Team building adventures are a great way to get your employees to see a different side of one another. Employees will also take away a new set of skills that can benefit cooperation in the workplace. Many businesses environments lack a certain amount of respect and cooperation, especially after the same people work together for awhile. Adventure team building is a way to rekindle cooperative spirit in the office.

Working with adventurous team building services will not only strengthen interpersonal relationships between colleagues, it will also give you the opportunity to show how cooperation is essential in activity you do. Employees will learn:

1. Cooperation and team building through adventure team building activities.

2. How specific behaviors in the workplace can cause disagreements.

3. How to develop or refresh good team building skills through interactive exercises.

Action Steps
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Know what to look for when choosing adventure team building services

There are a wide variety of team building exercises available for any type of business. You can choose from indoor and outdoor activities, small and large group activities, and you can also determine the amount of time and discussion your team spends during and after the activities. Because there are so many choices, reading up on your options may help you to decide what is best.

I recommend: Charlotte Business Journal also had some useful advice on choosing the right activities for your business. FreeIQ offers advice on how to plan a great team building event through its audio program.

Pick team building activities that best serve your business goals

In businesses that have a close working environment, it is essential that employees can get along with each other, even through disagreements. If you keep your employees in mind, you can easily choose adventurous team building services that will help everyone.

I recommend: Teambuilding provides a full list of adventures to choose from, organized by the number of people participating, the duration of the exercise, and how much training is involved in the process. Intek World offers a model outlining the basics of team building and what the common goals are.

Choose the right duration for your outdoor adventure team building activities

The length of time you want to spend in an adventure team building activity will all depend on your goals. The more time you spend together, the better your chances that people will get to know each other and open up about problems that plague the workplace. But short team building games, scheduled frequently, can achieve the same goals.

I recommend: If you want to try a full weekend or an extended weekend option, look at the services provided by Adventure Recreation International. Glenn Parker provides a comprehensive list of questions and answers that a facilitator needs to consider when choosing the length and content of team building adventures.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Though business team building games are meant to achieve a specific goal and improve skills, it's important for the games to be fun and exciting as well so employees will want to get involved.

If you’re tired of offering your employees the same team building activities in your annual retreats, break out of the ordinary and add adventure team building to your next event. Adventure team building lets your employees participate in whole-body learning as they master challenging activities through the help of their teammates. They’ll emerge from their adventurous team building with a renewed sense of confidence and creativity and a greater appreciation for working as a team.

At the high end of adventurous team building services, you can find private cruises on ships that your employees must man, mountain-climbing adventures in the wilderness or rugged hikes through exotic locales. Though you can splurge and offer your employees an exciting outdoor adventure team building experience, on-site and indoor team building games and challenges can create just as strong a team—without taking up much of your time or budget.

Adventurous team building activities come in a wide range:

1. Wilderness team building activities.
2. Task-oriented adventures, such as scavenger hunts.
3. Physical challenges such as a team building ropes course.
4. Team building activities that focus on creativity.

Action Steps
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Choose wilderness adventure team building

Outdoor adventures give your employees a chance to test their skills and relationships in unfamiliar settings. Being in the wilderness stresses the need for each team member to rely on the others and also encourages each individual to participate fully. The wilderness may be a forest or a river, and it may be a one-day event or a more lengthy adventure.

I recommend: Adventure Associates offers a team orienteering challenge to bring your team members together as they find their way through a forest preserve. They also offer custom adventurous team building services if you want to create your own wilderness experience. Whitewater Voyages offers one- to five-day whitewater team building expeditions with overnight camping options.

Use scavenger hunts as team building activities

You can do scavenger hunt team building activities in your own city, at your next retreat or even in a wilderness setting. These hunts involve team members in the environment while they work together to solve a puzzle or problem.

I recommend: Treasure Hunt Adventures leads corporate team building treasure hunts that can focus on either mental or physical skills, depending upon your needs, and they can also incorporate orienteering or GPS technology into your treasure hunt. Teambuildinginc.com leads treasure hunts in 74 different locations, including 21 states and various international locations, which are priced on a sliding scale so you can be as economical or extravagant as you like. For custom scavenger hunts, contact Scaventures to create the best scavenger hunt for your team.

Focus on physical confidence with a team-building ropes course and other challenges

With a team building ropes course or zipline canopy tour, your employees get insight into their own strengths and weaknesses and gain support from the team. It's a bonding experience that you can use as the key element of a longer day of team building activities.

I recommend: Outside of Austin, Texas, Cypress Valley Canopy Tours offers a zipline over the treetops as a centerpiece for a day-long retreat, which you can hold on their grounds. The Corporate Learning Institute and Adventure Associates both offer a variety of ropes courses both high and low.

Use less adventurous but more creative team building activities

If creative pursuits fit your business culture better than full-scale adventure or physically demanding team building, try out team building activities that involve your employees in something creative.

I recommend: CEO Chef will come to your meeting and run a team cooking challenge to get all of your employees involved. When your team is done, everyone sits down to a delicious meal. Groove Lab offers the Corporate Rock Stars® program, where your employees become rock stars for a day, rewriting a song as a team and recording it with a professional band.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  If you have employees whose health or physical condition makes it impossible for to participate in more active or strenuous team building activities, avoid outdoor wilderness activities and instead focus on something that they can also be included in.

Managers who want to build trust and teamwork among their employees can benefit greatly from learning about team building services. These services can be invaluable, producing a memorable experience for all involved that can increase employee retention.

There are a huge variety of team building activities. You need to know which ones will work best for your employees. There are basically three types:

1. Adventure team building activities that can help build core confidence;

2. Initiatives like a team building obstacle course that emphasize problem solving;

3. Trust exercises that can help coworkers learn to depend on each another to accomplish their goals.

Action Steps
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Attend adventurous team building services education and training with your employees

Outdoor adventure team building usually consists of a ropes course, which challenges people to face their fears by climbing high towers or swinging from a zip line. However, you can also plan less extravagant activities that accomplish similar goals.

I recommend: Contact Adventure Associates. This nationwide service gives you the chance to train in adventurous team building at established training facilities, your office or a local park. Alternately, if you have some skill in carpentry, visit Adventuresmith to learn how to build your own ropes course.

Select indoor team building games that will best benefit your office

If you don't have the time or the money to transport your employees to a ropes course, you can hold team building activities right in the office. It's a good way to fit in some oft-needed downtime during stressful periods in the workplace.

I recommend: Visit Team Building USA's website to learn a variety of indoor team building activities to try during breaks in the workday. Also, go to Businessballs for more easy to organize games and a thorough analysis of how to use them to temper common communication problems and personality conflicts.

Learn how to conduct trust exercises as part of your team building activities

Trust is a very important workplace tool people can learn during their team building adventures. It's imperative that employees can put their faith in management and their coworkers. That's where trust exercises can help.

I recommend: Go to Wilderdom to learn dozens of trust activities you can easily conduct in the office in a matter of five-to-10 minutes. Then check out Lexis Nexis' site to learn how to share that new found culture of trust with your customers.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Don't limit team building activities to only once or twice a year. A monthly or even weekly break to concentrate on improving coworker and management relationships can have a big payoff in productivity. Always be on the lookout for new things to try to teach teamwork. Keep a log of each new activity that comes to mind.

Team building activities are considered an essential part of an organization’s training and development offerings. There is a wide variety of adventurous team building services types and styles that can be found and which can fit just about any budget.

The types of team building services that are available include outdoor team building obstacle courses, ropes courses, wilderness adventures as well as indoor activities which are designed to build trust and creativity and that can be done on-site saving your team time and money. The types of team building activities include:

1. Team building activities, which include adventure challenges such as wilderness treks to the Himalayas, Antarctica and South America and white water rafting in British Columbia where your team can learn problem solving and leadership.

2. Obstacle courses and ropes courses, which are located nearby in your state or metropolitan area and foster collaboration and cooperation.

3. Indoor workshops where creative pursuits such as photography or creative play are used to teach out of the box thinking.

Action Steps
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Go for an outdoor adventure team building course

If your budget is flexible and you want your team to experience a once in a life time adventure, then a unique voyage may be just the ticket.

I recommend: Adventure Consultants is a world-renowned mountain guiding company that has taken teams on climbing expeditions to the world’s highest peaks. Kumsheen Rafting Resort offers challenging white water rafting expeditions where your team can build better relationships and character as they experience big waves, warm water and a desert-like climate.

Take your staff to a team building ropes course

Ropes courses come in two forms, high and low. A high ropes course is much more challenging and requires helmets, harnesses and cables that are strung 20 to 50 feet high among trees and poles. Low ropes courses are not as intimidating to participants as the ropes are strung just a few inches off the ground. In either case, your team members will learn how to take risks and expand their comfort zones while gaining self-confidence.

I recommend: Adventure Alliance in Austin Texas has access to ropes courses all over Texas where your team can learn how to get better at planning, shared risk taking and communication. For another ropes course in a unique setting you might consider the rock climbing and caving adventures offered by NEXTeams Companies.

Pick truly exceptional indoor business team building games and activities

For those teams who have already gone through various team building exercises, learning how to use photography to think out of the box and how to communicate metaphorically can be very enlightening. If you are concerned about sending your team away on an adventure then contracting with a team building service to come on site is a good alternative. Onsite facilitators can help your team explore creative solutions in a fun spirited atmosphere.

I recommend: Consider engaging VisionMining to help your team unearth fresh ideas and expand their vision. For onsite team building and facilitation expertise Corporate Games will come to you and help your teams explore creative solutions in your facilities.