September 14, 2015

By Intrigue

A few weeks ago, our team went to Adventure Rooms in Kitchener to experience a different type of team building exercise. Turns out we learned more than just how to solve puzzles – we learned some valuable things about our team.

If you haven’t heard of Adventure Rooms, it’s a real-life escape game. Locked in a section of the room with your team, you have 60 minutes to piece together clues and figure out how to escape through two rooms. Our group was large so we did a ‘duel’ – we split into two teams and had 30 minutes to escape each room. We loved the challenge!

We had a blast and both teams were really successful. During this activity, I noticed that the things that made us successful at escaping are the same things that make us successful as a company.

Everyone took responsibility for team success. During our escape adventure, our whole team was always looking for clues and problem solving. No one was standing around waiting for others to do the work – which is key because all our team members have different strengths and problem solve in different ways. If I, Starr, was on a team full of Starrs, I highly doubt we could have escaped. It is the same at our office. Each team member has a different skill set and strengths, but we are all working fervently for team success.

While in the adventure, many of us found that focusing on something too closely to find a clue could make the solution seem even more elusive. Countless times, a couple team members would be intent on cracking a code, and another team member – with fresh perspective and different problem solving skills – would walk over and solve it easily or pose an idea that would lead to them solving it. At our office, we can easily get dragged down by a problem when we’re figuring it out on our own. By asking each other for help and collaborating, we can get more done faster and easier.

After we at split up into our two Adventure Room teams, our hosts were explaining the rules of the game. Since we were dueling in two separate rooms, they said that we shouldn’t talk too loudly and give away clues, but we could say false clues or heckle the other team to throw them off. While this competition was all in good fun, no false clues or heckling happened. Yes, many of us are highly competitive, but we still view ourselves as one cohesive team. At work, we are divided into different groups: sales team, operations team, etc. At the end of the day, we still call ourselves Team Members. We know our success is only found when we work together as one team.

What out-of-the-box team building activities have you done? What did you learn from it?

Intrigue is a Canadian digital marketing company delivering solutions to help businesses get noticed and found. Guided by a commitment to empower leaders to strengthen communities, Intrigue offers website design and development, branding, online advertising, content marketing, graphic design, video production, SEO, and analytics. Take your marketing to the next level and Get Noticed. Get Found.® intrigueme.ca

One thought on “What Our Team Learned From Adventure Rooms

  1. I love this post! This was such a great experience for our team. It was amazing to see how we had each others backs, even when we were on separate teams and were told to chirp and mislead each other.

    I’m always a fan of the human knot exercise – this is a great icebreaker and rapport-builder!

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