Most of us at some point in our career have been forced to partake in corporate team building activities we’d rather not be a part of. The result is usually a bunch of people half-heartedly getting involved in some conventional activity whilst simultaneously eyeing the clock and edging closer and closer to the nearest door. If your team groan and sigh at the mention of a team building exercise, there’s probably a reason for it.

And here it is: It’s too competitive.

Okay, competition can be a very positive thing in a business environment, but if you’re looking for a way to strengthen your team and build better working relationships, having them compete against each other might not be the best solution. Especially if your office is already divided by rigid departmental silos.

Even if your employees compete in teams, that ‘healthy competition’ your team building exercise is supposed to unlock may be doing more harm than good. Here’s why:  

Competition doesn’t teach everyone about success

When you split your workforce up into groups for a conventional team building activity, there’s always a group that wins. Which is great! They’ve worked together to achieve the desired result, and possibly won a prize.

But what about the losing teams? If the focus of your activity is winning, the teams that lose will end up with a feeling of ‘we weren’t good enough’, which obviously isn’t a sentiment you want your employees to experience. It will also make them think that they don’t work well with the people who were in their team, therefore discouraging them from collaborating on work projects too.

Competition can bring out the worst in people

It’s inevitable that if an activity has a competitive element, at least one person will take it too far. There are those who can’t stand to lose, and this can bring out an ugly (non-professional) side to a person. There might even be people who are willing to cheat to get to victory.

Again, this is unlikely to inspire future collaboration in the workplace; nobody wants to work with the someone who let their ego get the better of them over something that was meant to be a bit of fun, do they?

The solution: non-competitive team building

The truth is, your employees are more likely to learn and bond with each other if they’re collaborating and working together, rather than working against each other in order to win.

So what you need to do is find a team building activity that encourages cooperation and communication, such as Escape Hunt.

This exciting and thought-provoking attraction brings a whole new meaning to the word ‘teamwork’, and really breaks the conventions of traditional team building. These intense, breathtaking, themed escape rooms will have your employees solving problems as a team and collaborating with each other to unlock the answers to clever clues to win the ultimate goal of sweet freedom.

Forget about conventional team building; Escape Hunt is all about the thrill of putting everyone’s unique skills to the test in order to break free. Afterwards, round off an exhilarating hour of collaboration with a de-brief and a well-deserved drink in the lounge.