How Escape Games Can Improve Team Building?

Real life escape rooms take a special place among all the team building games to improve communication. And if you wonder how quest room games can improve team building, we have a clear explanation to the bold statement. Let’s start with the fact, that escape rooms are way more than just usual corporate activity for the weekend. They are the best choice for small groups of friends or large groups of colleagues if they need to break old office communication patterns or to blow off some steam after an intense month at work, or school. Such games aimed to develop better patterns of cooperation and teamwork.

Therefore, the escape rooms are not just fun team building games. They are able to put you in absolutely new unusual conditions and require from you and your team constant cooperation and fast team working. Escape room games might look like just a funny indoor activity, when in fact, they do an amazing job for the developing teamwork skills. So here is a short bulleted list to see the main advantages of the escape games as a team building event:

1. They teach players what teamwork really is.
2. What’s more, they teach the importance of it.
3. They are great for building new type of communication behavior.
4. Escape games are able to reveal the hidden potential.
5. They are one of the most extraordinary ways to improve team building.
6. They can build new bonds among the old employees.

Let’s have a closer look at why escape rooms are getting so much praised these days and see what exactly they can do for developing new teamwork skills.

Why escape room games are all about communication?

Real life escape rooms games should be definitely on the top of the communication games list of all the times. There are hardly more activities like that which require constant communication through an entire game, which usually lasts for an hour unless you win earlier...but good luck with that.

Such importance of communication is very simple to explain — the rule number one for defeating the game is to discuss every step you want to make. To agree on who does what, who takes which direction on the clue search and, well, after the next riddle is found you need to unite all your efforts to solve it. So the group brainstorming is a must in this case.

And such an urge for communicating is main reason why in the end we have a great unity among all the players. You have just survived an hour being locked up in a single room! That’s already something. But there is more, you managed to defeat this room and leave it as a team of winners.

That makes you feel proud of your work, and the main point here, that you all are the winners and you all made a contribution which made you a step closer to the victory. It is really hard to imagine how you will come back to your previous communication patterns after such strong emotions, excitements, and worries you experienced together.

Let us add just one more thing here before we move on to the next point. Even though we are discussing the benefits of playing the escape rooms as the team building activities on the example of offices, there are seriously no limitations who can play them. Team building competition can be useful for different age groups and people of different occupations.

For example, all of the escape games are designed not just for adults, but for teens as well, there is really not much difference who is playing, that works for everyone. There is only one condition, those are the games for large groups (or at least let’s go from the number 3). So, unless you come along, escape room will work great for you.

Build new communicational and behavioral patterns with escape room games

As we have already established previously, such games guarantee non-stop communication among all the players and it’s absolutely inevitable. Everyone will talk to each other all the time. Which brings us to the next great advantage of the escape rooms. Escape room is able to melt any possible ice wall which was established previously. It may completely change the communication patterns, for that matter. And even if your office team has been formed a while ago, there are no newcomers, and it is believed that all the colleagues already know and talk to each other, that’s not always true.

Quite commonly the firm breaks into some small and usually reserved groups of colleagues, based on certain job positions or simply desks locations. So breaking up such patterns with the team building activities is actually a very healthy way to do it. After the game your workers will become more open to the new communication flows and, therefore, you will have a pretty mixed social groups in the office which will make it a more pleasant place to be and work in.

One more bonus from the escape rooms is that they are able to establish new bonds among employees. Just have a look at the most popular corporate team building games, and have a comparison to the escape room games.

The first thing you will see is that escape games take everyone absolutely equal. There is no one in the room who doesn’t make a contribution, and you will never win the game if you won’t listen to and comply with the opinions of others.

Just think of that, even if you get into such a team building activity as softball you have to play against your superior stuff. Here, you still feel like he is your superior, so that brings the awkwardness into the game. The office pressure is still on the field with you. The escape rooms deal with it in a completely different way.

Once you are in the room, there is no difference who was who in the office. The superior is only one who at some point had an idea on how to do the next step. And the beauty of it that those «superiors» are replacing each other every few seconds. Therefore, in such conditions of mutual respect and absolute equality, there are more chances to forget the typical office roles and make new bonds.