Organic Interactions
The best team-building activities are the ones that happen naturally alongside work when there is a feeling of psychological safety and space. For example, when team members are sent to a client visit in another city and manage to get lost navigating the new environment, and have to find their way back together.
Another example, someone sends a funny video to the team group chat, and the rest of the team quotes it like a workplace inside joke. Or you realize you have a shared interest with a coworker and feel comfortable chatting with them about it or even arranging to go out together to enjoy it outside of work as friends.
These are the types of intangible things that gel a team together, and the tricky bit is that they aren’t really something that can or should be organized. It’s something that grows organically when people are working in an environment of mutual respect and trust. If you foster an environment like that for your team, it’s going to be worth a thousand times more than some cheesy icebreaker exercises or putting a ping-pong table in the break room.
Check out the full article at Fast Company