Team building is an increasingly popular concept for companies wishing to improve relations between their employees and strengthen team cohesion. To get the best results, it’s essential to choose the right activities and ask the right questions to enable participants to discover each other. Here are a few ideas to help you prepare a successful session.
General questions to get you started
To begin with, it’s important to create an atmosphere conducive to exchange and sharing by tackling light-hearted subjects. Here are a few questions to ask during a team-building session:
- What is your professional background?
- How did you join the company?
- What do you like best about your job?
- Have you ever taken part in a team building event? If so, what did you think of it?
- What are your passions or interests outside work?
These questions are a great way to start a conversation and get to know your colleagues on a personal and professional level.
Questions to deepen relationships
Once the conversation is underway, you can gradually move on to more introspective questions designed to deepen relationships between team members:
- What are your professional goals in the short, medium and long term?
- What qualities do you consider essential to success in our profession?
- How do you deal with stress and difficulties at work?
- Have you ever had a conflict with a colleague? How did you resolve it?
- What professional achievement are you most proud of?
The aim is to provoke reflection, get everyone to share their experiences and encourage communication between participants.
Questions about team building activities
Before the activity
Team building activities can vary according to the objectives and tastes of the participants. Before choosing an activity, it’s a good idea to sound out everyone’s expectations and preferences:
- Do you prefer sporting, creative or intellectual activities?
- Would you prefer to work as a team or individually during this session?
- What kind of challenge would you like to face collectively?
- What do you personally expect from this team-building event?
Gathering opinions and suggestions enables us to propose an activity that corresponds to the aspirations of all participants. Don’t hesitate to consult a team building company ‘s offer for inspiration.
During the activity
During the chosen activities, it’s important to ask questions to stimulate reflection and encourage collaboration:
- How do you approach this challenge as a team?
- What are everyone’s strengths, and how can you use them to succeed?
- What obstacles have you encountered, and how can you overcome them together?
- Do you have a strategy for reaching your goal more quickly or efficiently?
These questions encourage discussion and collaborative work.
After the activity
At the end of the activity, it’s essential to take stock by asking questions that enable participants to share their impressions and learn from the experience:
- What did you think of the activity?
- What did you learn about yourself and your colleagues from this exercise?
- How did you manage to pool your skills to meet the challenge?
- What aspects of teamwork were the most difficult, and how can you improve this on a daily basis?
- How do you plan to apply what you’ve learned in this session to your work in the team?
A debriefing is a key step in enabling everyone to integrate their experiences and draw useful lessons for their professional lives.
To organize a successful team-building event, it’s vital to ask the right questions at the right time: to engage in conversation, deepen relationships, choose appropriate activities and carry out a constructive debriefing. The success of such an initiative hinges on the ability to create strong bonds between team members, and to improve their communication and collaboration in order to meet the challenges of the professional world together.
