101 indoor team building activities in Bangkok

This is a blog team building in Bangkok in nine parts, and you will find 101 fun, engaging and meaningful indoor team building activities to improve social relationships and teamwork skills among your workforce.

If you want to skip the introduction, and jump right to the first twelve activities, click here.

Bangkok has many things to offer, from bustling temples, over lavish shopping opportunities to a glittering nightlife. But one thing stands out above, all. Meeting hotels, MICE events, and team building opportunities.

Before we get into each specific activity, what is team building and why are so many organizations around the world doing it?

Team building is the combined effort to build relationships and camaraderie among your workforce through activities, games, training exercises and other social undertakings.

To explain team building more thoroughly and indoor team building games in particular, we have drawn a chart with two axes, an X axis and a Y axis.

On the far-left side of the X axis is relationship building and entertainment and the far-right axis is relationship and learning.

The Y axis is organizational development, if we play indoor games or engage in activities that have a direct impact on your business, the activity is on the top and if the impact on organizational development is small, it is on the bottom.

Theoretically, we should have a 3rd axis, a three-dimensional chart with a Z-axis. The Z-axis would be the impact on environment, while on one end, the impact is positive, i.e. CSR activities, or you do team building in your office and save Co2, and the other end of the spectrum is negative, i.e. you fly half-way around the world which has a large impact on global warming. But it is not practical to draw a third axis, so we have omitted it.

If we had a 4th axis, which is related to the Y axis, I would call it short impact and long impact, but I know we are losing our readers with too much technicality.

In summary, the spectrum of what you can call a team building activity is very wide, and if you ever wondered, why some call a Karaoke night a team building exercise , here on the chart you see it. Karaoke night is on thee bottom left of the grid, because it’s lots of fun but it has barely any impact on your organizational development, except that of course it builds better relationships among your workforce (if you don’t end up fighting when drunk).

Have you ever intended to attend a Thai cooking class , and you think this is a fun activity, people will enjoy it, but they will also learn some new skills? The skills they learn are cooking skills and knowledge about local plants and ingredients, but have no direct impact on your work, i.e. it doesn’t change your work-culture or you won’t be a better leader after completion, or you do not learn how prioritize your tasks at work during this workshop. So, our Top Chef activity is about in the middle between fun and learning but on the lower spectrum of the grid.

We also need to distinguish between team building for MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) and teamwork skills training, an HR or management affair.

When it comes to team building for MICE, team events or activities are conducted as part of a larger meeting, conference or exhibition that takes place in Bangkok. Often, they are conducted outside, whereby participants discover the city’s attractions, go through cultural activities and compete in an Amazing Race or City Hunt. More about outdoor team building activities in our next blog post.

But when meeting organizers choose icebreakers, or indoor team building activities with the purpose of enhancing their meeting, like the MeetingÉnergie Program , then those activities are on the upper part of the grid, because they have, although a short-lasting, but a large impact on your work (the meeting that is under way).

Icebreakers are great to start a meeting, a conference or a training session. They are usually short, and some activities are fun and competitive, slightly physical in nature and their purpose is to pump up a tired, over-worked and lethargic meeting audience.

But most of the team building activities that MICE agents choose is on the lower spectrum of the grid, there is no or just a little direct impact on your work or organization at large, like the Bangkok Amazing Race. It is fun, you will learn about Bangkok and its culture but the impact on your work is not that great.

There is also a trend that meeting groups choose indoor team building activities in Bangkok, because they become more environmentally conscious and they do not want to travel far away and spend lots of Co2. They usually have a tight schedule and indoor team building can help to fill a gap in your itinerary. Do finish your meeting early, why not do an hour’s team building activity before dinner?

But most organization based in Bangkok who are looking for an indoor team building program, have a program that can change their organizational culture. They are thinking of a Five Dysfunctions or Team Turnaround Program. We call these teamwork skills training workshops, and they are on the top right of the chart. Some of these programs are geared towards organizational change, others more towards personal development, like improving communication, creativity, problem solving.

In regards to the team building venue, i.e. the meeting or conference room, where the team building takes place, well, they usually take place in one of the many meeting hotels in Bangkok, but they can also be take place in shared offices, restaurants, or other venues that are chartered on a private basis.

More about meeting and team building venues in Bangkok in our next blog sections.

Continue reading with 101 indoor team building activities in Bangkok: Activity 01 to12 (Icebreakers)