Team Bonding vs Team Building

Mavis LUncategorized

When you hear the terms “team bonding” and “team building”, chances are you’d think that they’re the same thing right? You thought wrong! Well, Team Bonding and Team Building are both very important corporate concepts for nurturing an effective team. So, it is crucial that every team leader achieve a good grasp of both concepts, and know how to build on each. So, what’s the difference?

Team Bonding

In a nutshell, “Team Bonding” focuses primarily on strengthening the RELATIONSHIPS within a team. Good news (to a certain extent),  Team Bonding activities are generally much simpler to organise than Team Building activities. Because you just simply need get your team members to spend quality time together over karaoke or a picnic!

Team Building

While on the other hand, the term “Team Building” refers to any efforts to make your team perform more effectively, with the main focus on PRODUCTIVITY of the team. Team Building activities generally involve participants working together as a team to achieve a particular set of objectives or to solve a problem as a team. Team Building activities are great for developing your team’s agility, and for enhancing the working synergy of the team, which may often go unnoticed on a daily basis, but is so essential for an effective team. Some effective team building activities involve the concept of working together towards a common goal. Therefore, you may consider activities like Laser Tag or Bubble Soccer.

Although Team Bonding and Team Building are two very different concepts, none of them are effective without the other. Besides simply knowing how to work with each other, good relationships within a team are key to enhancing a team’s effectiveness.