Team building ideas for small groups NYC

One of the reasons (the biggest reason, perhaps) I love my unique job as a professional trivia host for corporate events in New York City is because I get to help groups of hard-working employees have a great time, a shared positive experience which they will get to know one another better and feel more closely connected to their workplaces. It’s natural for me, then, to want to entertain the largest groups possible – the more people having a good time the better, right?

This past month, however, as I produced and hosted a variety of staff holiday parties, I was reminded of why I REALLY chose this special line of work as a career – and the realization came with the final event of the year.

It was tiny.

The client was Universal Music Group, and the event was an employee Christmas party for their Music Publishing division’s Big Apple office – only 13 employees. The event was opened up to spouses and significant others, but even then we’re talking what, 25 people? For you professional and amateur party planners out there, you know that this is small – VERY small.

Oftentimes prospective clients will call me up, and the opposite will be true: they have a LARGE group of people to entertain/bond, be it a party, training event, client reward activity or what have you. To top it off, there is the additional challenge that this group doesn’t know each other well, or even at all – this is especially the case for retreats, conventions or sales meetings, in which you can have a wildly diverse crowd who A) don’t work together under the same roof; B) likely includes people who are new to the firm, and don’t know anybody; and C) may be coming from the furthest reaches of the region, country or globe (follow this link to learn more about creating entertainment and bonding activities for highly diverse groups).

When the opposite is true, however – when you have a small, close-knit group of people who know each other intimately well, who love working with each other, who know everything about one another – then something special happens. No longer is the goal to try and find common ground among the masses; rather, you get to BUILD upon the existing relationships to create a truly magical moment.

Let me try my best to describe for you what that looks like.

First, when the group is small, everyone knows each other. Right off the bat, you don’t have to worry about things like “icebreakers,” “introductions,” and simply getting over the initial hurdle of throwing people who have never even met into a bonding bash – particularly a competitive one such as team building trivia contests.

The second thing I love about team activities for small offices in NYC and elsewhere is that they come with built-in material: past shared experiences, inside jokes, stuff that ONLY the folks who work with one another know, particularly things like personal foibles and what makes people “tick.” This is a rich well the planner can draw from in order to tailor and personalize the experience to the specific group in attendance, making it that much more fun, impactful and memorable.

The third thing I find fantastic about groups such as this is, by and large, everybody likes each other. Of course, this is a broad generalization – surely there are people working in the office who DON’T like other individuals, maybe even hate them. But from my experience, both as a former employee of startup firms as well as creator of employee engagement events, I can attest that, by and large, at-will employees who work together in close proximity tend to like working together. Especially if you take them out of the workplace environment and throw them into an event that’s supposed to be fun and social, what happens is that the conflicts, politics and power struggles which exist within any work group dissolve, leaving just the “fun stuff.”

In the end, what this all means is a tremendously fun, laugh-filled event that is often rollicking from the moment things kick off, right until the very end. No down time, no break in the fun and humor – just a solid hour, two hours or more of huge smiles, hilarity and enjoyment in it’s purest form.

Selfishly, for a guy like me in the position I am in, this is the type of experience I find deeply rewarding. I know, the event is NOT supposed to be about me – but I can’t help it. When the group is having such a great time together as it is, all I am really doing is helping facilitate that long, rather than “producing” anything. Honestly, groups like this would probably have a blast doing just about anything – so it’s doubly humbling when I am brought on-board to help make the night a successful one.

For more on team experiences for small groups, visit www.TrivWorks.com/employee-team-building