How to Win a Cohesive Team and Integrate People
Guide on socializing your team members and letting them shine
Being a part of the cohesive team is one of the expectations most of us have. If we are able to work in a friendly atmosphere and a nice environment, we come to work not only because it’s our duty, but also because it’s a pleasure. We want to feel like a part of big team. We want to know each other, trust each other, and be sure that we can count on each other's help whenever we need it.
Having colleagues we like and whom we can trust impacts on our daily work and the way we achieve the team goals. That’s why building a cohesive team is also every team leader’s desirable aim.
But, just having the nicest and kindest people on board will not make your team well-integrated. People need to see an opportunity to grow, being challenged, being able to learn from others, and share their knowledge as well to receive feedback and make own improvements.
This blog post contains examples of team events and games, which are easy to implement in your team. They serve as a tool you can use in any kind of team, office setup (office/remote), and industry. Be a game-changer and win a cohesive team by integrating the people and allowing them to grow!
#cohesive team #integrate people #games #team events
Team events
Working with your teammates in the office brings a lot of advantages. I bet you have already seen some ideas, but there are also some new ones, which you can try to introduce to your team. Working remotely comes with a bit of limitation to organize team events, but nowadays, using Google Hangouts or ZOOM, we can easily meet with our work colleagues.
Let’s start!
Gaming nights 🎲
Applicable: 🏡 🏢
“Board and card games” are one of the most popular team events and are easy to organize.
If you work in the office, all you need to do is book a room and bring some board/card games for the event. If you don’t own any games or just a few, ask your team to bring some!
Good game ideas: Exploding Kittens, Bears vs Babies, Dixit, Quicktionary, UNO, Mafia, other card games like Rummy or so.
Who said that it’s not possible to play games remotely? 😃 Take a look at platforms that have already been tested and suggest your favorite board game for the next gaming night with your team members!
Cool platforms for remote gaming nights: Exploding Kittens (mobile), Code Names, Among us iOS & Android, Curve Fever, Pictionary, Card games, Board games like Dixit, Board games like Saboteur.
Coffee time! ☕️
Applicable: 🏡 🏢
If you work in the office, block the time in the calendar and go outside (or to the kitchen) with your teammates. There is nothing better than a short walk to the coffee shop and having an opportunity to discuss various topics and simply chat!
If you work remotely, ask your team members to book some time in the calendar, 30 min or so, and share a video call link in the event. Prepare coffee beforehand and enjoy the virtual meeting!
When working remotely, this serves as a great replacement for an ordinary coffee discussion!
Celebration month 🍷 🎉
Applicable: 🏡 🏢
There is always something to celebrate. Either we signed a contract with a big business partner, or (for IT) we deployed a new feature to production, we might have just finished our project etc. It’s good to celebrate these things.
If you have the opportunity to meet your colleagues f2f (face to face), organize an event, and go outside to have a beer and toast the victory 😊.
If you work remotely, you can do pretty much the same, as it was proposed for Coffee time! meeting. Schedule a virtual meeting in the calendar, bring some beers, and enjoy a call with your team members!
Birthdays 🎂
Applicable: 🏡 🏢
Do you like to celebrate a birthday? It’s good to keep your team members’ birthdays in the calendar and celebrate the date with them. It’s always nice to see that people remember your birthday.
In the office, you can decorate the desk and chair belonging to your team member with balloons 🎈 or confetti 🎊. If you have enough time, you can buy a small gift with a birthday card.
If you work from home, you can have yet another Celebration month with a video call and wish your colleague a Happy Birthday!
Book Club 📚
Applicable: 🏡 🏢
Talk to your team members and see what they like to read. It can be a fantasy book or work-related content. Read the chapter at home, and decide to meet once per week to discuss what you’ve learned. Exchange your opinions and thoughts. Prepare a folder (eg. Google Drive) to share and save all your outcomes from the discussions.
Book a room in your office and meet there once per week to discuss the topics. If you work remotely, book a slot in the calendar and have a remote meeting to discuss the read chapter.
Brown bags 📢
Applicable: 🏡 🏢
Brown bags aka Knowledge sharing is very valuable for all attendants, both presenter, and the audience.
Presenters have to prepare a topic, which they want to talk about. It can be work-related i.e. a recently fixed problem or a new requirement that you had to apply. It can be even a review of a book. Presenters have the opportunity to develop soft skills while presenting and answering questions from the audience. Everyone in the room, on the other hand, has a chance to learn more about various topics and ask questions.
Create a file (eg. Excel) and prepare the topics upfront, so everyone will be familiar with topics being discussed. After each meeting, share your links and resources so everyone can use these whenever needed.
Book a room in your office and meet there once a week. If you work remotely, book a slot in the calendar and have a remote meeting to discuss the topics.
Ice breakers 🍦
Applicable: 🏡
The ice breaker is a simple game on how to get to know each other. Do you know Dixit? It’s a game where players select cards that match an expression suggested by the so-called storyteller, and then they try to guess which card belongs to the storyteller. As a simple ice breaker, you can prepare similar Dixit on “your own”. Ask your team members to share a movie, a favorite cartoon or books that changed their life. Then gather all the titles and let the other team members guess, which title is given by which team member. Thanks to ice breakers, your team members will have an opportunity to get to know each other better.
Another ice breaker could be a game of three truths and one false, where each of the team members has to guess, what statements are the truths, and which one is a lie 🙊.
When to play? Try to book a 20 minutes slot in the calendar or if you have a regular daily meeting, spare some time before and play ice breakers.
Pictionary ✏️
Applicable: 🏡
If you and your team members like drawing, spare 20 minutes a day (it can be either a slot in the calendar or a short event before a regular meeting) on playing Pictionary. Believe me, it’s big fun! Skribbl.io gives us a nice opportunity to create a private room, with custom words and set number of limited rounds.
Team breakfast 🍞🥛
Applicable: 🏢
Have you tried to organize a team breakfast? It’s a good chance to show your culinary skills! If you have a talented designer within your team, you can also prepare a tear-off poster. Half of the items are the basics (bread, rolls, cheese, ham, juice, etc.), and the rest are “surprises”, where everyone can bring whatever they want, as a “surprise”.
Cooking classes 👨🍳
Applicable: 🏢
If you are lucky enough to have a kitchen in your office, organize cooking classes! If your team members come from various countries around the world, it’s a nice opportunity to try different food and learn more about their culture.
Cooking competition 🏆
Applicable: 🏢
Select three team members from your team and decide beforehand what meal they have to cook (cheesecake, omelet etc.). Let them prepare it at home, and bring it to the office, together with a bottle of good beer or nice chocolates 🍫. The jury will consist of other teammates unaware of which dish is cooked by which contestant. When the voting results are announced, the winner wins all beers (or chocolates, which they can obviously share 😉) and is allowed to pick up the next cooking idea.
Love(Music) is all around… 🎵
Applicable: 🏢
Does anyone in your team have music skills? Are you able to sing and not afraid of doing it publicly? Do you have a team member who plays guitar 🎸? Let’s organize a music team event! Guitar chords for most of the popular songs are easily found on the internet. Put these up on a desktop or use a projector. If you don’t have any musician within your team, try karaoke 🎤. It’s also a lot of fun!
Don’t worry, be healthy! 🏃
Applicable: 🏢
If your team members are football fans or love running, try to organize a football match or running once a week, eg. every Saturday. If you do it regularly enough you can then think of competition with other teams from your company or you can participate in the marathon run as a group.
Beer-ing 🍻
Applicable: 🏢
Going for a beer is the easiest and most popular event to spend time with your team. Furthermore, you could find a place, where you can play kickers ⚽️, snooker 🎱 or bowling 🎳 to bring on even more fun.
Lunch with a conference talk in the background 🎥
Applicable: 🏢
If you or your team members have favorite conference talks or speakers, try to organize a lunch watching a lecture in the background. Book a room in your office and after the talk, discuss what you’ve learned and share your opinions about the topic.
Prior to that, create a list (could be an Excel file) and ask your teammates to share their proposals together with the links, where the talks are published (eg. Youtube links). Thanks to this “log”, everyone can share their interest, the team will familiarize themselves with the topic beforehand, and your team members can also go back to the talks later if they need it.
How to organize?
If you want to organize a regular meeting, discuss with the team, which day and time would work for all of you, so everyone could join in. Create a recurring event in the calendar and send it to all interested (you can use a dedicated mailing group).
If it’s not a regular meeting, create a doodle or Google Form with some suggestions, where people can vote for a suitable date. When you gather enough votes, create an event in the calendar (eg. Google Calendar) and invite all interested participants (you can use a dedicated mailing group).
It’s very important to schedule an event in the calendar and send the invites. From responses received, you will know how many people plan to attend the event, so you can adjust the resources i.e. the number of chairs in the room. Apart from that, the calendar event is a good option for forgetful people 😊. With the notification 1h before the event, they will remember to join it.
Conclusion
Building a cohesive team is a long and hard journey. There are also other aspects, which make your team tight-knit, but these team events serve as tools allowing you to achieve that.
You don’t want to apply all of them at once, of course and the best idea is to gradually introduce a couple at a time. If you want, you can apply a few of them at once and organize a Coffee time together with Ice Breakers or Pictionary. The only limit is your imagination.
Finally, everyone can contribute. No matter if you’re a manager or team member — anyone can be a game-changer by making the team better and the office a nicer place to work.
Let me know what works best for your team! 😃 And, if you have other ideas for team events, please share them in the comments.
