Especially in the workplace, effective teams draw out individuals’ strengths and bring together unique perspectives to work on solving the same problem. But great teams are not born; they’re made.
Unfortunately, this process can’t be rushed, but it can be facilitated for your diverse group of team members. Completing an escape room adventure is one of the best ways to do so because it uses fun and excitement to encourage collaboration and teamwork.
Let’s look at the five top reasons why escape rooms are the perfect team-building activity for any group.
Makes Memories and Builds Team Spirit
Visiting an escape room in Melbourne can help your team because they will make memories together, which facilitates bonding and trust, both important elements in a cohesive team. In addition, doing something fun and enjoyable on the company’s time and dime will help them feel appreciated and valued by their employer.
In a similar way, completing an escape room can also be motivating. When you’re successful, you feel as though you can tackle any problem, which is a great attitude to bring back into the office.
Helps Identify Leaders and Other Strengths
Escape rooms are very fun, but they are also high-pressure and somewhat stressful. In situations such as these, natural leaders will automatically take charge and delegate tasks according to others’ strengths.
Chances are that you aren’t just looking for leaders; successful teams need other skill sets to function as well. Your other team members will gravitate toward tasks where their skills can be put to good use in order to accomplish the overall goal of the escape room. That’s tremendously valuable information to leverage when you’re back at work.
To get the most self-awareness from this activity, have a debriefing session where everyone analyses what went well and what could have gone better, especially their own contributions. Bonus: do it after the escape room over a meal to prolong the relaxed, informal atmosphere.
Teaches Time Management
Most escape rooms are timed (typically 60 minutes, though some are 30 or 90). This means that the team has to work collaboratively and efficiently if they’re going to beat the room and achieve their goal.
Escape rooms are typically ranked by levels of difficulty, and they’re designed to be completed within the allotted time, provided everything else with the group goes according to plan.
You might be surprised by how much participants get into it and how effective the timer can be as a motivator. This type of time management skill, as well as the experience of working well under pressure together, can serve as a valuable lesson that staff can take with them back into the workplace. In addition, it helps spur innovation and creativity.
Fosters Creativity and New Approaches to Problems
As we indicated above, you don’t just need leaders to solve an escape room; you also need people with all kinds of skills, including creative-minded people and participants with highly logical brains. When one person can’t solve the particular puzzle that they’re working on, they have to rely on someone else’s skills. That requires recognising and seeking out different approaches to problems and thinking very creatively, both skills that can be taken back into the workplace and applied in a variety of situations.
Requires Communication and Collaboration
Escape rooms are nothing if not group activities that require several people to solve. Those people must constantly communicate and collaborate, updating one another on what they’re working on, where they’re stuck, what they need help with, and what they can take on based on their own individual skill sets. Some of the steps even require collaboration, as they cannot possibly be completed by a single person. That is exactly what you want to see from your team in the workplace too.
Bonus: Have Fun and Release Stress
Doing an escape room activity is especially great for teams that are about to start a major project and need some fun and some help identifying roles and strengths before beginning. Alternatively, it is also a terrific way for a team to relieve stress when they’ve been in the middle of major projects for any period of time. Do yourself and your team a favour by heading to an escape room soon!
