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Today, fostering a sense of community holds paramount importance. Whether your team is remote, hybrid or on-site, how connected your team is can significantly impact productivity and morale.
Here, we explore 10 unique rituals and team building activities designed to elevate team cohesion and turn any group of individuals into a unified, high-performing team.
1. Cultural Exchange Days
(Onsite & Remote)
Cultural Exchange Days are not just about celebrating diversity—they're about embracing and learning from it. Once a quarter, dedicate a day where team members share stories, food recipes, or artifacts from their culture.
Alternatively organize monthly live sessions in which team members highlight facets of their culture. What objects are unique to their culture? What are their soul foods? What stories did they grow up with?
Rotate people each month to present to the rest of the team. Encourage discussions and Q&A for other team members to dive deeper into different cultures and traditions.
The better your team understands each other’s background, the easier it is for them to work together towards a common goal, break unconscious biases and uphold and inclusive environment
2. Storytelling Sessions
(Onsite & Remote)
Stories are powerful—they share experiences, convey lessons, and build connections. Every quarter, host a session where team members can share personal stories related to work or life, building empathy and understanding.
Quarterly, schedule a session—whether onsite or remotely—where team members can gather in a safe space to share their stories. Set a few ground rules: do not interrupt when someone is sharing, what’s shared in the room stays in the room, listen with your full attention, and be respectful.
Use the following prompts to spark the storytelling session:
- Can you share a moment in your life that significantly changed your perspective or direction?
- What's a challenge you've faced in your career or personal life, and how did you overcome it?
- Have you ever had an unexpected experience that taught you a valuable lesson? What was it?
- Who has been the most influential person in your life or career, and why?
- What's an achievement, big or small, that you're particularly proud of?
3. Team Anthem
Music has the power to unite people. Ask your team members to create a team anthem that reflects your team’s spirit and values. It also helps to build a unique team identity that members can relate to and feel proud of.
Pick a date for the team anthem creation. Involve all team members in the creation process. You can either choose a song and rewrite its lyrics, or compose a new song entirely. Let your team's creativity decide.
Record everyone singing or playing the anthem and broadcast the final result in your team’s meeting. Why not make this anthem the opening song for your team meetings?
4. Yearly Time Capsule Event
(Onsite & Remote)
A time capsule event isn’t just about burying artifacts—it’s about capturing the essence of the team’s current dynamics, achievements, and aspirations to be reflected upon in the future.
Collect items, letters, or digital content that represent the team’s current state. For example, a group photo with annotations, letter to future selves, or a product prototype. Collect items representing the team's current state in a box, then bury it at a location significant to the team.
One year later, unearth each object in the capsule box and tell stories about it. Let the team reflect on their growth, changes, and achievements.
5. Bi-Annual Team Cook-Offs
(Onsite)
Food naturally brings people together. A team cook-off event, held twice a year, where members showcase their culinary skills and share their favorite dishes, can be a delicious tradition.
Choose a date and location. Ask people to prepare dishes in teams, then organize a tasting session where judges can vote for the best dish based on taste and teamwork.
6. Weekly Wisdom Exchanges
(Onsite & Remote)
By sharing insights and learnings from the week, team members can benefit from the experiences of others, connect on a deeper level, and encourage open, safe communication. These kinds of conversations help increase the psychological safety of your team.
Carve out 10 to 15 minutes of your weekly team meeting where team members can share insights and learnings from the week.
Use the following prompts to kickstart the exchange:
- Share a moment from this week when something suddenly clicked or made sense.
- Share a piece of feedback you received this week that made you rethink or improve a particular aspect of your work.
- Talk about a mistake you made this week and what you learned from it.
- Share a moment from this week where teamwork made a noticeable difference in achieving a goal.
- Reflect on something or someone you're particularly grateful for this week.
7. Weekly Friday Wins
(Onsite or Remote)
End the workweek on a high note with "Weekly Friday Wins"—where team members come together to share their personal and professional victories of the week. It’s a celebration of every small and big win that contributes to the team’s morale and individual’s confidence.
We had a client who did this religiously every Friday and called it ‘Friday Wins at 4’. Each week on a Friday at 4pm the whole company got together for just 20 mins and shared a bunch of things that had gone well that week. It was a wonderful way to end the week on a high.
8. Art and Innovation
(Onsite and Remote)
Set aside some time for celebrating art and innovation, allowing team members to showcase both work-related and personal creative projects. You’ll learn about some creative outlets and hidden talents you never realized your colleagues had!
Choose a date and theme. You can either opt for a broader theme like ‘Future of Work’ or a more defined theme like ‘Tech and Art Fusion’. Let the team know about the event and be sure to send a few reminders to encourage them to participate. Make sure to allow enough time (around 2-3 weeks) for participants to create their work.
On the day, while people are sharing their work, ask questions like, what inspired their creation, what did they learn while working on it, and how their creation can be applied in work or everyday life, etc.
9. Personality Profiling
(Onsite and Remote)
Incorporating personality profiling activities like Journey Lines, DiSC, or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) into regular team meetings can be a transformative experience for team dynamics. This approach focuses on self-discovery and understanding how individual traits contribute to the team's collective environment.
Here's how to seamlessly integrate this activity into your team meetings:
- Preparation: Before the meeting, ask each team member to complete a personality test. Provide them with the resources and instructions needed for whichever tool you choose (Journey Lines, DiSC, MBTI, etc.).
- Discussion Session: During a designated part of the team meeting, create a space for discussion about the results. Encourage team members to share their insights and observations about their personality types.
- Interactive Learning: Facilitate activities or discussions that help team members understand the diversity of personalities within the team. Focus on how these different traits complement each other and contribute to a well-rounded team.
- Actionable Insights: Discuss practical ways in which this newfound understanding can be applied to improve teamwork and communication. For example, consider how team members with different personality types might approach problem-solving, decision-making, and collaboration.
- Regular Reflection: Make this a recurring part of your team meetings, allowing for continuous learning and adaptation. Over time, these insights will deepen, enhancing the team's ability to work together effectively and empathetically.
These personality profiling activities are not about categorizing people into boxes. Instead, they focus on exploring individual traits and how these traits manifest in team dynamics.
The key is to learn about yourselves as individuals and understand how this influences your interactions within the team. Doing this not only fosters a deeper understanding of individual team members but also enhances the collective ability to work together harmoniously and productively.
10. Festival of Lights
(Onsite or Remote)
Taking a cue from China’s Lantern Festival, team members light lanterns (or virtual candles), sharing wishes and hopes for the future, symbolizing unity and collective aspirations.
In one of your team meetings, provide lanterns or a virtual candle app and create a space for team members to share both professional and personal hopes and aspirations. Here are some prompts to help you out:
- Think about the past year's journey. What is one thing you're most proud of, and what is one thing you wish you had done differently?
- If you could achieve one major goal in the upcoming year, what would it be? Write it down and share it with the team.
- Dedicate a lantern to someone who has made a significant impact on your life this year. Share a brief story about how they helped or inspired you.
- Share one personal skill or trait you'd like to develop or improve upon in the coming year.
- Reflect on a moment from the past year where you felt a strong sense of unity with your team. Share that memory.
- Share one thing you're most looking forward to in the upcoming year, whether it's a personal event, a professional milestone, or a simple joy.
Conclusion
Through these team-building activities, you can bridge gaps, celebrate diversity, and create a harmonious, inclusive environment that boosts productivity and morale. I’m not suggesting you do all of these, but pick a couple that you think will really resonate with the people on your team, or even ask them which ones they might like to do.
Whether it's sharing personal stories, celebrating cultural traditions, or simply acknowledging weekly wins, these activities serve as a reminder that at the heart of every successful team is a strong sense of community, belonging and understanding.
Integrating rituals into your work culture not only strengthens teams but also enriches collective experiences. It makes the journey toward achieving goals as rewarding as the accomplishments themselves.
