10 Examples of Effective Team-Building Topics for Meetings

When team members understand how to collaborate effectively, it can help improve your team's morale and performance. You can promote this concept by incorporating team-building topics into your workday or team events. Discussing team-building topics can help your team develop connections and collaborative skills and abilities.

In this article, we discuss team-building topics and their importance and provide a list of 10 team-building topics you can incorporate into meetings or presentations.

What are team-building topics?

Team-building topics are subjects discussed during conversations, meetings or presentations that encourage individuals to work and collaborate effectively as a team. These topics can cover a wide range of skills, abilities and interests.

For example, communication represents a common team-building topic that helps your team members understand how to convey information to one another. Non-work-related topics, such as personal hobbies, can also build relationships between team members.

Related: 30 Team-Building Ideas for the Workplace

Why is it important to know team-building topics?

Team-building topics are important because they help your team learn how to collaborate more effectively. This collaboration can create a productive work environment for your team or organization. Using team-building topics can offer several benefits in the workplace, including:

• Encourages relationships: Team-building exercises allow colleagues to learn more about one another, both professionally and personally. Gaining insights into interests and hobbies can help team members build stronger connections and rapport with one another.

• Creates a positive environment: When people enjoy who they work with, it can make them feel happier at work. This positive environment can also help individuals remain productive, focused and comfortable in the workplace.

• Improves team performance: Team-building exercises help individuals understand how to work well together. As a result, team members learn how to support one another toward achieving team goals and complete tasks more efficiently.

• Fosters creativity: Everyone has a unique perspective and background, which teams can use to their advantage when working on projects. When people feel comfortable collaborating and sharing ideas, they can learn from one another to develop more creative solutions.

Related: 11 Benefits of Teamwork

10 team-building topics

You can use the following topics to guide team-building discussions during meetings:

1. Icebreakers

Icebreakers represent discussion topics or questions that help your team members get to know one another better. You can use icebreakers to learn more about individuals' interests, hobbies or what makes them unique.

These topics can be especially helpful on new teams where individuals know very little about one another and may not yet feel comfortable together. You can have icebreaker activities at the start of a meeting to build rapport amongst the group.

Icebreakers can cover both personal and professional aspects of people's lives. For example, you may ask individuals to describe their most memorable career accomplishments.

You can also ask completely random questions, such as their favorite music artist or vacation spot. Team members' responses can provide insights into their personalities, which can help them build connections within the group.

Related: 42 Unique Team-Building Icebreakers

2. Communication

Effective communication is an essential component of team-building. When individuals know how to convey information clearly, it can make the collaboration process more effective.

Different people have varying communication styles, and understanding these styles and what they require can help improve communication across the team. For example, some individuals take a passive approach while others are more outgoing.

During team-building meetings, you can discuss the different communication styles and allow team members to describe which one they identify with most. You can also ask them to express their preferred communication methods.

For example, an individual might prefer that someone ask them a question by coming to their desk rather than emailing them. Establishing these preferences can help your team communicate more effectively with one another.

Related: 4 Communication Styles

3. Workplace behaviors

When working with a new team, discussing workplace behaviors can help establish expectations for the group. As a group, you can discuss the traits or behaviors you believe contribute to a positive team environment. For example, you may mention traits such as respect, dependability or empathy.

Agreeing to implement these behaviors helps team members gain trust in one another because they recognize everyone will try to uphold these standards to ensure everyone feels comfortable at work. You may also discuss the repercussions of failing to follow this agreed-upon code of conduct to maintain trust and hold people accountable.

4. Working styles

Much like communication, individuals have preferences related to their work style. These styles represent how people prefer to organize and complete their responsibilities. For example, some people are more detail-oriented, while others prefer to look at the big picture when working on projects. Hosting conversations or activities about this topic can help your team understand everyone's preferred work styles.

When your team understands everyone's work styles, you can combine them for optimal results. For example, you may assign the detail-oriented person organizational responsibilities during a project. Allowing this person to handle timeline or budgeting activities can enable your team to stay on task.

Similarly, individual team members can use these styles to identify who can help them with daily responsibilities. Someone can ask the detail-oriented team member to proofread the proposal they wrote to ensure they didn't make any errors.

Related: The 4 Working Styles and Why They're Important

5. Conflict management

Disagreements are sometimes inevitable in the workplace. Hosting conversations about conflict management can help your team members learn to address and overcome these situations productively.

This topic can cover the impacts of conflict and steps for resolving various team conflicts. As a manager, you may identify who your team can look to for additional support, such as you or an HR professional.

Addressing conflict management topics shows you care about creating a positive environment. Providing tactics can also ensure employees understand how to address issues respectfully, helping prevent them from escalating and negatively affecting the team.

Related: 4 Common Types of Team Conflict and How To Resolve Them

6. Virtual teams

Some teams work in entirely or part-time virtual teams. Remote work offers unique challenges and benefits, which you can discuss with virtual team-building topics.

For example, you may discuss virtual communication methods, such as instant messaging systems, video meetings and phone calls. Knowing how to communicate virtually ensures that your team can understand one another and share information effectively without in-person interactions.

You can also discuss potential challenges that arise with virtual work and how to overcome them. Consider establishing virtual team boundaries, such as allowing members to define their communication preferences and schedules.

7. Diversity and inclusion

Promoting diversity and inclusivity on your team can help everyone feel appreciated and welcomed. Having diverse perspectives on your team can often lead to more innovative and creative ideas during collaboration efforts.

When team members feel valued for their unique qualities, it can also help them feel more confident. As a result, they may be more willing to share their thoughts and opinions during team meetings or projects.

You can host conversations on various diversity topics to increase your team members' awareness. For example, you may host diverse guest speakers who can describe their experiences.

You can also focus on topics related to improving inclusivity, such as techniques to combat bias, stereotypes or microaggressions in the workplace. Showing a commitment to inclusivity can make all members of your team, no matter their age, gender or background, feel comfortable at work.

8. Problem-solving

Inevitably, your team will probably encounter challenges during their workdays or on projects. Hosting discussions and activities about problem-solving topics can help your team members learn and practice techniques that enable them to navigate these situations as a team.

Rather than competing against one another to develop solutions, these activities should encourage a teamwork mentality. Your team can take these techniques and implement them when they encounter future issues. Problem-solving activities, such as brainstorming, enable you to teach team members how to collaborate when generating ideas.

Related: 3 Problem-Solving Activities for Team Building

9. Trust

Trust enables teams to create stronger relationships. When members can rely on one another to perform their tasks or offer support at work, it can promote improved collaboration and productivity.

They may feel more comfortable asking for help or sharing responsibilities. During trust team-building topics, you can emphasize the importance of trust in the workplace and how it contributes to a more productive team.

Trust often overlaps with communication topics. For example, a trust activity may involve blindfolding an individual while another person provides directions to navigate safely through a room or obstacle course.

Related: 22 Trust-Building Activities

10. Employee engagement

Employee engagement represents a work environment in which all team members feel connected to the organization's values and goals. When employees align with the company vision, it can help them feel happier at work and more eager to contribute to its objectives.

This improved morale may lead to a more productive team. You can use engagement as a team-building topic by hosting discussions or gathering feedback about what your team members enjoy most about work.

Understanding these various interests can help you create an engaging work environment. For example, some may seek more challenges at work or opportunities to learn new skills.

You can use these insights to assign responsibilities to individuals or develop more engaging meetings and events for them. You may even find opportunities for your team members to learn from one another through cross-training activities.