How effective are office team-building exercises?

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Very effective at breeding disconnection and mistrust.

Via Shawn Achor’s excellent book, The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work:

It is important to note that building strong social capital does not require that all colleagues become best friends or even that everyone like one another all the time—this would be impossible. But what does matter is that there be mutual respect and authenticity. Coercing employees into awkward icebreakers or forced bonding activities, like making everyone at a meeting share something about their private lives, only breeds disconnection and mistrust.

The research he’s referring to is pulled from In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work.

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