The Worst Mistake You Can Make When Entertaining Really Smart Employees

Last week, the TrivWorks team had the honor of producing a trivia team building activity in Manhattan for the executives of a highly prestigious hedge fund. Partners, senior managers and even the founder himself were present, all in NYC together for a few brief days of meetings, events, and social opportunities – as well as one formal group bonding event (ours).

Needless to say, this was an extraordinarily high-performing group of exceptionally bright people, and our event contacts within the firm were understandably concerned about making sure the trivia questions we used were appropriate – particularly the difficulty level. Following our customization meeting, we developed a batch of questions for their approval, and after reviewing, they came back with the following request:

“Can you please make the trivia questions harder?”

A totally reasonable request, given the level of smarts in the room – right?

Actually, believe it or not…no.

Having produced and hosted over 500 NYC trivia events over the years, I’ve learned a lot about how to create team building activities for highly intelligent people – as well as a few interesting truths about human nature:

Truth #1: Everybody loves to have fun. 

Truth #2: Everybody loves to feel smart.

Truth #3: Nobody likes to feel dumb.

What does this mean for team building events, specifically those involving trivia or other “brainy” activities? Simple: don’t use overly hard questions. Period. Even if the group is insanely smarty, nobody likes really difficult trivia questions; by definition, they’re not easy, and fewer people will get them right – which means, fewer people will get to feel smart. But most importantly, more people will feel stupid for not knowing the answers.

And if there’s one thing really intelligent people hate the most, it’s being made to feel stupid.

Take my advice: when planning a corporate entertainment or employee team building activity for your best and brightest, resist the urge to make the mental challenge as difficult as possible.