Some Basics on Team Building

Chi-town has a lot more to it than what even the locals think. Having fun around the city with a scavenger hunt is a popular team-building game, even among prestigious companies.

This will be a brief discussion on some of the rationale companies use to decide to provide team building games for their employees and an example of scavenger hunting as the next new wave of exercise. The specific example of such an exercise will be for those in the Chicago metro area.

Sometime after the industrial boom, social awareness and unions gathered to protect the employees' welfare. Companies and competition grew throughout the U.S. and more focus was directed within. Corporations saw a direct relationship between work quality and employee mental health and wellbeing. Large staffed businesses saw that there was value in boosting moral and recognizing the individual as well as the company as a whole.

There is a duality to the group that drives attitude. Employees both think as a whole and as an individual. However each attitude coalesces into a whole group thought. So each individual needs to be paid attention to. The catch is there is no real timely way of doing that. Enter the team building exercise where small groups do the work.

The Problems with Traditional Team Building Exercises

To pay attention to the individual while bolstering attitudes in a team building effort is done traditionally by creating groups first. Groups are given a task or goal to work towards in some form of rewards system -- something to mirror an exemplary form of what should take place in the office under regular business constraints and working well doing so.

However, given some statistics based on a group dynamic, there will be individuals who will assume dominant personalities and tend to create an oppressive system that may alienate or marginalize some members. This is usually due to the rewards or the stakes that are involved. There are some exercises that are used to detach the reward system and focus more on the game at play while using everyone in the group as important talent. One of the techniques is the use of scavenger hunts.

The Scavenger Hunt Advantage: Team building in Chicago

Scavenger hunting in Chicago lends a wealth of opportunity, landmarks and history for an enriching experience. Many organized hunts will take groups through the neighborhoods hitting infamous locations and landmarks. The scavenger hunt is more than just a regular team building in Chicago exercise; it involves the interaction of team members -- each and every one of them. The Hunt questions do not center on a specific task where one person may be better than the other within the group.

For instance, someone knowledgeable of the Chicago area will not necessarily have an advantage over someone who may be good at word games. The questions are varied enough to touch on many different skill sets. One could be trivia based, another could include a hidden anagram or a word may allude to a dual meaning that unlocks to reveal the answer. The questions can take them through downtown to the Sears tower, or over to Wrigley field, asking varied and unusual questions that touches on such a variety of subjects that someone in every group will usually have an answer for.

Team building in Chicago with a scavenger hunt provides great landmarks for game questions and also helps the workers know each other not by force but by simply having fun and getting out on the town. The corporation and workers reap social rewards such as:

- Socially lubricate the group communication - Build teamwork naturally, unforced and fun - Build lasting bonds between each other, they'll have fond history together - They'll know more about Chicago and appreciate it more - Gives them a great excuse to throw a party or meet for drinks afterward

About the author: Art Gib writes for Watson Adventures (http://www.watsonadventures.com/chicago.html) who organize and arrange scavenger hunts in major metropolitan areas. Team building hunts, like team building in Chicago metro, are popular with many top corporation executives.