How Do You Plan Corporate Team Building Activities for Highly Intelligent People?

I can guarantee that at least once a week, while making an inquiry regarding corporate team building activities in NYC or beyond for their employees, somebody will raise the same concern with me. It’s a valid one, and a relatively straightforward one at that: our staff are smart.

And not just smart, like most knowledge workers tend to be, but really, REALLY smart: top-of-their-class Ivy League graduates, associates and partners of prestigious law firms and investment banks, engineers, computer scientists, rocket scientists, crème-of-the-crop summer interns, MD’s, PhD’s, you name it. Bottom line, these people are very, very smart.

And they work very, very hard – so much so that the firm wants to reward them with a fun team building event, which will stimulate their minds while helping foster teamwork. The only problem, of course: what kind of activity should these people be doing?

It’s no simple task, believe me. In the years I’ve been producing corporate team building events in NYC, I’ve had the privilege of creating scavenger hunts and now trivia team building parties for the smartest people I’ve ever met – and it’s not easy.

In my experience, the biggest challenge in entertaining extremely bright people with a mind game for any length of time boils down to devising activities which are at the group’s level – and when I say at their level, I mean EXACTLY at their level. Using trivia as an example, if you are to pose questions to an extremely smart group which are considered too easy, not only will the group not have much fun, but they will actually become frustrated – especially after anticipating a night of competitive mind wrestling (incidentally, teams are not so frustrated about not being challenged by trivia questions, as they are by the fact that the OTHER teams will find the questions to be too easy – thereby ruining any chance of gaining a sizable lead. Did I mention that smart people can also be highly competitive?)

That said, try asking too many trivia questions which are considered TOO hard, and the group will turn on you like a pack of wolves. As I’ve discussed previously, when using trivia for team building, nobody likes really hard trivia questions – fewer people get them right, meaning that more people feel stupid. And if there’s one thing that people hate – especially smart people – it’s to feel stupid.

So, back to the original question: how do you create a team building activity for a really smart group? I would suggest the following 3 tips:

1.     Select a mentally-stimulating activity – Something where they get to use their brains, and allows them to shine. Smart people feed off of both creative and analytical challenges, so whatever you plan on doing, make sure it has plenty of mental stimulation for it to be a hit.

2.     Don’t make it too long – Really smart employees tend use their time wisely, even their recreational time. Choose an activity which values their time, rather than monopolizes it; if your activity takes too long, they’ll quickly get restless and tune out – even leave to go back to work! You don’t want that.

3.     Ask them what they want to do – So simple, yet so often overlooked. Send around an Email: “Folks, we’re planning something fun, what would you like to do?” You can even provide a few suggestions for them to vote on. Either way, take the pressure off of yourself and put it directly to them – you may be surprised with the answer!

Extremely intelligent people are like any others, in that they want to have an enjoyable competitive experience appropriate to their capabilities and interest. When planning a corporate team building activity for smart employees, be mindful that one size does NOT fit all, and that there are special considerations to take into account for an event to be a success.

Do you have any ideas or experiences to share on the topic of corporate team building exercises for highly intelligent people? Please share below!