Team-building exercises bring people together, right? Well, some of them can be so awkward and cringy. And what’s more, millennials often find that the old-school methods miss the mark. Instead of inspiring teamwork, these exercises can feel contrived, uncomfortable or just outdated.
Here’s a guide to some team-building exercises that millennials no longer relate to. They might have once worked – but now, they feel pointless and out of touch with modern work culture.
Featured Image Credit: Yan Krukau /Pexels.com.
Trust Falls
Once a symbol of solidarity and trust, the trust fall has become, for many Millennials, an awkward, uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing activity. You don’t build trust by demanding that someone literally body-slam themselves into your waiting arms. We now have other, more subtle ways of ‘bonding.’
Icebreaker Questions
Icebreaker questions such as ‘What’s your spirit animal?’ and ‘If you could be a color, what color would you be?’ are cliché, and seldom generate conversation beyond ‘hello’ and ‘nice to meet you’ sort. More importantly, they don’t usually serve the sort of meaningful interaction that millennials crave and value above scripted small talk.
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Scavenger Hunts
Millennials often find scavenger hunts too babyish for the workplace. Chasing clues, searching hidden objects in the office lobby or outdoors just seems like an extension of a children’s party — exactly the sort of thing a Millennial would prefer to avoid in the context of work. The game itself is rarely direct enough for the Millennial’s craving for something more purposeful.
Forced Role-Playing Games
Role-playing as a social activity is fun, but as a professional activity, it is often painfully fake. Both acting out scenarios or pretending to be characters sound cheesy and awkward. Telling team members to ‘be’ someone is not helpful. It doesn’t create real understanding; it just creates embarrassment and defensiveness.
Two Truths and a Lie
In the eyes of Millennials, this classic game seems silly and useless as a team-building exercise. They can even find the unchanging format of these games unnatural and counterproductive: being asked to reveal intimate details of your life as if it were a competition – it’s not fun, and it’s uncomfortable, especially if you’re in a group where you don’t feel at ease just yet.
Blindfolded Obstacle Courses
Although these ‘trust-building’ exercises are meant to foster a bond between workers, they usually feel more like a rite of humiliation. Blindfolded obstacle courses can generate anxiety rather than intimacy, as employees scramble to avoid tripping over an obstacle. In general, Millennials seem to prefer regimens that don’t depend on painfully earning each other’s trust.
Corporate Karaoke Nights
Karaoke might be sociable, but for team-building, it’s often awkward and forced. Not everyone is comfortable singing in front of colleagues, and karaoke is not a team sport or collaborative. Many millennials prefer activities everyone can enjoy together to the same extent, without gawking in the spotlight.
The Human Knot
In the Human Knot, everyone grabs someone else’s hand, forming intertwined arms that the team has to untangle. Millennials tend to find it physically awkward, especially in a professional context that often forbids touching. There is no carryover to real work scenarios – it just feels like a needless hassle.
Trust Circles
Sharing feelings and experiences together in a circle isn’t effective for everyone. Most people prefer to keep their work and home quite separate, so they find trust circles quite invasive and a total waste of time. Today’s workplace is a very different place from the one that trust circles were created for, as millennials value privacy above all else.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
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