Team building has a bad reputation, and for good reason! Too often, it’s reduced to awkward icebreakers, forced “fun”, or irrelevant activities that leave team members wondering why they had to block off half a day for this. But here’s the truth: when done right, team building can be one of the most powerful tools for strengthening collaboration, building trust, and driving real business results. The difference between an eye-roll-inducing outing and a meaningful experience comes down to intention. Is the activity designed to actually solve workplace challenges, or is it just filling space on the calendar?
In this article, I’ll list my favorite dos and don’ts of team building to help you avoid the common pitfalls and create experiences that actually strengthen your team.
DO: Align Activities with Team Scope
To be effective, team building activities should align with the unique needs of the team, including the scope of day-to-day interactions. If the team often collaborates on creative projects, activities that encourage brainstorming, problem solving, and innovation can help move the team and business forward. Alternatively, if team members work mostly independently and barely know each other, consider activities that enable connection and help build relationships. This alignment helps ensure that these exercises are practical and relevant.
DON’T: Schedule All Activities Outside of Work Hours
Surely, there are plenty of times when team events are beneficial and/or appreciated outside of work hours. But when this becomes the norm for team building opportunities, employees are put in an unfair position in which they must sacrifice another part of their life to participate. This automatically excludes people that have unbreakable commitments (which disproportionately affects some groups more than others). It can also lead to a divide between those that attend vs do not attend.
DO: Incorporate Team Building into the Day-to-Day
Not all team building needs to be a formal activity or big event. Consider ways that you can incorporate team building opportunities into the team’s existing workflow. Here are some ideas:
- Collaborative projects: Assign projects to partners or groups to enable collaboration and teamwork.
- Check-ins: A brief check-in during existing team meetings where members share a goal, challenge, or another relevant topic. This helps everyone stay informed and encourages support and collaboration.
- Peer recognition: Create a system where team members can recognize and appreciate each other’s strengths and contributions.
- Rotating roles: Rotate responsibilities for a short period to help team members understand each other’s perspectives and challenges.
- Virtual meetups: For remote teams, provide virtual meeting rooms where team members can grab morning coffee or meet for lunch.
DON’T: Make It Awkward
Team building should not make team members feel uncomfortable. Many people already feel an inherent awkwardness when meeting new people and developing working relationships, so it’s important that participants feel psychologically (and physically) safe. Avoid activities that are overly intrusive. For example, requiring people to share deep personal details about their lives or excessive physical touching (I’m looking at you, human knot!). When people feel uncomfortable it can lead to stress and disengagement instead of building team spirit.
DO: Select Inclusive Activities
Ensure that your team building activities are considerate of everyone’s abilities and cultural differences. This means selecting activities that don’t exclude team members due to physical limitations, personal beliefs, dietary restrictions, etc. It’s also a good practice to mix up activities so that you can better cater to a range of interests. Ask for feedback on your activity plans to get a variety of perspectives.
DON’T: Force Participation
Not every activity must be mandatory. Offering the option of a virtual meetup in the morning for your remote team can be a simple and organic way to help team members get to know each other, but it becomes just another awkward, time-consuming, mandatory meeting when it’s forced. Forced participation can lead to resentment and reduced morale. Including team feedback in the planning process can help align activities with the team’s interests and engagement level. Provide opportunities, encourage voluntary participation, and use participation rates as a measurable indicator of progress.
DO: Set Clear Goals for Each Activity
Every team building activity should have a clear objective, whether it’s to improve communication, enhance problem-solving skills, or simply help people break the ice. Align goals and team building activities with a larger team development plan. Setting specific goals ensures that each activity has a purpose and can help contribute to measurable outcomes.
DON’T: Ignore Follow-Up
Team building activities lose a lot of value if they aren’t followed up on and incorporated into larger team development efforts. Ignoring follow-up after formal team building activities is the same thing as having your team attend a learning workshop and then never speaking of it again. This results in lost opportunities for growth and improvement, and much of what is learned is forgotten. Ensure that the team has opportunities to reflect, provide feedback, and take future action.
DO: Make It Fun!
If the team hates doing it, what’s the point? You don’t want your team to feel like this is just another task on their (already full) to-do list. When the experience is enjoyable, employees are more likely to be engaged, and when they are engaged, they are more likely to take something valuable away from the experience. When team members have fun together, they build stronger bonds which help foster a positive work environment.
But you can’t force fun. So instead of googling for a list of “fun team building activities”, consider going straight to the source, and asking your team what types of activities they might find enjoyable?
Final Thoughts
Team building doesn’t have to be cringeworthy, and it doesn’t have to waste anyone’s time. The difference between activities that spark real connection and those that spark side-eye is simple: purpose.
When you focus on the dos—clarity, inclusion, and linking activities to real goals, you create space for your team to grow stronger together. When you avoid the don’ts—forced fun, one-size-fits-all exercises, and disconnected events, you save your team from wasted hours and missed opportunities.
