How to Do Team Building in a Remote Work Environment That Doesn’t Suck
Why Zoom happy hours are hell and what you can do instead
Team building is a consistent challenge for distributed teams. In many remote-first organizations, our teams don’t see each other regularly, which leads to a degradation of trust and team cohesion.
This lack of team cohesion makes the team less likely to want to do non-work related team building together.
This lack of enthusiasm for team building leads to less team cohesion and trust.
Friends, this is what we call a “death spiral.” If our teams don’t get out of this tailspin, we’re going to be in trouble. But how can we reverse course when inertia is working so hard in the other direction?
Let’s dive into the root causes of this problem and some easy solutions we can implement today to reverse the death spiral.
Why Remote Work Team Building is so Hard
In the best of situations, team building is hard. We’re all busy professionals that have more important things to do than trust falls in the conference room.
When we move to a remote-first paradigm, however, that becomes even more true. Despite many of us feeling isolated and craving more time with coworkers, very few of us want to commit to a Zoom happy hour or a virtual team-building exercise of dubious value.
So how do we solve the problem of a lack of social connection when our team doesn’t want to do social activities?
The solution is pretty simple; it requires deliberate effort over time.
We need to start by developing strong parasocial bonds among our team, followed by brief, 5-minute team-building activities that we can do during “business as usual.” Once we’ve laid this foundation, we can design a more involved team-building activity that doesn’t suck eggs.
Using Parasocial Intimacy to Establish a Foundation for Remote Team Building
Team building fails in cold-start environments.
I’ve seen a ton of teams that ignore team building and cohesion for months, then host a virtual event to get the team together, and are shocked that it doesn’t work.
The truth is, we need to warm the team up to one another first. This is where parasocial relationships are so helpful for remote teams.
If you want a full primer on parasocial relationships, read this article.
Here are three simple ways you
Ask a regular “Question of the week”: Simple and easy… Come up with a list of fun “getting to know you” questions that you can post in your team Slack channel every week. Encourage your team to thread their answers and discuss. Things as simple as “Mac or PC?” or “What’s your favorite appetizer to order at a restaurant?” can help people form superficial bonds that deepen over time.
Host a weekly podcast or webcast interviewing a team member on a personal interest: I love this tactic as a manger… Usually, great managers are already talking to their teams about their personal interests anyway. Why not record one of those conversations for the group? Have the basketball nut on your team do a March Madness primer or interview the gal who loves Survivor about the most recent season. People love seeing this side of their coworkers and you’ll have fun in the process.
Host themed photo/video sharing threads: This is a fun tactic to deploy around holidays or special events… Show us pictures of your kids’ Halloween costumes or what you did over the holiday break. Take a video from your last vacation and share it here. This helps make your coworkers three-dimensional and provides a layer of depth to relationships.
Encourage your team to produce a README: README documents are already a best practice among remote-first managers, but I believe that entire teams can benefit from the exercise. I love the idea of building out personal profiles in your internal wiki to help your team connect and learn more about one another without wasting time on Zoom calls.
5-Minute Team Building Your Team Can Do on Conference Calls
Once we’ve established parasocial bonds among our team and they’ve begun to develop relationships asynchronously, we can pivot to more in-person team building. I don’t like jumping straight to virtual escape rooms… I like starting with bite-sized team building that we can do over a few months to deepen these social relationships.
Here are some examples of digital ice breakers that your team can do on conference calls that take 5 minutes or less:
Two Truths and a Lie: Each team member tells three statements about themselves - two are true, and one is false. The others must guess which statement is false.
Emoji Introductions: Each person shares their name and something they like, dislike, or something they're looking forward to using only emojis.
Personal Scavenger Hunt: Everyone is given a list of items to find within the space they are in (e.g., a pencil, a red shirt, a picture of a cat). The first person to find everything on the list wins.
This or That: The team leader asks a series of "this or that" questions (e.g., coffee or tea, beach or mountains, dogs or cats), and everyone shares their preference.
Trivia Game: The team leader asks trivia questions related to the company, industry, or general knowledge. The first person to answer correctly gets a point, and the person with the most points at the end wins.
Word Association: The team leader says a word, and each person must say a word that's related to it. Keep going around the group until everyone has had a turn.
Show and Tell: Each person shares an object in their workspace or something meaningful to them and explains why it's important.
Remember, the purpose of icebreakers is to get people talking and feeling comfortable with one another, so choose an activity that's fun and light-hearted. The more formal this feels, the more it’s going to suck for our teams.
6 Virtual Team Building Activities That Aren’t Lame as Hell
Once you’ve established deeper bonds of trust with your team in your day-to-day interactions, it’s time to craft some dedicated space for actual team-building activities that can build deeper bonds. Some of this could be done in-person during a regular retreat or in-person meeting, but there are tons of great virtual options that won’t make you want to throw your computer.
Virtual Game Afternoons: Organize virtual game nights where team members can play online games together, such as trivia, Pictionary, or Jackbox games. This is a fun and engaging way to build camaraderie and teamwork while also providing a much-needed break from work.
Virtual Scavenger Hunt: Plan a virtual scavenger hunt where team members search for items around their homes and share them with the rest of the team. This is a creative and interactive way to get everyone involved and working together.
Virtual Team-Building Challenges: Organize virtual team-building challenges where team members can work together to complete tasks, such as building a virtual tower or solving a puzzle. This is a great way to promote collaboration and problem-solving skills.
Note: I’ve done virtual escape rooms and love them. They can be a really fun and engaging way to get your team working together.
Virtual Workshops or Training Sessions: Plan virtual workshops or training sessions where team members can learn new skills or improve their existing ones. This is a great way to build knowledge and expertise while also providing an opportunity for team members to connect and engage with each other.
Virtual Wellness Activities: Organize virtual wellness activities such as meditation sessions, yoga classes, or guided workouts. This is a great way to promote physical and mental wellness while also providing a fun and engaging way for team members to connect.
Virtual Team-Building Retreats: Consider organizing a virtual team-building retreat where team members can participate in a series of team-building activities over a few days. This is a great way to build stronger bonds and foster a sense of camaraderie among team members.
Team Building in a Remote-First Environment is More About Trust Than Games
One of the most common mistakes I see remote leaders make is thinking that a Zoom happy hour will solve their trust problems.
It won’t. In fact, it may make those problems worse.
Based on what I’ve seen, building a high-functioning remote team is more about the infrastructure you put in place that enables deep amounts of trust. You can’t put a band-aid on a gaping flesh wound and expect it to heal.
Here are a few focus areas I’d recommend for all remote teams as they look to build deeper bonds on their team…
Open, transparent communication: One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen leaders make is communicating exclusively in private. They send private DMs in Slack, spend most of their time in Zoom meetings, and only communicate publicly with the team 1-2 times per week, if that.
These leaders are eroding the trust that their team has put in them and will struggle to thrive in a remote-first world. Your team is regularly seeing from and hearing from dozens of other leaders, whether it’s on LinkedIn, Twitter, or their podcast feed. Remote leaders will only be successful if they’re using 1:many communication to establish alignment and parasocial bonds. If they ignore this, they will fail.Centralized Information Architecture: Another area where I see remote leaders fall down is a lack of information centralization and architecture. Your company is a product and it needs to be intuitive to use. If your team is constantly asking questions about where things are or what process to follow for a simple task, they’ll get frustrated.
I can judge the success of remote leaders by the strength of their internal documentation. If they have a well-designed internal Wiki and a strong information architecture in their Slack instance, they’ll be successful. For many organizations, however, these are viewed as nice to have vitamins instead of the backbone of their company’s success. Avoid this mistake and you’ll thank me later.Focus on affinity groups and asynchronous relationship building: I love affinity groups as a means of relationship building. Slack isn’t predestined to be a noisy chat client… You can organize it to accomplish a myriad of goals, including being a forum for your team to discuss common interests. Here are a few affinity Slack groups I’d recommend for any company:
#parents
#pets
#basketball / #football / #soccer / any other sports-affiliated interest
#book-recommendations
#documentaries
#now-streaming
#music
#food
As we build toward the future, the way we work will completely change. The only question we have to answer as leaders is whether we’ll ride the wave and level-up or try to reverse time and revert to a bygone era.
I know which one I’m picking.
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