Enhance Workplace Collaboration with Team Building for Communication Skills

The Cost of Poor Communications:

In one year, the productivity losses of one employee due to communication barriers cost $26,041.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

On the flip side, the more engaged an employee is, the better the business performance and operating income.

Best Buy found that every percentage point increase in employee engagement saw $100,000 increase in annual income.

Communication is the wind that helps a ship reach its destination. The more chaotic it is, the longer it would take to reach the shore.

Or worse, it could be so chaotic and disruptive that the winds crash the ship into the rocks.

A survey by The Economist revealed that the consequences of  communication barriers are delays or failure to complete projects, low morale, missed performance goals, or even lost sales.

But the consequence most often felt by the majority is added stress, when communication is supposed to make everything seamless and smooth sailing.

Facing such heavy consequences, can Team Building really help in improving communication at the workplace?

Absolutely. Team building for communication skills helps employees practice active listening, express ideas clearly, and develop empathy in a relaxed environment, reducing misunderstandings that often cause stress and delays at work.

Team Building and Engagement

Team Building is likely to give your employees what they want: face-to-face interaction and personal communication.

Different generations have different preferences, but many agree on something.

That a team should get together.

Also, even if analytical and functional communication styles seem to be important, employees still prefer personal communication styles over them. They require human connection, which can be tricky to build in a rigid daily office setup.

No wonder 6 out of 10 respondents wanted firm-wide training.

So how does Team Building tie into all this?

Team Building Activities Designed to Enhance Communication

• Creative Problem-Solving Challenges: Encourage teams to work together, share ideas, and communicate effectively to solve complex problems.

• Cultural Immersion Workshops: Foster understanding and appreciation of diverse cultural perspectives, promoting empathy and effective cross-cultural communication.

• Interactive Role-Playing Scenarios: Provide opportunities for teams to practice and improve communication in challenging, real-life scenarios.

Let us demonstrate through these examples.

Here’s a Team Building game we’ve done in the past: CSI Quest.

(It also has a playful variation: Death of a Diva.)

As the name implies, this is a crime scene investigation. The mission is to uncover a set of facts about the victim’s final moments to catch the murderer.

In a game setup like this, the members’ guards are down and there are no office hierarchies. Your director is a fellow detective. (Or the murderer.)

And the completion of this assignment relies on clear communication of goals and the ability to collaborate, discuss findings, and strategize your next steps.

The same things that can be translated to a smooth sailing project or even daily task completion back at work.

The fun factor integrated in this game-like structure also helps ensure that they are open to creating bonds within the team. It helps them get to know how others communicate. It helps them see each other beyond their functional role in the office, humanizing their relationship.

Another great inspiration for your next Team Building is Toys4Charity.

We coordinated with local organizations to make this happen, and at the core of the team’s responsibility is to “earn a budget” by completing exciting challenges, both inside and outside the meeting room.

The budget will then be used to purchase quality toys in an auction.

A competitive team will equip their inner tools in resourcefulness. Additionally, being motivated to buy more toys, they would have to be cohesive in overcoming the different challenges.

Team Building and Non-Verbal Communication

We convey information through signals all the time, even when we’re not aware of it.

We use our facial expressions and body language, and it is perceived and interpreted by our coworkers. Sometimes the interpretation is accurate. And sometimes, the nonverbal cues are missed entirely.

If you’re aiming to improve verbal communication, you might as well nail down the importance of non-verbal cues. They amplify the overall message and improve the way words are used.

They can even express emotions and provide context on how to approach individuals.

Here’s how we used (Silent) Amazing Race to emphasize the importance of non-verbal communication in the workplace.

Here's what we did for Silent Amazing Race.

Silent Amazing Race challenges teams to meet various goals without using verbal communication.

Instead, they rely on non-verbal cues such as sign language, gestures, body language, and even images.

The facilitators we coordinate with for these events are those with a minor hearing impairment. They teach the members basic sign language.

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We’re here to help you plan and implement simulations for your hard-working team.

Contact a Mission Possible Agent.