Whether you are a business owner, a sports coach, or a leader within an organisation, you know that to be successful, the people within your group need to work together as a team. This is why team building activities have become a crucial part of any successful organisation’s progression towards achieving the goals that it has been set.

A problem often raised by team leaders and managers is that they do not know enough about team building and in particular what sorts of activities they can use to help galvanise and empower the individuals within the group to work together as one united team.

Basically, team building activities can be broken down into four distinct types, and the benefit of knowing them is you can then determine which category or categories of activity would be most applicable to the team you are working with. Thereafter, you can choose the specific activities with each category that you are going to pursue.

#1 Skill Based

This category is used where you wish to improve some specific skills of those in your team. The obvious example of where these might be used is a sports team, but it also applies to skills found within other sectors. In the business world examples would be sales skills or managerial skills, whilst some organisations might want their members to improve their speaking skills or negotiation skills.

These sorts of activities normally require an outside treating company or consultant to come in and train your team, and therefore they can require a reasonable level of investment. However. the return should be significant given that your team will have a higher skill levels than before.

#2 Activity Based

These team building activities can be divided into either physical activities or mental activities and are meant to be fun as well as helping to build the team. They normally involve activities that are far removed from the team’s everyday activities are designed to help build rapport, communication, trust, and respect within your team.

There is no limit to the number of ideas for these activities with physical ones including go-karting, golf days, scavenger hunts and axe throwing. For the mental activities examples include quiz nights, escape the room and computer games.

#3 Value Based

This might not be applicable or suitable to every group or organisation, but for those that they do apply for, they can give everyone in the team the ‘feel-good’ factor. They involve activities which require the team to do something which ‘gives’ to others and is thus seen as charitable or philanthropic but at the same time giving everyone who participates a sense of achieving a collective goal.

Examples of value-based team building activities can be delivering donations to the elderly and house-bound, helping out at a local charity fete, and working together to build or create something that can be used by those less fortunate, and who may benefit from them.

#4 Bonding Activities

It could be argued that all the categories and activities we have already mentioned are opportunities for a team to bond, and that is correct, but these activities have that specific purpose.

They are designed to be as far removed from the normal activities of the team and are basically a chance for them to relax and have some fun together. A night at a local bowling alley, a few hours in a bar with food and drinks, a karaoke evening, or a weekend camping are all excellent examples of team bonding activities.