Inter-employee tensions are one of the hardest internal struggles you’ll face as a business leader. After all, you could have the best talent in the industry, and it would still be wasted on endless sources of distraction, including bickering, one-upping each other, and general communication failures. As quickly as that, your strongest team members could become your weakest, and your business will pay the price.
Unfortunately, there’s no real way to avoid personal disagreements in a workplace that’s filled with differing personalities. These are people who wouldn’t necessarily come together in their personal lives. Cramming them together in a company pressure-cooker will always lead to some overspill. But there are steps you can take to limit any resulting damage.
In-house conflict resolution and interpersonal training will all help with this. But what happens when you’ve tried your best and tensions are still brewing? Many managers swear by the benefit of dedicated team-building activities that get everyone out of the office and having fun while working together.
There are loads of different options to choose from when considering activities like these, but murder mysteries are undeniably one of the most popular modern options. And, in this article, we’re going to consider why a murder mystery could be the ideal way to finally kill the tension between your employees.
# 1 – Nothing Wrong With Role Play
Murder mysteries stand apart from many other team-building activities thanks to their heavy role-play leanings. Your team members won’t be themselves during this team-building activity – they’ll be dressed up and hopefully immersed in the roles of their characters.
This can be especially beneficial amongst teams experiencing personality clashes, as it removes surface frictions and allows them to work together on a deeper level. If things are really bad between certain team members, you may even find it beneficial for everyone to arrive in disguise. That way, guessing who everyone is adds a fun additional element to the evening, as well as entirely removing any preconceptions. That way, your most ill-suited employees might end up working together without even realizing it, and may even get along before they discover who one another are!
# 2 – Playing With Unlikely Pairings
Often, bonding activities that require employees to work in teams see them simply choosing the people they get along with. Even this has its benefits, but it doesn’t really serve to bring a fractured team together. For that, you need a murder mystery.
Rather than relying on traditional teams, murder mysteries often see players working together based on their characters or roles within the wider story. While teamwork is inevitably still involved for deciphering clues and guessing the murderer, this setup is liable to shake those go-to pairings in place of more randomized teamwork.
This could see employees who don’t really get along having to work together for the night. It could also lead to colleagues from entirely different teams coming together in ways they might not have otherwise. In both instances, communication and collaboration will inevitably follow.
# 3 – The Need to Listen
Murder mysteries are also unique in that they require a much higher level of listening skills than, say, more boisterous activity days. In fact, the team that finally triumphs is the one that listens best to both the players they’re working with and the other people in the game. This is the only way to find the murderer. And, you’d be surprised by how beneficial it can be for bringing your entire team together.
This is especially important considering that technology now means employees don’t necessarily need to communicate face-to-face. They can simply send an email or instant message to someone elsewhere in the office. This is the reason for many misunderstandings, as employees may read the tone or intention of a message wrong.
By spending this time genuinely hearing what each person has to say, your team will connect on a whole new level. They may also learn to better understand their colleagues’ thought patterns this way, which could help to avoid further misunderstandings down the line.
# 4 – Putting the Pieces Together
Murder mysteries aren’t about running the fastest, or even putting your heads together to solve a physical dilemma, like getting across a lake. They’re about intricate teamwork and the ability to carefully collect pieces that will, eventually, slot together to form a complete puzzle. They take time, patience, and some pretty serious team problem-solving over the course of the event. Hence, they’re pretty much the best activity you can get from a teamwork perspective.
It’s certainly difficult to imagine anything better if you want your teams to really work hard for their reward. As well as honing personal problem-solving skills, this task will involve teamwork that your employees have never, and probably will never, embark upon again. And, those could well end up being skills they call on the next time they’re together in a work bind.
# 5 – Laughter as the Best Medicine
Murder mysteries are also great for just getting your team to laugh together, which might not be something they’ve been doing much of if things have been tense of late. If they only ever argue about serious matters when they come together, then is it really any surprise they aren’t each other’s biggest advocates?
Removing them from that can prove transformative. Of course, this is true with any kind of fun team-building activity, but it’s especially valid with murder mysteries. Everything from the setup to the role play and the often ludicrous characters they’re expected to play, will probably get even those team members who are grumpiest at each other laughing together. And, hopefully, that’s a level of laughter they can bring back to the office with them!
Takeaway
Tension in your teams can quickly unravel productivity and morale. Make sure that doesn’t happen by killing those tensions with team building. A murder mystery could be precisely the bonding activity that brings these key benefits into your business now and moving forward!
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