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Marketing Leadership: How to Build a Dominant Team

Teddy Cheek — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 21:04:06 +0000

Although vitally important, the role of marketing leader is often overlooked. Usually it’s a great marketer that is promoted to lead the team regardless of their leadership experience.

Why? Because we’re so focused on having the right marketing strategy that leadership has taken a back seat.

Here’s my proof – there are 2x the Google searches for “marketing” as there are for “leadership.”

And here’s the problem – the skills that make a great marketer are not the same skills that make a great marketing leader.

And look where this lack of marketing leadership has gotten us:

73% of CEO’s think “marketers lack business credibility.” (Fournaise Marketing Group)

Only 9% of marketers “strongly agree” that their marketing is actually working. (Study by Adobe)

Most marketing teams are operating in pure chaos – juggling 87 priorities, constantly fighting for budget, and trying to prove that something is working while buried under an avalanche of emails.

But the best teams don’t operate this way (at least regularly). Because the best teams, the most successful teams, have a great marketing leader.

Building a marketing team
Making culture your foundation
Hiring marketers
Developing your marketing team
Coaching marketers to greatness
Teaching execution
Motivating the team

I’m proposing a fix: What if we focused a bit more on the “leadership” part of the marketing leadership equation?

I’m not denying that optimizing a website is important, but is it more important than optimizing a team?

In her (awesome) book Multipliers, Liz Wiseman, explores the impact of leadership on a team. She found that bad leaders, or what she calls “Diminishers,” got just 20-50% of their team’s capability. A “Multiplier” on the other hand, 70-100%.

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

Under a great leader, team members buy-in, grow faster, produce better work, collaborate more effectively, and stay longer.

The result – the team becomes more than just the sum of its parts.

If you’re a new marketing leader, I have good news. Leadership is not something that you either have or don’t have. It can be learned.

In this article, we’ll cover the 3 most important responsibilities of a marketing leader.

Building the team: A marketing leader sets a cultural foundation. Then they hire and retain a dream team of selfless marketers.
Developing the team: A marketing leader graciously coaches team members to their full potential. They teach the team how to execute and how to win.
Motivating the team: A marketing leader shares a bold vision and inspires participation.

Let’s dive in!

1. Building a marketing team

Culture is the foundation of every great marketing team

Your first job – make company culture your team’s foundation.

Notice that I said “company culture” and not “team culture.” While your team can have its own unique personality, it shouldn’t have its own culture. Your team must share a culture with your company.

If you create your own team culture, you’ll limit your team’s influence and ability to work effectively cross departmentally. You’ll find your marketing island drifting further and further from the rest of the company.

And here’s what I mean by culture – your company’s mission, vision, and values. These articulate how team members can live out the company culture. And while I love team building, team rituals, inside jokes, and happy hours, they aren’t a culture. If your company culture were a cake, those would be the sprinkles on top.

When everyone on the team aligns themselves around the same mission and values, the outcome is chemistry. Yes, chemistry – that rare, intangible fuel that drives teamwork.

Alignment = Chemistry

To make company culture the foundation of your team, you must buy into the culture. Then expect the same of your team.

Here’s how to infuse company culture:

Memorize the company’s mission, vision, and values. Expect your team to do the same.
Talk about the mission and values daily
Select a different company value for your team to focus on every week
When providing feedback or praise to a team member, tie the feedback to a specific company value.

And here’s the result:

Alignment will create chemistry
Chemistry supercharges your teamwork
Chemistry opens the door for the team to have its own unique personality. Now, put those sprinkles on that culture cake. It’s time for team traditions, rituals, team building activities, and inside jokes. Looking for ideas? Check out this list of team building ideas.

Hire team members that align with your company culture

Not everyone will be a fit for your team and that’s totally ok. Here’s what to look for:

Look for people with an internal locus of control

According to Marine Corps University, “Locus of Control” refers to an individual’s perception about the underlying main causes of events in his/her life.” Basically, do they think they control outcomes in their life or are they always at the mercy of external forces?

Graphic from fish4development

People with an Internal Locus of Control believe they are responsible for their own success.

People with an External Locus of Control believe luck and external forces are responsible for the outcome of their life. They will never accept responsibility and will be impossible to coach. If they fail, it will be the leader or the company’s fault.

Here are questions to ask in interviews to suss out if they have an internal or external locus of control:

What is your least favorite part of your current role? Why?
If you had to give your current leader feedback, what would it be and why?
What is your priority in a workplace?

I highly recommend reading, Motivation-based Interviewing by Carol Quinn. It takes a deep dive into this topic and will teach you how to identify candidates with an internal locus of control.

Motivation-based Interviewing by Carol Quinn

Hire positive people

At The Escape Game, we talk about “skunks & cookies.” Don’t you love the smell of fresh baked cookies? Everyone does. That’s what a positive attitude is like. It’s like a fresh cookie smell that makes everyone more positive and productive. Skunks stink. So do negative attitudes. Negative attitudes affect everyone. Complaining is contagious and it sucks the creativity right out of the room.

“Positivity is a prerequisite for creativity.” – Brian Mandel, Sr Director of Operations at The Escape Game.

Find people that align with your culture

You can’t afford to hire people that don’t align with your culture, no matter how talented they are.

What about technical skills?

Having a couple people on your team with very developed technical skills can be hugely helpful. Depending on the position, it might be essential. BUT, trust me, finding team members that are a culture fit and with an internal locus of control are even more important. I recommend hiring people ahead of their curve which means before they have fully developed. Before their curve people are hungry, coachable, and can be shaped into selfless marketing team members.

Retain your marketing dream team

This section will be short. If you follow the rest of this guide, you’ll retain team members (unless you’re paying very poorly). Retention is not about having the most perks and the absolute highest pay. Retention is about leadership. As you build your team, consistency will be incredibly valuable. It’s a benefit you’ll get as a result of developing your leadership.

Benefits of retaining your marketing team:

Less time spent hiring and onboarding
Less time spent transferring knowledge
Team members develop a deep knowledge of the company, products, and customers
Team members develop friendship and trust

Continuity matters.

2. Developing a marketing team

We’ve all heard the adage – hire the right people and get out of their way. While there’s definitely truth to this idea, it is overused and misunderstood. Many undeveloped marketing leaders use this concept as an excuse not to coach. It’s understandable – coaching can be very hard. While coaches get to celebrate, encourage, and empower, they also must push, provide regular feedback, and sometimes have difficult conversations.

But coaching is caring. If you really care about your team members, you’ll do everything you can to develop them and to see them succeed. Sparing team members from honesty robs them of the opportunity to improve. Neglecting to have the difficult conversation will stunt their career growth.

How to coach your marketing team

If you have a fear of coaching, let me introduce you to Danny Meyer’s concept of Constant Gentle Pressure. It’s a guide for anyone who needs to step up their coaching. Danny Meyer is a the founder of Shake Shack, writer of Setting the Table, and the creator of the best coaching framework I’ve ever encountered.

Setting the Table by Danny Meyer

Here’s how it works:

Constant: Your guidance is consistent. You don’t provide feedback once a year at a review. You coach every single day. And you treat all of your team members the same. Tell your team to expect coaching. On the team, it’s part of the deal. Everyone should want to get better and must be coachable.

Gentle: When you provide feedback, it’s gracious. Your goal is never to embarrass or put a team member down. Feedback is given with empathy and care.

Pressure: On great teams, there’s pressure. Your team members should be under some level of healthy pressure to achieve.

So there’s pressure and that pressure is consistent but it is always gentle. Make it clear when you interview new team members that this is how the team operates.

Remove pressure and lose urgency.

Remove gentle and become a jerk.

Remove constant and give your team whiplash and instability.

CPG is not micromanaging, it’s leading. It’s developing. It’s coaching.

Expect your marketing team to develop themselves

As the leader, you should expect your team to develop themselves. You can’t be 100% responsible for their growth. Do professional athletes only practice when specifically asked to do so by their coach? Do great musicians only practice while being supervised by a teacher?

Set the expectation that if your team members aren’t growing themselves, they won’t be ready for the challenges ahead. It’s a requirement to study, to learn, and to grow.

This means team members should be reading books and blogs, listening to podcasts, meeting with others in their field, and possibly even taking online courses. Your team should be proactive and take responsibility for their own development.

Here are a few great resources:

Teach your marketing team to win by teaching them to execute

Most marketing teams spend their days chasing a multitude of shiny new ideas, rarely executing any of them with excellence because they are always on to the next idea. It’s a chaotic existence and leads to wasted time and money.

The problem with many teams is not talent. It’s not ideas. It’s not a budget pinch. The problem is execution.

Did you know – winning is a skill as much as it is an outcome. Teams that learn to execute become winning teams. And according to Harvard Business Review, once a team or individual starts winning, they usually keep winning.

I call the execution framework below the Execution Ladder. When directing your team, start at the bottom of the ladder and work your way up. Most teams start at the top of the ladder. They are so distracted by the next idea that they fail to execute with excellence.

Explain to your team that they can expect things at the top of the ladder to change frequently. Stay flexible on those top couple rungs.

The Execution Ladder: Execution Framework for Marketing Teams

Company culture: It all starts with company culture. Align around the mission, vision and values. Here at the bottom of the ladder, you’ll find a consistent foundation. And while there’s room for healthy debate further up the ladder, that’s not the case here. Everyone needs to get on board with the company culture or find another organization.

Company goals and initiatives: Your marketing team exists to contribute meaningfully to your company’s loftiest goals and ideas. Don’t set department goals or individual performance metrics unless they contribute meaningfully to the current and top initiatives of the company as a whole.

Team goals and initiatives: What can your marketing team accomplish that would most contribute to the company’s goals and initiatives. Is it ranking #1 on Google for a specific keyword? Is it generating 1,000 new leads per month? Set goals that if accomplished will move the company forward towards its goals.

Individual Key Performance Indicators: Your team members need to know if they are winning or losing in their role. Individual members need measurement too. Select goals for team members that contribute to the rung below – team goals and initiatives.

Tactics and strategies: Now it’s time for whiteboards, debates, and a flurry of ideas. Regardless of rank or title, may the best ideas win. And because you started at the bottom of the ladder and worked your way up, your team will gravitate towards the most impactful ideas instead of ones that are cool, fun, or clever.

Don’t beat yourself up if you are attempting the Execution Ladder and still find yourself distracted by shiny ideas and new marketing trends. Keep committing yourself to the process and teach your team to do the same. Teaching your team to execute is teaching your team to win. And that is the job of any great coach.

Teams that execute beat their competition – even when that competition has bigger teams, more experience, and massive budgets.

To dive deeper into the Execution Ladder and goal-setting strategies, read my marketing execution guide.

And if you’re looking for a great book on goal-setting, The 4 Disciplines of Execution is as good as it gets!

3. Motivating a marketing team

Whether or not you have natural “gravitas,” part of your role as marketing leader is to motivate your team and inspire them to take action. You’re not only a coach, you’re also a catalyst.

**First cast a bold vision for your marketing team**

A “vision” is a story that describes a triumphant end state. You must plant the picture of this triumphant end state in your team’s head consistently.

Unlike a goal, not all elements of a vision are precisely measurable and a vision is not always bound to a specific timeframe. Instead, a vision likely has a set of conditions that need to be met to be achieved.

Example Conditions:

Your customer satisfaction scores will rival Chick-fil-a, Warby Parker, Tesla.
In viral videos, customers will describe being surprised and delighted by your team.
Case studies will be written about the team that designed the customer experience.
Your company will be known for next-level customer experience.

Share a bold vision with your team. With excellence and passion, what could your team accomplish? Paint a picture of what life would be like for the company, team, and team members if you accomplish this vision.

But what if you fail? Paint a picture of what failure looks like as well. The distance between victory and defeat is what is at stake. Every good story has stakes and your vision needs stakes to be inspiring.

Tips:

Make the vision optimistic but attainable
Make sure that your vision aligns with what company leadership wants the company to accomplish.

Invite the marketing team into that vision.

Next, acknowledge the challenge you’ve presented and that it’s not going to be easy. Nothing is as demotivating as implying that it should be easy.

Also, make it clear that everyone’s contributions are necessary to realize this big, bold vision. Try “it’s going to take all of us at our best.”

Now, invite your team to take part in the vision you’ve just presented. Have you ever seen a heist movie? In any good heist movie, the leader lays out the nearly impossible plan. Then they look around the room and ask…”so, you in?” When team members opt-in (rather than being dragged), they buy-in.

Drive performance with recognition

Lee Cockerell is the retired EVP of Operations at Walt Disney World. He’s also a friend of Team Building Hub and contributes to content on this website! According to Lee, appreciation, recognition, and encouragement are the free fuel that drive human performance. As your team members contribute meaningfully to goals, go out of your way to appreciate, recognize, and encourage. What you recognize, you will multiply on your team.

Don’t wait until you realize your vision fully to celebrate. Celebrate the little wins along the way. Celebrate the “trail markers” that signal that you are on the right path as a team. These little celebrations build belief and momentum.

📷 Taylor Floyd Mews

Celebrating is a taste of victory – it’s addicting and motivating.

And check out Lee Cockerell’s books including my favorite Creating Magic on his website.

Execute alongside your team

Do not present a big, bold vision and then disappear to your office where you’ll spend your days reviewing dashboards. Participate. Your team will be inspired as they see their leader take an active role in accomplishing the vision. While leaders typically can’t spend all of their time executing, make sure the team sees that you work with urgency and passion. It’s an opportunity to set the tone and illustrate how you attack goals and how they should attack goals.

Putting it all together

Marketing leaders – It’s going to be that easy and that difficult. Your success doesn’t come down to having the perfect idea. You don’t need to assemble a team of marketing unicorns. You need to build a team that is culturally aligned, bought-in, that takes their development seriously, and that is coachable. If you lead that kind of team well, your team will win almost every single time, regardless of the circumstances. You’ll beat competitors with bigger budgets and more experience.

Remember – leadership is not something you are born with or without. You can develop these skills.

A message for non-marketers tasked with building a marketing team – Regardless of what you hear at conferences and from other CEO’s, building a great team is not about putting together a wild blend of the most in-demand technical skills. Great teams are developed under great leadership. Start with finding a leader, not a skill set.

For more on marketing leadership, head over to my blog teddycheek.com.

The post Marketing Leadership: How to Build a Dominant Team appeared first on Team Building Hub.

160 Essential Ice Breaker Questions for Your Team

Anecia Ascalon — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 22:53:09 +0000

These days can be tough for virtual teams. With less face time and fewer “water cooler” conversations, team members may begin to feel disconnected from their co-workers or isolated. These feelings have been connected to decreased morale, performance, and job satisfaction.

You can easily turn things around by getting your team to participate in team building! One that we highly recommend is virtual ice breaker questions – they’re fun and easy to implement into even the busiest workdays!

We’re going to give you lots (and we mean lots) of ideas for virtual ice breaker questions. But before we do, let’s talk about how you can implement them into your virtual team building activities.

What Kind Of Questions Are You Looking For?

Creative questions
Options for all occasions
Questions for Zoom meetings
Funny questions
Obscure and unique options
Virtual team building questions

160 Virtual Ice Breaker Questions

Join Us For A FREE Demo!

See exactly how our games work, ask questions about logistics and add some energy to your work day. Demos are 30 minutes long and take place on Zoom. There may even be a DoorDash giveaway!

Learn More and Sign Up!

Creative Questions

Do you like square or triangle pizza?
If you could be reincarnated as any animal, which would you choose?
Which sitcom would you like to play a role on?
What are your top 3 emojis?
Did you have celebrity posters on your walls as a kid?
Who is your celebrity doppelgänger?
What is the most bizarre food you’ve ever eaten?
What’s the best movie you got to see in theaters?
What is your “comfort movie”?
What is your “comfort album”?
Egg salad, tuna salad, or macaroni salad?
You’re next up for karaoke! What song do you pick?
What is your favorite way to kill time during quarantine?
Apple or Microsoft?
Do you prefer the classic Disney movies or the live-action remakes?
What is your favorite quarantine purchase?
Would you rather live in Arizona or Alaska?
If you were a dog, what breed would you be?
Have you ever had a random celebrity encounter?
If you could live in any country for one year, which would you choose and why?
Who is your favorite movie villain?
Pick one thing in the room and tell us a story about it (the story doesn’t have to be real!)
What would your personal theme song be?
Which fictional character do you relate to the most?
What is your guilty pleasure TV show?
What was in your high school locker?
If you could skip one part of your daily routine, what would it be and why?
What is in the trunk of your car right now?
What is the best gift you have ever received?

Ice Breaker Questions For All Occasions

What was your favorite Halloween costume ever?
Where did you grow up?
What was your favorite subject when you were in grade school?
What was your favorite class in college?
Are you reading a book right now?
What skill do you wish you could wake up and have tomorrow?
What is your favorite part about working from home?
Are you watching an interesting show right now?
What are your favorite podcasts?
What is your go-to dinner after a long day?
Are you an early bird or a night owl?
What is your favorite song right now?
What is your favorite kitchen appliance?
If you would wake up with the ability to speak another language, which would you choose?
What is the first thing you do when you wake up?
What kind of pets do you have?
Coffee or tea?
Sweet tea or unsweetened?
What is the last thing you ate or drank?
Do you separate your light clothes from dark, or wash them all together?
What meal would you cook for someone that you’re trying to impress?
What is your favorite appetizer?
Which restaurant has the best dessert?
What is your regular cocktail or beer order?
What are your top 3 bucket list items?
Which cancelled TV show do you wish was still on the air?
What book did you read to yourself for the first time?
What weird food did you love as a kid?

Ice Breaker Questions For Zoom Meetings

What piece of advice helped your career the most?
Where would you move if you could retire tomorrow?
How do you unwind after work?
How many countries (or states) have you visited? Can you name them?
Do you shower in the morning or at night?
Do you sleep with the TV on or off?
Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?
Did you play a sport in high school or college?
What was your very first job?
Where is your favorite place to vacation?
Are you a dessert person?
Apple or Microsoft?
Did you play an instrument in high school?
What are your top 3 bucket list items?
If you weren’t at work right now, what would you be doing?
What is your favorite weekend activity?
If you’re going to a potluck, what would you bring?
What is your favorite holiday and why?
Who inspires you, professionally?
Would you rather own a yacht or a private jet?
Do you make your bed in the morning?
Are you a dog person or a cat person?
Which park at Disney World or Universal Studios do you want to visit the most?
What was your first car?
Would you want to be famous?
If you had one extra hour of free time every day, how would you use it?

Funny Questions

Where would you go in the event of a zombie apocalypse?
Describe your personal style in middle school.
What fashion trend are you glad is gone?
What fashion trend would you like to see return?
Do you believe in aliens?
What is the worst horror movie you have ever seen?
Do you talk to your pets as if they are people?
What game makes you the most competitive?
Super Bowl or puppy bowl?
Favorite riddle or joke?
The Office or Parks and Recreation?
What was your favorite childhood movie?
What movie makes you laugh until you cry?
Do you think Rose could have made room for Jack on the door?
Do you think tickling is funny or maddening?
Is there anything Meryl Streep can’t do?
Are you more likely to pick truth or dare?
Did you have a rebellious teenage stage?
What superpower would you give your best friend?
What is your favorite April Fool’s Day joke?
Do you prefer romantic comedies or “dramadies”?
What is the funniest holiday movie?
How would you describe your laugh?
Do you have any embarrassing post-anesthesia stories?
What is one story about you or your siblings that your family always laughs about?
What band are you embarrassed to admit that you love?

Obscure Questions

What is the story behind your phone or computer’s wallpaper?
Would you visit Mars even if the round trip took a year?
Which vegetable best describes your personality?
What songs do you want to play at your funeral?
If you could pick ANY song to walk down the aisle to, what would it be?
What reality show do you wish you landed a spot on?
What crime would you commit if you know you would get away with it?
If you were a type of shoe, what would you be?
Would you go on a UFO if you were invited?
If you had a magic carpet, where would you go first?
Which Disney character would you be?
What song describes you best right now?
Which character from the Office would you be?
What is your favorite song to sing in the shower?
What is your favorite song to sing while driving with the windows down?
Do you prefer the aisle or window seat?
Flats or drums? (chicken wings)
What is your go-to dance move?
What is the scariest thing you have ever done for fun?
If you were a type of jeans, which would you be?
What fictional world would you want to live in?
If you could have any superpower what would it be?
What song do you embarrassingly know every word to?
If you could clone yourself, what would your clone be doing right now?
Was there an odd rumor that went around your high school that wasn’t true? (for example, the seniors in my high school always tried to get the freshman to believe we had a secret rooftop pool)
Pick something in the room and make up a story about it.
Do you believe a monster will get your feet if they aren’t tucked under the blankets?
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
How did you get your biggest scar?
If you were in the circus, what would your act be?
If you were one of Snow White’s dwarves, who would you be? You can make up your own name!

Ice Breaker Questions For Virtual Team Building

If you could be a member on any fictional team, what team would you choose (it doesn’t have to be a sports team!)
What team is the best in real life?
Would you rather be in N*SYNC or the Backstreet Boys?
Do you think the Spice Girls made a good team? Why or why not?
What qualities do you think are best in a teammate?
When was the first time you were a part of a team?
What is your biggest team accomplishment?
Did you like team projects in school? Why or why not?
Do you think anyone can be a team player if they try, or are some people just better on their own?
What do you look for in a teammate?
Do you have an easy time asking for help?
Teamwork makes the dream work: true or false?
What is your idea of a good virtual team building exercise?
Do you think virtual team building exercises work?
What is your favorite virtual team building exercise?
Would you rather work solo or in a team?
What would you say your role is in a team?
Are you a listener or a talker?
What type of partner would you choose to balance yourself out?
What is something that you can do better than anyone else that you know?

And there you have it! 160 fail-proof ice breaker questions that you can start using at your next virtual team building event. For more virtual team building inspiration, check out our virtual team building options. Your team will have a blast working together in low-stakes environments, getting to know each other’s work styles, and letting loose after a long work week!

Tips For Using Virtual Ice Breaker Questions

1. Keep Things Short

Your team is likely already feeling a little burnt out by now. Working from home during a pandemic is tough and you don’t want to overwhelm your team with activities, even if they are meant to be fun.

We recommend planning a virtual ice breaker activity at the beginning of a Zoom meeting or 15-minutes before the end of a day. This will help to get your team energized or give them a chance to relax and let loose after a long day of work. Make sure the virtual team building activity doesn’t stretch into “of the clock” time, though!

2. Keep Things Simple

You want your virtual team building exercise to be easy to explain and understand. That way, you aren’t taking up too much of your team’s time by explaining and clarifying the instructions. Virtual ice breaker questions are a great remote team building activity because there’s really not much to them – just a question that needs an answer!

Even though virtual ice breaker questions are simple, they’re effective! Getting your team to gather around for an activity that takes their mind off of work can help to support communication, collaboration, and relaxation. Overcomplicating things may make this fun activity feel more like a chore.

3. Use The Technology That’s Available To You

There are so many fun things that you can do with technology and Zoom team building exercises! If you use the right features, you can create the best possible environment for your virtual ice breaker questions.

For example, if you have a large group, you can break everyone up into smaller group and utilize the Zoom breakout session rooms. This can really add to the intimacy factor you’re your large team might be missing when working from home.

Don’t be afraid to add some fun elements like music, or creative ways to display the virtual ice breaker question at hand. Instead of simply asking the question out loud, you could create a slideshow that has a few questions on it and design each slide to reflect a certain theme. Don’t forget about funky Zoom backgrounds!

4. Don’t Limit Your Team To Ice Breaker Activities Over Zoom

Your team might be feeling the Zoom fatigue at this point. You can help mitigate the effects by utilizing other virtual avenues for virtual ice breaker questions.

Create a recurring “team building Tuesday” calendar event and send out an ice breaker question to the whole team in an email
Ask everyone what their favorite songs are and curate a group playlist
Use Google Docs to create a collaborative document where everyone can answer ice breaker questions, respond to prompts, or just talk freely about what’s on their mind that day!

5. Keep An Eye Out For Opportunities To Use Your Virtual Ice Breaker Questions

It’s always great to plan a virtual team building exercise so your team knows what to expect and when to expect it. But you may find there are times when you can use virtual ice breaker questions as a way to kill some time or relax.

You can use virtual ice breaker questions if:

You’re waiting for others to join a meeting
A meeting ends early
There’s a meeting that isn’t capturing the attention of your team and you want to get everyone to reconnect during a break
A meeting gets cancelled and you want to fill the time with a fun – yet productive – activity

Virtual Ice Breaker Activities

Fostering teamwork and connection during socially distant times can seem challenging, however it’s not impossible! Here are eleven ideas for fun virtual team building ice breaker activities! You can find more free online team building games here.

1. Fun Fact Matching

How much do you really know about your coworkers? Maybe not as much as you think! In this game, team members come up with a tidbit about themselves that they think no one else would guess. They then email it to the activity facilitator. Over Zoom, that host reads off the items and team members take turns guessing which fact applies to which person, racking up points for each correctly guessed answer.

2. Team HQ

HQ is an online trivia game individuals can play simultaneously through an app. On weekdays at 3pm EST, live quiz questions are presented and participants worldwide attempt answering all ten correctly for a chance to split prize money with other winners.

Your team can partner up via Zoom, playing individually on phones but sharing answer ideas out loud. It’s not as easy as it seems, but you might win with the advantage of working together!

3. TED Talk Watch Party

Have your leadership summits and professional development seminars been cancelled until further notice? Don’t worry! Your team can still learn something new from the comfort of your home offices.

YouTube features hundreds of informative TED Talks that team members can all benefit from listening to and discussing together. A host can even have discussion questions regarding the TED Talk prepared to present to the team via Zoom.

4. Group Maps

With remote opportunities the main option for team building, you’ve got to make the most of what’s available! Even Google Maps can provide a chance for people to get to know one another. Create a collaborative map and team members can place a marker on their birthplace, favorite vacation spot, location they love going to in your city, or any category you can think of! This is a great way to remotely explore and learn more about your coworkers.

5. What’s Everyone Thinking?

This is a simple but surprisingly challenging game that requires zero equipment. First, the facilitator says a word. It can be any random word. Then, on the count of three, everyone else in the group says a new word that they associate with the previous word.

The objective of the game is to get all participants to say the same word at the same time. For example: if the facilitator’s first word was “car,” the group might say a variety of words like “travel,” “driving,” “road,” and “engine.” The group hearing those words might now say words like “vacation,” “train,” “trip,” and “highway.” The game continues on until hopefully everyone ends up saying the same word at the same time!

6. Take A Tour

With travel banned in many places, vacations and company retreats aren’t an option. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still experience new places and cultures, especially as a team! There are countless Airbnb virtual experiences for groups, some of which can accommodate up to 500 people! Learn about another country’s culture from a local or do a trivia quiz with a campy host. No matter which experience you chose, your team will have plenty to talk about!

7. Breakout Groups

It’s time to take advantage of the breakout sessions Zoom provides! In one large Zoom meeting, the host asks team members a simple question about one of their preferences with designated answer options. It can be something like their favorite color or whether they prefer cats or dogs.

From there, participants who chose the same answer separate into smaller groups via breakout rooms to answer a more personal question, such as “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” or “What do you like most about your job?” This will give coworkers who don’t normally interact with each other the chance to become better acquainted.

8. Trivia Session (Even Better If It’s Themed!)

Using a collaboration of Zoom and online software like Kahoot!, companies can host a virtual trivia game tournament. Coworkers can be broken into teams that are each on their own Zoom call. One member from each team can share their screen and log into the Kahoot game and answer questions on behalf of their team. The team that most quickly and correctly answers questions wins!

This is a great option for teams with a lot of members to still work together without being overwhelmed by a large number of people on a call. Feel free to add in fun prizes for the teams who come in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Trivia questions can range from a variety of topics, from broad subjects like company history or niche options like The Office trivia.

9. Personality Quizzes

Team building personality tests are an enjoyable way to learn more about coworkers and there are plenty of free online choices to choose from. Have everyone take a brief quiz and then share with the group one thing they agree and disagree with about their results. Personality Perfect is a quick Myers-Briggs test option that doesn’t require an email submission to use. Test Color may seem initially silly, however users have said that it yields surprisingly accurate results!

10. QuizBreaker

If you’re willing to sign up for a free trial or donate a bit of budget to online team building, QuizBreaker is an awesome option. This software allows individuals to answer questions about themselves and give their responses to various scenarios. Coworkers then try to guess how the team member in question responded. The person with the most right answers wins!

11. Desk Snapshots

This is an easy way for team members to show off their spaces and see how well they know each other. Have everyone take a picture of their office or desk setup and then via Zoom or email, people can guess which desks belong to which coworkers. The same concept can also be applied to baby pictures!

Ice Breaker Tips

When using ice breakers, it’s important to note that their purpose is to dissolve awkwardness and tension rather than create it. Take inventory of what kind of team you have and what sort of activities would be best suited for helping them bond. There are different types of ice breakers and not all benefit a team equally. There are some that help individuals get to know one other, those that improve teamwork and collaboration, and others that are great for kicking off meetings and improving participation. Choose wisely for the best possible results.

Designating a group facilitator is also important to have during ice breakers to help dispel any lingering discomfort and move the event along. Facilitators also need to be aware of game rules and the logistics of how an event is going to work. They should already know the necessary passwords or Zoom meetings links to make for a successful team building activity!

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