How To Do Remote Team Building

One of the most common questions managers and senior leaders faced in 2020-especially as the long-term reality of our work-from-home experiment set in-was “how to you do team building when everyone is working remotely?” We used to be able to rely on the fact that we were all co-located and hence some aspect of team building occurred naturally. Sharing the same work space made it easier to develop cadence, to develop relationships, and to build bonds on a team. And then even if that was struggling, we still could go somewhere together to a team building activity or exercise.

(A quick spoiler here: there never was all that much research supporting the trust falls and ropes courses we all think of when we think of off-site team building.)

But still, the ability to do something together made team building seem more possible. And now as we adjust to the new reality that work from home is turning into work from anywhere, even that something is a lot harder to do. There are companies that are now offering “Zoom Escape Rooms” and other virtual activities.

But you’re not in an escape room. You’re in your office and you’re just playing a role-playing game with everybody on your team.

Dungeons and Dragons was great when I was 12 years old but, I’m not sure how well it works when trying to build bonds among mid-career…