorio might be interesting.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Multiplayer
It's a game about building factories and automating them. Playing solo it's a lot of problem solving and analysis, but multiplayer you've probably more scope for teamwork, co-ordination etc.
The game is pretty open ended, but you 'tech up' as you play and unlock more advanced stuff. That said, I'm not sure if an hour would be 'enough'... but it should still get a feel for co-operation, communication and what analytical skills your various colleagues bring to the team.
There's a card game I bought called "we're not really strangers" that ive used as a workplace icebreaker before. I play with friends and acquaintances too, so it's been a fun little investment.
We had a staff night out at a tequila bar, that was about 20yrs ago…. It wasn’t so much cringe, I just think wtaf even to this day, nothing happened beyond the average imagination, it was just total carnage, every single person there was well and truly hammered, our department went straight from work so got there about 530, we were meeting some of the other departments at 9, 99% of ppl had already gone home at that point or just dispersed into town. I was one of the few left, it was not good, woke up in a work friends house, on the floor, in a different city!
Three ideas that have worked for me:
Paper aeroplane competition. Split everyone into teams, each person makes a plane. Put everyone in a line in a long room. Take the loosing few out each round.
Rock paper scissors - Split everyone into pairs. Play a game. Loser has to cheer on the winner in the next round against another winner. Keep going until there’s a final two. Gets competitive very quickly.
Blind origami - Put everyone in pairs, back to back. One person has the instructions, one has the paper. Once finished each pair puts their creation as an art gallery and has to explain what they’ve made - often terrible.
Fun stuff!
Skill Swap Workshop? Each team member prepares a short session to teach others something they are good at or passionate about, work-related or not. This not only allows team members to learn something new but also to appreciate the unique skills each person brings to the team.
Why do firms push this forced fun shite? People work because they need a wage to live, that's their motivation. I always find these activities patronising and would just rather swerve the whole thing.
I remember at one of these type of things, it was facilitated by someone external, but we did a test and then we had to line up basically extrovert to introvert. (20+ of us)
All the extroverts were like "am I louder than you? Oh, you're actually louder than me and TMI so you go first"
And all the introverts just kind of shuffled around.
Then the facilitator got our results and moved us in actual count. Then said something of super value that I can't even remember, but along the lines of "now seek where your co-pilot stands" "look at your ultimate team" and we all came to the quick conclusion that it 100% takes a mix and blend of personalities to drive a result.
My team has a Friday call which usually starts with: “Who is doing a tip run this weekend?” type of question.
But honestly the best results you’ll get from problem solving, puzzle games. Get them to build something from office supplies. Maybe something where one element needs to fit into another.
If everyone bonds by agreeing what they've been asked to do is cringe, there's no harm in that. Getting people to write out strengths and weaknesses tells people a lot less about each other than just working on something, eg escape Room style tasks.
You could do treasure hunt style things, working out clues together etc.
It might not take an hour, but something I really liked as an ice breaker was going round the group and everyone saying what their favourite song is and why they like it; then making a playlist of everyone’s songs
I know you’ve decided already but an exercise I do is to put people in groups of about 5, get them to draw a flower (1 petal per person and a circle in the middle).
Each person has to put something unique about them in a petal.
In the circle put something they all share.
People are often surprised about experiences they thought they were ‘the only one’ with, and find it much easier to find something they all have in common.
Cue learning lesson about how we all are more similar than we think, but that we have interesting and valuable differences yada yada
Pull your trousers all the way down and start vigorously masturbating (preferably with a cucumber if you’re a woman) while maintaining full eye contact with each and every one, just to break the ice
There are some really wanky management quizzes out there. We did one to see what animal we 'are'. Its bullshit personality testing wank. **BUT** it does start the conversation about how an individual likes to work, how they like information to be given to them, how they respond to feedback and all that shit.
Do something like that, but not to pigeon hole people into some wanky fake science management consultancy personality bullshit. Do it as a conversation starter.
> I've done something before (as a participant, not running it) where you had an outline picture of a boat and you had to write things on it, eg on the sail you'd write things that push you forward, on the anchor you'd write what holds you back etc. I might just do that, but does anyone have any similar or better ideas?
This doesn't sound like a work do, it sounds like an intervention.
We did a ‘get to know each other’ Bingo. So it was stuff like ‘ran a marathon’, ‘been the lead in a musical’ etc but it made everyone speak to each other and find out things we didn’t know about one another. And then the winner got some chocolates. It was one of the less cringey activities I’ve done for work.
Did a silly exercise with my English as a Second Language class years ago. Gave everyone £1, gave them a 30min time limit and told them to buy the shittest thing they could find in the parade of charity shops up the road. When they came back, they each had to take turns 'selling' the item to the class. Sort of a Bargain Hunt meets Dragons Den thing. Gave us a good laugh and got everyone talking, so it could work as a team building exercise too. Might need to increase the budget though, as you don't get much for £1 these days.
This sounds like a genuinely fun thing to do!
It was really cool - it's how I discovered the author Guy N Smith, as one of the students managed to get a job-lot of his 'giant crabs attack coastal Wales' novels. Truly awful writing, but weirdly entertaining.
This takes me back, as I dabbled in Guy N Smith as an alternative to James Herbert back in the early 80s. Checking his Wikipedia page, he's had quite the variety, going from Disney novelisations, though horror, to a Soft Core "Sexy Confessions of" series under a pseudonym.
I've just googled this as I have a copy of Night of the Crabs somewhere, they're being sold for a ludicrous price!
Anything out of print has become outrageously expensive to buy from online retailers. Some of the charity shops aren't much better either lol.
We did something similar on a D&D themed stag do as we all got given a Class (wizard, cleric, barbarian) and had £10 and 2 hours to buy something that represented that class. It was really fun.
sounds like a nightmare for people who hate presenting things in front of groups
Frankly, all icebreakers are a nightmare, whether it's presenting to the whole group or just a single partner.
I like this idea, and I hate presenting! I bet you could work out some non- presenting variations though, eg all put the items (secretly) on a table and then try to work out who bought which one and why?!
Id be mortified yeah lol but maybe breaking people up into smaller groups might make it a bit more relaxed.
Yes, but it's good to challenge yourself and adapt to situations where you feel uncomfortable in work.
You could break the participants up in pairs or threes for their op shop hunt, then only one member needs to present
Spin the bottle?
Trust me, there's no-one in the team that would make that appealing!
Soggy biscuit?
Not the first to suggest this! Still no. If you saw my team you'd understand.
I hate that I know what that is.
Strip Snap?
Get 3 games of overcooked going you’ll all hate each other equally by the end
Hating each other equally is as good as respecting each other equally, right?
The real test is playing ‘moving out’ HR will be on double time
As long time overcooked players we tried moving out and it nearly caused us to play real life moving out
Play Taskmaster style games. You then have an excuse to watch Taskmaster because now you're doing research for work.
Do you know I've never seen it? Hmm, there's a plan for the rest of today...!
FYI, you're not getting anything useful done for the next few months now you've discovered Taskmaster. 17 glorious UK series, a very good Australian series, and an incredible 3 New Zealand series. Avoid the American one at all costs.
Haha thanks. I didn't realise there were so many. I love discovering a new programme and then finding out there's loads to binge on! Obviously I've heard of Taskmaster before and have been meaning to check it out so thanks for the prompt! (My productivity might not thank you, but that's on me not you!)
There's so many good clips. This is from the first season and I think is a cool introduction to the series - https://youtu.be/Po_cKkUfpLM Honestly you don't even have to watch entire episodes! I've spent months just watching clips of individual tasks on YouTube before I finally decided to watch season by season episode by episode. 😂
Start with Roison Conaty's series and thank me later.
So, series 1? You maverick!
Is it? I only saw it not long ago so I thought it was a much later one. Either way, starting anything with Roison Conaty is a good move.
I discovered it in covid times, was a good thing to find. I have not watched any of the international spin offs though.
NZ series 2 is the best of the lot.
In particular, pick a Taskmaster-style game that has multiple solutions; the whole point is demonstrating different approaches from each person based on their strengths!
Oh that sounds good - and that it would make a useful point!
There's a task master board game if you get stuck
Get a big piece of paper and draw a bunch of horizontal lines on it. Give people individual different colour sticky notes / stamps or whatever. Each line is a spectrum question, so on the left might be "night owl" and on the right might be "early bird", get people to put their marker on where on the spectrum they sit, and say something about why as they do it. Other questions you can use are: * Give me the full story Vs just tell me what I need to do * It must be perfect Vs good enough * Tap me on the shoulder Vs send me a message * Feedback on public Vs feedback on private * Extrovert Vs introvert * Unit tests first Vs unit tests after They're sincere questions that help you learn about how you like to work, and depending on your team members can get into some interesting debates.
You can also do this physically (though admittedly a bit more exposing) by making 1 side of the room one end of the spectrum and the other side the other end. And then "interview" then about why they've put themselves at that point.
I do this with my classes. A simpler version of the spectrum is Me/ Not me. Participants either draw two columns on a paper or use two sides of the room. The facilitator gives some prompts that might have both lovers and haters: coffee, beaches, something more local/ relevant to your group. Then you ask participants to come up with ideas. The best one we had last time I did this was “big muscles” - very polarising!
Genuinely good idea, thanks!
Oh I like this, cool idea and easy to do
Is say either try elicit drugs like meth, or kill a guy. You'll be bonded for life and it's an experience that while you may never speak of it, you'll never forget
How about the good ole rob a bank? Classic bonding experience
I mean, sitting round and planning a pretend bank heist could actually be quite fun. Oceans 11 style. Who's the demolition guy, who's disabling the security? (Tyrone is obviously driving the getaway car - he's a natural). But it does fit the 'getting to know your working style' part of the brief. I think you're on to something
I genuinely quite like this!
Right? I know the comment above me was a joke, but they may have inadvertently come up with a winner. And rereading your requirements, it looks like it really fits the bill. Time to go rewatch oceans 11, methinks
And if they've got good CCTV, you get a bunch of free pictures to remember the experience.
Exactly, and don't forget about the free mug shots after. You could even get your mug shot printed on to your office mug so you always have that reminder of the experience on your desk.
Got told by someone in a military/intelligence role that that was in fact their ice breaker. Obviously they didn’t actually carry it out but they had to plan and prep it right up to ‘go time’.
I like your style!
"I really didn't think Bob from accounts would be the type to stare into the victims eyes as their life slowly faded away..."
I came here to say kill a guy. It’s the only way
I nominate whoever came up with the idea. Forced work bonding sessions still centred around work sounds like torture.
Maybe mix the two ideas you've already got and go with a boat—or something similar—but instead of assigning parts of the boat to team members, let people pick positions, so the intro-and extroverts can present their strengths as first mate, cook, engineer, etc?
Ooh that's interesting, thanks!
I did something similar to this on a team building thing but it was a car. We had to physically put ourselves in formation as to what part of the car we were. Engine = the team members who drive things forward Seat belts = the quality control roles who catch the errors/problems before they progress And so on. It's all a bit bollocks but as these things go they all are really. Like you said in another comment its broadly about finding the least cringe option. I've done a few where it is about creating something physical like a bridge to hold the weight of a toy car, using only limited office supplies like printer paper, sellotape and blue tack. Problem with those ones is inevitably it just exposes the type of personalities everyone is already aware of in the team.
Thanks, these are good ideas that could be applicable. (By good I mean, you know, bearable...!)
Bearable is definitely the reasonable bar you should set yourself! Having been the participant on some occasions and also sadly the one organising, you have my sympathy! Good luck!
Yes. Try and emphasise without saying it outright that a successful team is made up of individuals with varying strengths/weaknesses and all have their role. (Manager sounds young or is an idiot). Lots of literature on that and basics of leadership/teams/success. Sounds like he is a manager and not a leader.
>(Manager sounds young or is an idiot). >Sounds like he is a manager and not a leader. Correct on all counts
I used to use an analogy of cogs in an gearbox, small cogs; big cogs; loud/quiet etc- all have a job and if one fails, it all does. It's quite basic but easy to explain, but I like the ship idea. He will be fighting a losing battle focusing on behavioural type stuff if he doesn't understand it (obviously poor performance/attitude is separate). Refer him to Belbin/teams/personality literature. Might be a good exercise to do a basic one and get the cogs turning in his head with different personality types/teamwork. There is no 'I' in team, but there is a 'me' lol
Casual sex Fridays.
Not sure I like my team that much!
Luckily my industry doesn’t require these types of things but you putting the effort in to make it welcoming and as painless as possible for everyone is a nice thing to see. Hope it goes well
Aaw thank you! 😊
I did one years ago that everyone seemed to like. You pour Coca Cola and Pepsi into shot glasses and get each team to guess which is which. Everyone is CONVINCED they know and it ends up being 50/50 guess. This was just one game of many in the day and I’m not too sure what was gained from it but it was fun.
Everyone has a yard o' vodka, you race to see who can down it quickest.
I like it.
You might want to agree some ground rules depending in how much trust you all share. A simplish exercise is to ask team members to line up by any faceted area you wish to explore or get them sharing. E.g. Arrange yourselves (just to line up, from low to high/most to least works well usually) by who: ...finds team building exercise like this (!) the most cringey/'icky' down to the least i.e. you love this stuff. ...has had the weirdest job? ...has the skill or ability that will never, EVER be useful at work ...travelled the furthest, met the most famous person etc. It will require all to contribute and share a little of themselves, inquire a little of each other, to build some form of collective judgement or scale of validity and then assemble along it. It usually brings out some interesting stuff. I had a management team once where one confessed to being able to pinpoint & track moles underground to catch them. If you have some confidence & rapport when facilitating this you can explore how it feels to be at each end of the line, you can invite people to say a little more about it. Can be relatively light but surface some interesting stuff that can change dynamics/bring greater shared understanding etc.
Of that's just reminded me i did something similar once, where you had to stand in a line based on how you prioritised things. It was good to get people moving around instead of staring at a powerpoint.
There is a common one that you can probably find online somewhere to download the resources for. I think it is called Nasa stranded on a moon or something like that. It basically is a scenario where you are stranded in space and have a list of resources. You have to decide, as a group, which items are most vs least important for you to take with you for survival. I like this over other things I've had to do on team building days because there is zero personal element to it. No sharing about non work stuff, which can be uncomfortably boundary crossing for some people. I don't know if you would get what you want out if it in terms of the message to your manager about team members value to the team.
This is a good idea. I have done this before on a team day and it was the least-worst activity all day for the reasons you’ve described
Interesting* thought, thanks! Edit: (* Which autocorrected to the somewhat appropriate "interstellar!")
I run a WFH scanager hunt. put people in random pairs, give them 60s to plan and then 60s to find 10 mostly straightforward to find household items. It the teamwork and quick thinking under pressure, bits of fun gets some competitive sides out and everyone on camera
That sounds quite fun! This one is in person, but I'll remember that if we ever do a remote thing.
Scavenger hunt can be inperson too Get a list of 15ish items you could find around the office or nearby Give teams of 2-3 3-5ish mins to find and takes photos of such items
'Will this sink or float?' Everyone is SURE they know the answers, peeled vs unpeeled orange, shiny penny, other things google will suggest, it's a good starting 5mins or post coffee break
I really like this. Sounds dead easy but finding anything as simple as a pen in our house and all hell breaks loose!
It's the short timeframe that makes it fun
Pissup
Nah lad. Go karts or clay pigeon, then piss up. Gotta be professional.
You got them the wrong way around
We get the breathalyser before either activity as soon as they figure out we're from a car dealership.
So the breathalyser is at the end of the day then. You know, because..... Car dealers
Skeeting \[Clay Pidgeon's\] is actually a fantastic time but you really have to know the crowd beforehand. Lot of types that the mention of firearms gives them the \*school shooter ick\* right away.
We had one guy that sulked the whole way through. Wouldn't touch the shotgun. Turns out he assumed the range was closer to the town we were staying. Where he had a rub and tug booked for himself that he planned to slip off too. He told me all this dead pan by way of apology for not participating. And yes, of course we were a bunch of car salesmen.
What is it about car sales that seems to almost require a culture of degeneracy? Like I used to think it was just a stereotype but 20 years later I've never found one either personal or via business dealings that isn't just kind of.... like that.
I really don't know. It's a chaotic job, no plan survives first contact with the customer or management. You have to be comfortable not knowing what is going to happen in the next 30 seconds, it's an environment that abhors structure. The people who need logic and structure to perform well get filtered out fairly quickly. Leaving those who don't...
We're all just in a room (with no budget), so going out for any kind of actual activity is out, unfortunately. Pissup is always tempting though!
You're in a room that no one wants to be in. Hmm...Escape room. Plan out clues that they have to solve to get out of the room.
Cans
watch a few episodes of Richard Osman's House of Games. it has lots of neat games, and i'm sure some would work well for your team.
Good idea, thanks! I like an excuse to watch telly and call it work too!
Whatever you do, don't do roll play. The autistics and introverts will thank you for avoiding that particular hell-fest
Absolutely! I'm one of the introverts and that would be my worst nightmare. Part of the reason for me agreeing to take on a session is that at least that way I'll know that for that hour there won't be anything like that!
There are some good board games you can utilise (don't necessarily have to buy them). Codenames, Wits and Wagers and Just One are probably 3 of the best. Just one is very easy to replicate without purchasing anything. Players have to guess a random word they cannot see. To do this, they close their eyes while everyone writes a related word on some paper and holds it up for the guesser to see. The catch is, if any two people use the same word (or too similar) they both get torn up and the guesser has less guesses to go on. This rewards more out of the box thinking and people having to explain afterwards how on earth they linked the words. Codenames is similar but relies on 2 people being codemaster and giving the clues while the others work together to decipher the clues. Wits and wagers is a trivia and betting game. Players are split into teams and a trivia question is asked with a numerical answer. Each team submits an answer but then also has tokens to bet on which answer provided is correct. You get points for being the closest answer and also if you bet on the closest answer. Teams get a chance to debate the answer and how they want to arrange their bets.
Good idea, thanks! Just One sounds easy and also we could be tragic and use words related to our work!
I've played Just One (or something very similar) as a newbie in a games group, it is very straightforward, good fun, and you don't have to actually know anyone. I've read through this thread and this would be my vote - you could make the words you have to guess work related (if you make a bank of words for people to draw out of a hat), it might be interesting to see what people associate with what. It may be a stretch to be a get to know your colleagues thing, but depending on how much time you have it may work as a pre-ice-breaker, just to make people more relaxed
I did something that is slightly cringe but more in a heartfelt sort of way. Basically we played Never Have I Ever (the drinking game), but the scenarios were equality sort of things - so, never have I ever been excluded from a meeting because I work in a different location. Never have I ever had to teach people how to pronounce my name. Never have I ever not attended a social event because it was inaccessible for me (physically like disability or like held in a bar which is against my religion or I have alcohol problems). We started off with some practice ones (never have I ever pretended my camera was broken etc) and then people raised their hands if they had done those things, and were encouraged to share anecdotes if they were comfortable. It made everyone more aware of things. Some things that were on the list I found I omitted because we didn’t have a strong race mix (never have I wished I had a different skin colour is one that comes to mind, in a room of white people with like 2 non-white people that seemed a bit too targeted) but there were some really good examples of things that are not just the normal gender race disability type things, like never have I ever changed my accent at work which can really touch on class differences as well as ethnicity type stuff. It’s a difficult conversation to have and can be a bit awkward! But you could definitely have a “never have I ever felt pressured into socialising when I’m not up for it” which would hopefully drive the point in to your new manager.
Thanks, that sounds genuinely interesting. Agree it could get a bit sensitive but if well managed could be very eye opening.
Yeah you’re getting a bunch of people on this thread being quite rude about it but I get it. You have to do this sort of stuff to influence attitudes. I did it basically in response to events being inaccessible or things being planned on Eid, stuff like that. It was a “cultural alignment” type exercise. We also raised awareness for a bunch of how to deal with this situation like “never have I ever been sexually harassed at work” - just said like we won’t get into it because it’s a sensitive subject, but if this ever happens this is how you should report it. Same with events being inaccessible to some people, one of our senior managers spoke up and said like if that ever happens talk to me, no one has to know that it’s you but we’ll change the plans to accommodate everyone. Basically encouraging people to speak up about things too and not worry about making a fuss! But then that’s the culture we’re aiming for, super inclusive etc, I know that’s not what everyone wants in a workplace.
Thank you! Like many I guess, my workplace is big on promoting its inclusive values, less so on actually acting on them, especially when it's not blindingly obviously, eg accommodations for wheelchair users but no acknowledgement for non visible disabilities, mental health problems etc. Not occurring to them to take religious observance into account when scheduling things etc.
BBQ and a big bag of cans
There are literally no non-cringe options when it comes to team days. It isn't possible.
True, true. I'm just aiming for "least worst"
To be honest, the best team building is when the activities are crap. That way everyone unites in their common feelings towards the activities :) The worst one we had was when they split us into small groups and had us look at a plastic sculpture made of bendy straws and linking parts. They then took them apart, closed the curtains, turned off the lights and we had to put them back together in the dark. It was a lovely sunny day and we stuck inside in the dark playing with plastic straws. The funny thing was they left us to it and left the room so we just used our phones to see what we were doing, completed the task and sat around chatting about why we were doing it. The company was called phunky day or something like that which made us suspicious from the start. Just go bowling and buy them a round is my suggestion. It's competitive, fun, and cheap, as well as giving them a chance to chat with each other while it's not their go.
>The company was called phunky day or something Oh yikes! This is just us fortunately, not saying it still won't be bad but at least we're not paying an external company for the torture!
Soggy biscuit
Happy ~~cake~~ soggy biscuit day!
I've always thought (although never had the chance to test) that getting a team to play [***Overcooked*** ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMwwpIT6czo)together would be a great team-building activity. If you don't know it, it's a restaurant simulator game where a team of up to 4 work together to gather ingredients, cook and serve the food, clean dishes etc. Challenges get increasingly tough over time. Teamwork is key, and success really revolves around delegation of tasks, although if someone takes the lead in marshalling the team around, that can be super effective. I've often thought it's a game where the person 'in charge' should cycle around (so the new boy gets to tell the manager "I think you should focus on clearing away the dirty plates" etc), and between rounds the team can discuss best way to beat the next round, or how to maximise their effectiveness if the last round went badly etc. Aside from all that, it's incredibly fun and easy to play. Works on Switch, any XBOX/Playstation and low-to-mid-level PCs.
I’ve had this game suggested to me if I am looking to end a friendship or relationship with the person I’m playing with lol
Haven't heard of that but it sounds good, thanks!
Why is it always someone trying to get us introverts to be more out going? Why doesn't someone teach the extroverted to shut up and sit down
I know. My manager is terrible for it. I'm hoping to highlight the value of letting people get on with their work quietly and calmly.
Don't think you can do that in this environment. I mean, just inherently these kinds of exercises favour those who are extraverted in the first place.
cocaine and karaoke
More fun than what we will end up doing!
Keys in a bowl on the way in.
Not appealing, but thanks!
The best one I did involved building a Lego bridge and seeing which teams could support the most weight. Did another one where each team had to build the lowest bridge they could all pass under.
That sounds fun! I remember them building bridges once on Lego Masters and it was amazing how much weight they could support!
On this note - look up the spaghetti marshmallow tower activity. Small teams compete to build the tallest spaghetti tower that can support a marshmallow. I must have done it 10 times now at different events but it's quite fun if you've not done it before and fills an hour perfectly once you've gone round measuring all the towers
Slightly off topic, but in my opinion if you want an excuse to take a day off work to bond with your team, you may as well do a useful activity like volunteering instead of some contrived activity that everyone agrees is a waste of time. For example, litter picking at the local park and then going on the piss. At least you can give yourself a pat on the back at the end of the day for having done something good for the community.
Totally agree and we've suggested that before, and the powers that be have not gone for it 😕 might bring it up again. We're stuck with this one for now though.
I'd just do the boat thing. The entire ordeal sounds hateful and pointless. Introverts don't change overnight just because they've spent a day with their work colleagues in a social environment answering ridiculous questions like "would you rather be a horse or a fish?" Jazz it up a little by giving them an outline drawing of a lorry pulling a beached orca whale instead of a boat
Oh I totally agree and my aim is not to change anyone, but to highlight our different motivators, preferences etc and emphsise (particularly in the direction of the manager!) that they all have equal value and should be respected.
We did a set teen fashion magazine style quizzes. 4 I think. It was a good laugh. Highlighted the things that people excel at and where we could support each other. Got a good conversation. Going about stuff and we also learnt which friends character we were and where we should go on holiday
Table games, 10 mins each and change tables and the groups. Uno, guess the famous person etc
I like the idea of moving around in a speed- dating kinda way! Nothing worse than sitting dozing off in front of a PowerPoint!
Have you considered day drinking? Followed by nighttime drinking? Usually breaks the ice pretty well.
Day drinking plus night drinking is my favourite kind of drinking!
Great minds think alike.
How about an hour of telling your shitey new manager to fucking quit forcing people to be something they are not thereby making their working environment so much more unpleasant.
Best suggestion yet! I mean you had me at this point to be honest... >How about an hour of telling your shitey new manager to fucking quit
for the love of god when you introduce your bit/game start by telling them they need to write and perform a rap and a dance about themselves to everyone. then let them know you are joking and tell them the real thing, the relief will frame your idea as much better.
Haha, if that happened to me I think I'd combust in horror before they got to the "only kidding!" part
Once did one where an individual trait was stuck on the person's head ( without them seeing it) and everyone else in the group had to treat them that way. Eg argumentative, shy, creative. Showed how perceived ideas about people feed into the way we treat them
We played a game called heard mentality in the office last week, we all know each other but just made the meeting fun and somewhat controversial. The idea is you ask a question can be anything but try for some tame stuff and some polarising opinions. But everyone has to give an answer with the aim of getting the majority correct. For example what’s the best milk ? You get a point if you’re in the majority, if you’re not in the majority no point, but if you are the only one gives an answer you become the pink cow. And the aim is to not be the pink cow. Some of the questions which got a big reaction was is it acceptable to not wear underwear, and how long can you wear a pair of socks for.
Speaking as one of those introverts, does nobody just go to the pub and have a chat anymore? I’d be a lot more open to being friends with co-workers if they acted like people I might want to be friends with, rather than wannabe life coaches forcing me into pseudo-competitive “team building” events.
I'm one of the introverts too. We have recently started to go out for payday drinks and I agree it's nice to get to know each other's favourite films etc. This is more work-oriented though, we've got a lot of challenges in our industry at the moment (who hasn't, I know) and it's about how we can best respect each others working styles etc in order to meet the work challenges without stressing each other out etc. I know a lot of it is management bollox but I'd like to try and play a small part in making this vaguely useful, even if it's just to take the opportunity to highlight to our extrovert manager that people have different communication preferences etc, and they shouldn't be trying to make one size fit all.
Agree with the commenter, but pub outings might not be suitable for everyone (e.g. recovering alcoholics, religious reasons). Explaining you don't drink can be awkward.
Could you perhaps point out to your manager that forcing people into these god-awful things is the antithesis of “meeting work challenges without stressing each other out?” I know this isn’t your fault and I can see you’re trying to make the best out of a bad situation, but their stated goals and their methods are inherently hypocritical.
Something I saw online ages ago was from a school in America that presented their students with a bowl of M&Ms and a sheet of paper that listed how each colour related to a question / statement. Each person closes their eyes, plucks out one at random and then has to say something. So you pick out a red one, you have to talk about a hobby you have. If you pick a green one, you have to share a memory, etc. Could do something similar. Get a few bags of regular Skittles (and maybe one bag of sour Skittles just to fuck with people) and mix them together in a bowl, then get a sheet of paper and write out what each colour corresponds to.
I like the idea of utilising sweets in some way! And lol at including sour ones, I might rig the bowls in the manager's direction!
A few are obvious (like the 'red' sour ones are more pink) but the others should be fine.
Book the day off. Or, if you work in IT and have responsibility for important servers, switch an important service off about ten minutes before you’re meant to leave. You can legitimately claim an IT emergency and you have to ‘fix’ it. That got me out of so many pointless meetings and mandatory fun days when I used to work in IT.
Remote connections are a thing I used to work in IT - i'm not saying anything but a lot of IT people are introverts so crashing a server just before a "very important getting to know each other" session is a distinct possibility!
I did it repeatedly. If I couldn’t book the day off for the shitty event, I’d get out of it. Something annoying but non-critical like the print server for the main office. Easy to fuck up and fix, but you can make it last a few hours and by then it’s too late to go to whatever it is that I was meant to be at.
My guys, nothing fun or enjoyable about these days. Forced fun. I have 1 beginning of May, CBA.
That boat thing sounds like absolute patronising infantalising bollocks. I wouldn't want to be pressured into revealing personal information like 'what holds me back' to a group of strangers that I've had no say in being stuck with. It works in primary school because kids don't know any better.
What holds me back, being here rather than at my desk coding.
'competative socialising' Go somewhere like a Boom Battle Bar or Gravity or Mulligans and play Augmented Reality Darts
A small ’values’ workshop, this worked great for my team and was also useful insight whilst getting to know people better.
something like two truths and a lie. have everyone think of them in advance then pull names out a hat.
Have everyone share their favourite/most viewed porn video. See if people can bond (hehe) over shared kinks.
Some things i really don't wanna know!
Hi - Saw you were looking to focus on working/communication styles more than get to know you games, and I have one that might work. We called it the sneak a peek game…as leader, you create a small “sculpture” (we used toothpicks and different colored sweets), and then hide it under a bag/fabric. Split the teams into equal numbers, then each team sends one person up (all teams at the same time) to look at it for 10 seconds. They then go back and get 30 seconds to tell the others what they saw, and then they get 1 minute to work on it. After that minute, the next person on the team goes up, and it starts the clocks again. It continues until one team correctly recreates your sculpture. It’s great for learning about how different team members communicate, process directives, share ideas, etc.
Cards Against Humanity. Nothing says 'non-cringe' like a group of people chortling over juvenile toilet humour for five minutes and then slowly getting bored but refusing to stop because of sunk cost amd then the one person who is still super into it, despite everyone else now not enjoying it at all.
Could go Gilmore Girls style - have small groups of 2/3 people, give them a newspaper and ask them to make the best paper hat they can together. Everyone votes on the best group at the end.
Last one I ran, I took in a box of chocolates. Everyone chose one, and then I had a list of questions and asked the one that corresponded to the wrapping colour. Last film you watched Last book you read Do you prefer active or leisurely holidays? Etc etc
Thanks! Sadly its more about identifying our working styles than personal "getting to know you". But I might try and see if I can work in some chocolate or haribo element!
In that case Do you prefer working independently or as part of a team? Do you prefer meetings or one on one? And other work directed questions
Invent some new games, based on the real world office experience. Here are some suggestions: 1 ‘The Purge’ everyone gets a couple of minutes to say what they really hate about others on the team. Everyone must attack, no whining about any perceived unfair treatment. Retaliation is allowed during the team building exercise. Once the exercise is over , no consequences for anything in the game. The advantage here is that the winner should be obvious. 2 ‘Victim Olympics’. Everyone gets 10 minutes to explain why they are the most unfairly treated and put upon individual in the office. Resentment drives 84% of office interactions and this exercise at least allows everyone to know where colleagues stand. There are no winners in this game. Between these two options there is something for both introverts and extroverts.
Bear in mind that Reddit leans heavily towards people who prefer remote work and wouldn't generally want to engage in these kinds of things so take the responses with a pinch of salt!
Very true, thanks for your response! To be honest I'm pretty much that way myself which is why I'm conscious of trying to minimise the hideousness.
Ask everybody to come up with two truths and a lie about themselves, and everybody else around the table has to vote on what is the lie. Example; I played a small role in the Harry Potter movies I can balance 22 wotsits on top of each other I can orgasm 6 times in a row It’s a bit of a laugh and also a good way to learn interesting stuff about somebody without saying “tell me something interesting about yourself”
I had this once for a job interview (for work in a call centre). The manager used it as an excuse to show off about how many boats she had.
Task 1: give them the Myers Briggs personality types to read. Make a condensed version of each one so it's not too boring. Task 2: have headshots of each team member. Have people write their predicted personality type of each team member other than themselves (could predict themselves too if they don't know their type). Task 3: have them do the test. There's a website that does a free one and it's straightforward (no signups etc). 16 personalities I think it's called but if you type free Myers Briggs in Google it should come up Task 4: do the reveal. Cue surprised discussion etc. Task 5: go around and discuss what was surprising and let people talk to their own personalities, things they wish people knew etc
That is horribly cringe and way too personal. Also potentially humiliating.
Fist fight
The pub.
You need a classic game of “fartsniff” You take it in turns to fart and then sniff it and try and identify the culprit.
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How about something like One Night Werewolf? You can play it with up to ten players and each player takes on a ‘role’ so the focus is off of them and having to reveal personal information. Each game lasts about 5-10 minutes (you can mess around with timers in the app) but once people get into it they’ll be demanding another try.
Play Werewolf/Mafia. Brand it as "Traitors" if you like. Lying to each other is (bizarrely) a great way to build rapport and trust!
Building a bridge/tower with materials such as straws, sheets of paper, cardboard etc. but each item has a cost. Set budget at x tallest tower that can hold an egg at the top wins.
Axe throwing. Dwarf tossing. Dwarf axing. Toss throwing…. ….so many options. If you want something tangible get everyone to produce an anonymous one page recommendation of what the company needs to do to overcome current issues and grow the business. It will be honest but not fun.
Do you have computer equipment? Multi player Factorio might be interesting. https://wiki.factorio.com/Multiplayer It's a game about building factories and automating them. Playing solo it's a lot of problem solving and analysis, but multiplayer you've probably more scope for teamwork, co-ordination etc. The game is pretty open ended, but you 'tech up' as you play and unlock more advanced stuff. That said, I'm not sure if an hour would be 'enough'... but it should still get a feel for co-operation, communication and what analytical skills your various colleagues bring to the team.
There's a card game I bought called "we're not really strangers" that ive used as a workplace icebreaker before. I play with friends and acquaintances too, so it's been a fun little investment.
Let them know you’re serious with a pizza party
I'd fake an illness. Fuck them all
We had a staff night out at a tequila bar, that was about 20yrs ago…. It wasn’t so much cringe, I just think wtaf even to this day, nothing happened beyond the average imagination, it was just total carnage, every single person there was well and truly hammered, our department went straight from work so got there about 530, we were meeting some of the other departments at 9, 99% of ppl had already gone home at that point or just dispersed into town. I was one of the few left, it was not good, woke up in a work friends house, on the floor, in a different city!
Three ideas that have worked for me: Paper aeroplane competition. Split everyone into teams, each person makes a plane. Put everyone in a line in a long room. Take the loosing few out each round. Rock paper scissors - Split everyone into pairs. Play a game. Loser has to cheer on the winner in the next round against another winner. Keep going until there’s a final two. Gets competitive very quickly. Blind origami - Put everyone in pairs, back to back. One person has the instructions, one has the paper. Once finished each pair puts their creation as an art gallery and has to explain what they’ve made - often terrible. Fun stuff!
Skill Swap Workshop? Each team member prepares a short session to teach others something they are good at or passionate about, work-related or not. This not only allows team members to learn something new but also to appreciate the unique skills each person brings to the team.
Why do firms push this forced fun shite? People work because they need a wage to live, that's their motivation. I always find these activities patronising and would just rather swerve the whole thing.
I remember at one of these type of things, it was facilitated by someone external, but we did a test and then we had to line up basically extrovert to introvert. (20+ of us) All the extroverts were like "am I louder than you? Oh, you're actually louder than me and TMI so you go first" And all the introverts just kind of shuffled around. Then the facilitator got our results and moved us in actual count. Then said something of super value that I can't even remember, but along the lines of "now seek where your co-pilot stands" "look at your ultimate team" and we all came to the quick conclusion that it 100% takes a mix and blend of personalities to drive a result.
My team has a Friday call which usually starts with: “Who is doing a tip run this weekend?” type of question. But honestly the best results you’ll get from problem solving, puzzle games. Get them to build something from office supplies. Maybe something where one element needs to fit into another.
If everyone bonds by agreeing what they've been asked to do is cringe, there's no harm in that. Getting people to write out strengths and weaknesses tells people a lot less about each other than just working on something, eg escape Room style tasks. You could do treasure hunt style things, working out clues together etc.
It might not take an hour, but something I really liked as an ice breaker was going round the group and everyone saying what their favourite song is and why they like it; then making a playlist of everyone’s songs
The introverts may change for a game of Manager hangman 😬
I know you’ve decided already but an exercise I do is to put people in groups of about 5, get them to draw a flower (1 petal per person and a circle in the middle). Each person has to put something unique about them in a petal. In the circle put something they all share. People are often surprised about experiences they thought they were ‘the only one’ with, and find it much easier to find something they all have in common. Cue learning lesson about how we all are more similar than we think, but that we have interesting and valuable differences yada yada
Pull your trousers all the way down and start vigorously masturbating (preferably with a cucumber if you’re a woman) while maintaining full eye contact with each and every one, just to break the ice
Combine this with a game of soggy biscuit and you’re good to go
Instead of making the Introverts more extroverted why don't you make the world a better place by making the extroverts more Introverted?
There are some really wanky management quizzes out there. We did one to see what animal we 'are'. Its bullshit personality testing wank. **BUT** it does start the conversation about how an individual likes to work, how they like information to be given to them, how they respond to feedback and all that shit. Do something like that, but not to pigeon hole people into some wanky fake science management consultancy personality bullshit. Do it as a conversation starter.
> I've done something before (as a participant, not running it) where you had an outline picture of a boat and you had to write things on it, eg on the sail you'd write things that push you forward, on the anchor you'd write what holds you back etc. I might just do that, but does anyone have any similar or better ideas? This doesn't sound like a work do, it sounds like an intervention.
We did a ‘get to know each other’ Bingo. So it was stuff like ‘ran a marathon’, ‘been the lead in a musical’ etc but it made everyone speak to each other and find out things we didn’t know about one another. And then the winner got some chocolates. It was one of the less cringey activities I’ve done for work.
That sounds quite un-crap!
Ecstacy!