Team hurting is the opposite of team building. It is an activity that your team or group does together that actually drives a wedge in between people causing additional friction, frustration, and caos in the workplace.
Any competitive and/or physical activity that you do with your team is one that has a huge potential for driving a wedge in between people.
For example: if you go to a go-cart track you are going to have that one employee who wants to show off, be the best, win the race, etc… Then you will have another employee who doesn’t even want to be there, feels forced to participate, and ultimately gets run off the track and is not having any fun. This activity just divided the team and didn’t make anyone feel more important in the company or group.
Ropes courses are amazing! I love them. But again, they aren’t designed for team building. They are designe do for individual growth. And just because everyone is growning as a person doesn’t mean they are going to work better as a team. Again, those who don’t have a problem doing ropes courses will ultimately push to hard to get the person who is scared the most to do the course.
I do believe teams should go out and have fun. But call it fun. Don’t call it team building. It isn’t going to yield any long-term results.