Are you a manager or project leader searching for creative solutions for how to improve your team’s communication skills? Escape room team building provides the perfect challenge to foster dynamic problem-solving and enhance your team’s communication skills. Learn more about how to improve team communication through escape rooms and see what Room Escape Fairfax can do for your team.
Improving Communication With Escape Room Team Building
Escape rooms can best be described as interactive and immersive role-playing games. Players are “locked” in a room, and tasked with solving puzzles and problems to navigate their way out of it, all within a set period of time. This creates an environment where team members are forced to work together, communicate effectively and adapt quickly as a team. Read more about the many different ways escape room team building can improve the communication skills of your team below.
Foster Team Relationships with Open Communication
Many times teams (particularly corporate teams) have varying responsibilities, backgrounds and titles. Thus, while many “teammates” might see each other every day for the morning meeting, many colleagues unfortunately never have the opportunity to get to know each other, or work together on the same tasks. Escape Rooms eliminate these boundaries, facilitating open and relaxed communication between all members regardless of their position on the team. This creates a lively environment where team members are can build effective working relationships and develop mutual trust.
Boost Team Spirit with Common Goals
By sharing a common goal where everyone feels equally invested in the outcome, escape room team building can also encourage team members to become actively involved in identifying potential solutions. No only does this greatly increase their sense of ownership over the success or failure of the team, it also boosts their motivation to contribute. This can help foster a more enthusiastic team spirit, encouraging more effective communication and engagement even after the experience.
Encourage A Growth Mindset
Research has shown that teams who embrace obstacles and shortcomings as temporary roadblocks (a “growth mindset”), as opposed to permanent barriers (a “fixed mindset”), are significantly more likely to continue working hard despite setbacks, and almost invariably work their way to a solution.
No where does this more poignantly come across than in escape rooms, where teams are forced to work together to solve problem after problem, and learn from their mistakes. Seeing how teams work through problems, and how team members individual mindsets impact the group, team leaders can better take proactive steps to facilitate a growth-based culture for all team members in the future.
Identify Potential Roadblocks
Escape rooms will force your team members to grow closer together as they communicate, formulate, and execute on their plans to escape. For business leaders, this can provide a rare opportunity to see how the team works through novel challenges and to see how each member contributes. This can allow team leaders to take inventory of each team member’s individual strengths and weaknesses moving forward, examine the aspects of how the team works together as a group, and potentially identify new leaders within the company.
Promotes a Culture of Friendliness Moving Forward
After the experience of working their way through an escape room, teams often recount their positive experiences together as a group. This can enable lifelong friendships between team members who previously may not have ever interacted with each other. Moreover, having shared experiences can encourage employees to be more open and friendly toward their peers moving forward, which can significantly improve the team overall communication.
Maintain Team Cohesion With Regular Escape Room Meet-ups
One of the most impactful things teams can do to maintain cohesiveness is to make time to meet (outside of work) on a regular basis. This brings team members closer together and often brings out team member’s true personalities. Of course, with the constant array of novel challenges and the opportunity to work together, there is no better place to regularly meet up than at escape rooms.
By regularly meeting up and doing fun activities together, team members get the opportunity to learn more about how each member’s individual personalities contribute to their own communication style. This allows teams to be cognizant of how individual team member’s communication style’s fall short, and how to leverage their strengths in future team-based settings.
Host Your Next Team Communication Retreat at Room Escape Fairfax
We hope this post has helped you see the many ways that escape room team building can help improve your team’s communication. Whether you want to boost team spirit, foster open communication or take inventory of your team’s communication styles, Room Escape Fairfax’s escape rooms are the ideal venue encourage dynamic problem-solving and enhance your team’s communication skills. Contact Room Escape Fairfax today for more information and to schedule your Northern Virginia escape room team event.