That time the oozes killed his family.
“My entire family was killed by oozes.”
Wait, let me back up. I promise this is relevant.
OPENING MOVES
Building a team is hard work. In the best of times, getting a group of strangers to work together cohesively can take months of effort. Since the pandemic, remote work and virtual teams have opened new avenues to create unique teams. Transforming a group of people into an effective team takes communication, collaboration, and cohesion. Using tools like Slack or Teams can bridge the communication gaps and tools like Miro or FigJam enable remote whiteboarding. But cohesion is all about culture.
As a huge geek, I knew that nothing brought people together better than playing games. They can be silly, they can serious, but most of all, they can be fun. And what better way to pull folks together than making them laugh and fight monsters?
See, one of the biggest challenges facing workers today is loneliness. Remote work offers flexibility and opportunities to focus for deep work, but lacks social engagement. And while coworking spaces can be work for folks who live in the same locale, remote teams have no such luxury.
*Seriously, though, remote work is great but it can feel isolating for some.
Our team faced this problem head-on. About half of the team was co-located in the same state, but recently displaced to the hybrid/remote environment. The rest were pulled in from across industries, states, and three time zones. So how could we craft a culture, from the bottom up, that valued creativity, teamwork, and curiosity?
We used games.
Let’s be clear here. Playing games may be fun, but it also leads to better work outcomes. Not only does gaming offer chances to build friendly relationships with one another, it also gives people a low stakes environment to trade ideas and learn about coworkers. One study from Brigham Young University found that just playing games together for 45 minutes increased productivity by 20% for a newly formed team.
We made playing games and having fun central to our culture building. An article from way back in 2015 outlined the reasons why. Employees in stressful, performance-driven cultures are more disengaged, more absent, and less productive. In addition to shared decision-making and putting people over process, we strove to make play a central tenet in our team.
As I often say, “We should be having fun. Because if we’re not having fun, what’s the point?”
The team approached this in a few ways.
Controversial Questions
Mayhem and Mingling
Virtual White Elephant
Dungeons and Dragons
CONTROVERSIAL QUESTIONS
Full team meetings are inherently necessary to make sure everyone is aligned. They are also inherently boring.
So one of our bright UX writers came up with a delightful twist on Hot Ones; only the spice isn’t the wings, it’s in the controversy.
What do you mean by controversial? What do you mean? What do you mean??
As part of our stand-ups, in addition to a status update, we would have everyone answer a “controversial” question.
What is your favorite condiment?
Here are 10 fruit, which one has to go?
Worst type of french fry?
Do you close all your tabs, or are you a hoarder, with dozens of open pages on your browser?
By adding a low stakes and humorous debate into the meeting, everyone has a chance to contribute and find new commonalities with people they might not talk with often. Our debates were never very serious, but they forged serious bonds, since we could learn about each other in fun ways.
For the record, hotdog relish, bananas, crinkle cut fries, and keeping all 77 tabs open in your browser are the correct answers.
MAYHEM & MINGLING
Especially in a remote environment, work can become a solitary adventure. You spend time working alone, or you find yourself in endless video calls. One way we found to build in breaks that also incorporated socializing was having dedicated time to chat and play. We called it Mayhem and Mingling.
We’d spin up a virtual game, and over video chat, we’d compete, laugh, and connect.
“Join our game at lunch, it’s fun!”
Drawasaurus was a popular choice. Players take turns drawing a prompt; other players make guesses and get more points the faster they guess correctly. Drawing using a mouse, MS Paint controls, and a time limit leads to some hilariously contorted pictures.
Other times, we might just complete a competitive jigsaw puzzle. Cursors racing across the screen, stealing pieces from one another, and talking about whatever might be on anyone’s mind. It’s a pleasant way to talk about social things like vacation plans, weekend adventures, cooking, while having an idle activity to distract from the lulls in conversation.
Other great options are Gartic Phone, which is like telephone mixed with Pictionary, or Codenames. Just try to keep it SFW.
VIRTUAL WHITE ELEPHANT
White Elephant gift exchanges are a staple of holiday office parties. Gathering together and sharing ridiculous and useless nicknacks is a time-honored tradition.
So we planned and executed a remote exchange. We all hopped onto a call and took our turns, “unwrapping” our selections virtually on a shared FigJam board, and used tokens to designate our swaps. I loved the oversized coffee mug I got (because you can never have enough coffee), and someone was lucky enough to walk away with a 3 DVD box set of the original live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.
*This will hold just about enough coffee to get you going in the morning. Banana for scale.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
One final way that we built our community online was through D&D. Dungeons and Dragons, the venerable tabletop roleplaying game, is something that many of us grew up playing. If you’re not familiar, you can create your character in a fantasy setting, and chase down dragons, monsters, and treasure, all while rolling a lot of dice.
It’s funny because it’s true. …..so true.
When we came together in person, we’d all abscond after dinner to a local haunt to roll dice and adventure. My gnome ranger, Elwood Ironsight, spoke with heavy drawl, and was eager to tell everyone that, “my entire family was killed by oozes.” He’d hunt those squishy monsters down and slay them in vengeance.
More than just chasing goblins, D&D also gives players the chance to try on different personas. If you’re looking for ways to give your more shy and introverted colleagues a chance to practice being assertive, have them lead the crew. Avoiding traps and puzzles is an exercise in problem solving, and you can practice negotiating with thorny merchants and kings. The game enables you to give your staff a chance to bond with one another in “life or death” scenarios, while also giving them plenty of space to try, fail, and pick themselves back up as a team.
We also organized online games, for when we couldn’t come together. You can use resources like DnDBeyond to manage most of your characters online.
Have you seen this ooze? Reward offered.
CHECKMATE
Elwood never did catch the creatures that killed his family, but I like to think the relationships I forged around that table were far more valuable. Games can be an easy way to build a team that trusts one another and understands how each other think.
