Innovative, creative teams all have one thing in common—mutual understanding and trust. But how do you build trust with people you only see in Zoom meetings? Without the spontaneous lunch breaks and coffee break chatter of a shared workspace, building a strong and sustainable team culture can be a challenge. And whether your company is remote-first or remote-for-COVID, you’ve likely learned by now that awkward virtual happy hours just don’t cut it. 

But successful remote team building is possible, even in a pandemic. At Cultivate, we’ve found that intentional activities that allow our team members to get to know one another on a personal level are always worth the effort—and are usually an awful lot of fun. 

Teach Me Something

The easiest way to keep virtual team building from feeling like work is, well, not making it about work. Our latest win is a strategy we’re calling “Teach Me Something.” The premise is simple: each team member gets 30 minutes to teach the rest of the group something new, using whatever format they choose. And when we say something, we mean anything—no rules. 

Then, the team spends another 30 minutes debriefing, talking through the teaching structure and approach, and identifying insights that we can apply to our learning programs in the future. 

Wondering what this looks like in practice? We’d love to tell you.

Birdwatching with Kris 

Kris Benefield, our Learning Design and Development Lead, is a passionate birdwatcher. But don’t worry—she didn’t make us sit through a slideshow of the birds she’s seen. Instead, she pitched us on why we should also go birding and asked us to give it a try right then and there. The first step? Spending a few minutes researching common birds in our areas and choosing one to look for.

Then we turned our videos off and went for a walk around our respective neighborhoods “together” in search of those birds. With team members spread across the continental US and then some walking in weather ranging from wintry to downright tropical, we experienced quite a few climates in one call. Nevertheless, we left the presentation feeling like we’d just gone on a shared in-person stroll—and with a newfound appreciation for our feathered neighbors.

Cooking with Steve

Our founder, Steve Garguilo, wanted to share his famous lasagna with us from afar, so he turned Cultivate into the Food Network for a day. Not content to simply tell us how to make his recipe, he showed us and allowed us to follow along in real time. Steve’s careful camera angle made the experience feel closer to watching the Bon Appetit test kitchen than attending a work presentation. 

Steve asked us to turn off our videos and to keep questions off chat. Instead, we chimed in when we didn’t understand a step or needed to know exactly which kind of cheese he recommends. This gave the team clarity on how to engage, kept things feeling conversational, and allowed those of us cooking along to hide the messes in our kitchens.

Editing Photos with Abel

Abel, our graphic designer, used his visual talents to teach us how to edit photos on our phones using the Snapseed app. He found that a slideshow worked perfectly for the purpose of delivering a step-by-step guide—and for giving us a cheat sheet to use in the future.

That tutorial, though, came with experiential practice. Abel asked us each to download the app and follow along throughout the presentation, tinkering with different settings and tools and asking questions when things didn’t quite click. By the end of the presentation, we had our own beautified images and hands-on experience using the tool.

Why “Teach Me Something” Works

In our experience, there’s no better way to draw someone out than to ask them about their passions. Teach Me Something allowed us to understand what makes our coworkers tick just a little better. Once we see each other as fully-dimensional human beings, we’re able to work together in much more authentic ways. Plus, the experiential nature of Teach Me Something gave us fun, new shared experiences to bond over. 

As a remote-first organization, we’re always looking for new ways to engage from afar, and unleashing the creativity of our team members led us in unexpected and exciting new directions. We’ll use that inspiration in our own programming moving forward, just as we’ll continue to nurture our shared trust and understanding.  

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