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Ask Real Team Building Questions – Bowling Doesn’t Cut It

team building questions

Regardless of who your company’s org chart says you should work with, people work with the people they want to work with and around those they don’t. One way to get people working with you (by choice) is to get to know your coworkers better, and I don’t mean personally.

Most people don’t know the people they work with very well. Coworkers often don’t know what fellow team members are tasked with doing for the company, their past work experience, education, or working style preferences. They often don’t know how fellow team members like to receive information, but get annoyed when they don’t return unopened emails.

If you’ve had any team building training with me, you know I advocate getting to know people better by asking more questions.

Organizations spend a lot of money on team building. Teams go bowling, out to happy hour, and have pot luck lunches, etc. All of those activities are fun and build comradery, and that’s important. But comradery and enjoying spending time together outside of work won’t help a team learn to communicate or overcome challenges.

If you’re really committed to team building and working well with people, ask more questions at the onset and throughout working relationships.

Here are five team building questions coworkers should be asking each other:

  1. What are your pet peeves? How would I frustrate you and not even know it?
  2. Are you a big picture or detail oriented person? Should I send you information in bullets or paragraphs?
  3. What are you best at doing? What type of work could you be doing that you’re not doing now?
  4. What are you working on now? What are your priorities for the next six months?
  5. What’s something I could do differently that would make your job easier? (You will survive the answer. I promise)

Your manager may coordinate an activity that gives your team the ability to ask questions like this, and s/he might not. Either way, ask the questions and be forthcoming if others ask you for this information. It’s not just your manager’s job to get your team working well together.

Your daily experience at work – how much you get done, how easily you get that work done, and how much fun you have along the way – is largely dependent on the people you work with. Don’t leave your working relationships to chance. Be assertive. Get to know people better. Ask more questions and offer information about yourself.

team building questions

About 

Shari Harley is the founder and President of Candid Culture, a Denver-based training firm that is bringing candor back to the workplace, making it easier to give feedback at work. Shari is the author of the business communication book How to Say Anything to Anyone: A Guide to Building Business Relationships that Really Work. She is a keynote speaker at conferences and does training throughout the U.S. Learn more about Shari Harley and Candid Culture’s training programs at www.candidculture.com.

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