SURF’S UP: Virgin Group founder Richard Branson hangs with his employees at a team-building event hosted by Song Division. (
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PIECE OF CAKE: Make Meaning hosts team-building events for companies, such as decorating pastry. (Kathleen Donnelly/PhotoOp NYC)
One group of executives builds a skyscraper with marshmallows and spaghetti. Another writes lyrics to a song they’ll later perform with a rock band. And a third decorates a cake in the likeness of its CEO.
Welcome to team-building in the 21st century.
Gone are the days of managers taking blindfolded walks in the woods or falling backward in a “trust fall” with the hopes of a co-worker catching them. Today, top New York City companies are turning to more creative endeavors to get employees thinking outside the box and building camaraderie beyond cocktails.
“They want to push people outside their comfort zones, even if creativity isn’t their thing,” says Amy Kotulski of Make Meaning, a company with locations on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side that offers team-building activities such as jewelry making, candle creating, ceramics and, the most popular, cake decorating. Costs range from $50 a person to tens of thousands of dollars for a full afternoon of activities.
Armed with edible glitter, rolling pins and fondant, a team of about 10 is presented with an 8-inch cake and tasked with such missions as creating a cake that resembles the CEO. Company-selected songs — “Call Me, Maybe” is the top pick — are blaring in the background.
“People are rolling with laughter, particularly if the cake comes out awful,” says Kotulski.
Companies report that the team-building business is booming. Midtown-based scavenger hunt firm CityHunt, which is exclusively committed to team-building activities, has experienced 20 percent growth annually since 2010, says CEO Ben Hoffman. My Cooking Party, a company that teaches cooking to lay people and has studios in TriBeCa, SoHo and Hell’s Kitchen, has doubled business each year since opening 10 years ago, according to co-owner Lisa Meller. And Make Meaning, which also hosts birthday parties, has seen its team-building arm double annually since opening three years ago.
They credit the growth to the need for businesses to boost morale during a time of layoffs and asking employees to do more with less. It’s also a fun alternative to corporate dinners: Rather than sit through an elaborate dinner, you have to cook one.
“Companies are saying, ‘If we can’t give a big paycheck, what can we do culturally to retain employees?’ ” says Kotulski.
But strategy is key. CityHunt’s “marshmallow challenge,” for instance, in which the team goal is to build a skyscraper by sticking marshmallows on dry spaghetti, is only successful when the team splits up tasks for different people instead of everyone racing to build the tower at the same time.
“It sounds easy, but there are a lot of team dynamics that go into it. Some teams will just plan. Others will just build. The best teams do both,” says Hoffman.
Competition is also crucial.
For a songwriting stint offered by Park Slope-based Song Division that starts at $15,000, teams are given a crash course on how to craft a few chords and are told to come up with lyrics about certain topics, such as a company’s new product, which they’ll later perform with rock musicians who work for Song Division and record in a studio. Sometimes, they have a “Battle of the Bands” afterward to determine the best song.
“It’s not karaoke. They wrote this and they feel responsible for it,” says Song Division’s general manager and guitarist Angus Clark, adding, “One of our musicians described it as, ‘Once you’ve done a gig with someone, you can’t take that away.’ It’s a really powerful experience.”
During “Battle of the Bites,” a $169-per-person exercise that My Cooking Party hosts for several big firms, including Google and Citibank, teams are judged on the hors d’oeuvres they create with five ingredients. A curveball ingredient is thrown in at the end — sardines, for example — and they have to problem solve and figure out how to work with the seemingly helpless mix.
“People get to live out their reality-TV fantasy,” says Meller, who co-owns My Cooking Party with her husband, Liron, who’s a chef.
Although reality-TV and cooking shows are fueling the frenzy, the fun-focused exercises also take the stress out of collaborating and accountability.
The theory is that you might point fingers when you miss a deadline or lose a client — but when a cake crumbles or a marshmallow melts, it’s easier to admit to the mess.
“It’s just a marshmallow, but it’s the same skills and it doesn’t feel personal,” says Hoffman.
But whether or not team-building actually works is mixed. A study released last year found that one-third of American workers loathe team-building activities. Experts say the ones that work are those that staff actually wants to participate in — so it pays to ask them before planning anything elaborate.
“These efforts are wasted if you are forcing them into an activity they don’t want to do,” says David W. Ballard, head of the Center for Organizational Excellence at the American Psychological Association.
Team-building providers — and the companies that use them — respond to such claims by arguing the services help companies create an enjoyable work environment, which they say is key to keeping employees happy and productive.
“When you bring people together from all over the globe, people gravitate toward those they know,” says West Cerrudo, director of marketing at the SoHo operation of Swiss Army and who has hired CityHunt for team-building events. “This allows us to get everyone to interact with each other and go out of their comfort zone in a fun and easy way.”
One hit was a photo scavenger hunt during which staff had to get pictures of people on the street who had Swiss Army products. Others included trivia and kickball, which included a quick-lesson for the European partners who weren’t familiar with the game.
“People are more likely to enjoy and remember an experience as opposed to a cocktail party or dinner,” adds Cerrudo.
But staff members walk away with more than swag.
At Brooklyn-based Twig Terrariums, teams create their own moss-filled mini-garden and learn how to keep their plant life thriving. They can personalize the terrarium with objects, such as a figure of themselves.
“They put them on their desk as a little Zen,” says co-owner Katy Maslow. “You can do the blindfolded walk in the woods, but this is something you can take with you and see grow.”