Team building games NYC

A healthy competition is a great way to foster group bonding in the office – however, like any competitive event there are certain guidelines which should be adhered to, if you wish for the experience to be an enjoyable one for your audience. Especially when creating an event for extremely bright, high-performing knowledge workers – be they employees or clients – there is nothing more important for the facilitator to keep a watchful eye on than pacing.

In the case of my company, which specializes in competitive team building trivia games in New York City, I always ask prospective clients the same question: have you ever been to a bar trivia night? If the answer is yes, I ask them to describe the experience – virtually every time, the same issue comes up: it moved too slowly. Either the host waited too long in between trivia questions, or the grading in between rounds took forever, but the end result was that there was a serious lack of momentum, which deflated the excitement and competitive energy in the room (we mitigate this by bringing in our own team of dedicated runners/graders to score answer sheets).

But it’s not just trivia, it’s any zero-sum games for staff bonding which involve having winners and losers. Nobody likes to go to the ballpark and watch something that drags on for 9 hours, and nobody wants to sit drearily through what should be a fun and dynamic employee engagement event.

The key really is pacing.

For the person leading the program, this means: keep it moving. You gotta keep it moving. You can’t have any unnecessary breaks or pauses, you can’t take forever while you do whatever it is you do. To keep the audience active and attentive and fully involved for the entire time, you MUST set a good pace right from the very start, and maintain it through to the end.

Click here for more information on the importance of timing in competitive corporate activities in NYC and beyond.