Team building activities create unity among colleagues by helping them get to know
each other.

If nothing else, the pandemic made us recognize the need for workplace
relationships—valuable human connections beyond ranks, titles, and work
assignments. So while we find our way back to the office or master hybrid workstyles,
team building activities can help us build or rebuild these connections.

So close and yet so far away
Physical proximity doesn’t eliminate separation.
In offices around the country there are simmering conflicts based on competing core
values, siloed information, and clashing cultures. When these battles boil over, the
results are bullying, sexual harrassment, ageism, sexism, racism, political, social and
other schisms.

After reviewing a recent survey, newsbreak.com reported this: “Figures from the ‘This
is Black Gen Z’ report revealed that 45 per cent of young Black women avoided
wearing their natural Afro locks at work due to the unwelcome scrutiny it often brings.
By contrast, 76 per cent of White Gen Z workers feel comfortable with their natural
hair.”

And from hrc.org: “31% of LGBTQ+ workers say they have felt unhappy or depressed
at work;and the top reason LGBTQ+ workers don’t report negative comments they hear
about LGBTQ+people to a supervisor or human resources? They don’t think anything
would be done about it…..”
Imagine fighting through all of that rejection and stress while trying to put in a solid
day’s work. Now imagine a manager trying to build a team with stressed out workers
like these.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
There was an global hew and cry in 2020 against racism and sexual harrassment, but
the hush of complacency seems to have fallen once again.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion or DEI, policies look good on paper, but according to
Hcamag.com, “Only 34% of companies have enough resources to support DEI
initiatives. While many companies in the United States have made diversity, equity and
inclusion (DEI) commitments since the racial protests in the summer of 2020, few have
yet to make meaningful progress.”

So while the rest of the world is sorting itself out on this issue, what can you do?

Team building activities tear down walls
Team building activities that include charitable donations are effective weapons for
tearing down walls of bias, fear, and exclusion. Magnovo’s years of anecdotal evidence
proves that it’s virtually impossible to build a bicycle for a stranger without befriending
the coworkers who help build it.

It doesn’t matter whether you assemble a wheelchair for a disabled veterans or donate
school supplies to low income kids. When the tears start to flow and the grateful smiles
start to shine, resistance is futile [to quote the Borg on “Star Trek: Generations”].
Friendship is inevitable and a team is built.

Perhaps with team building activities such as charitable workshops, your employees
can develop a level of comfort with the notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The
unfamiliar lifestyles of gay, lesbian or transgender colleagues may become less
threatening when the “people” themselves become more familiar.

Hostility may give way to docility as a Baby Boomer and a Millennial spend time
together creating wonderful donations for needy neighbors. At the end of the day, they
may have also created a wonderful friendship that transcends their age gap.

And the whole team—black and white; old and young—may fully grasp and even
embrace the ideas expressed in these lyrics by African American singer, India.Aire:

“…I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am not your expectations, no…
I am not my hair
I am not this skin
I am the soul that lives within….”