Trust in teams
Build a team that trusts each other
Trust is what lets a team move fast without second-guessing. This Growth day builds the reliability and honesty that let people depend on each other’s word.
Choose your activity
Four team building activities built to improve trust in teams
Each one gives the team a real challenge to work through together, then we wrap the same guided reflection around it. Pick the one that fits your group, or ask us to recommend.
Cardboard Boat Building
The Cardboard Boat Building Challenge is a high-stakes test of creativity and resourcefulness where teams must engineer a seaworthy vessel using nothing but cardboard and packing tape. With a strict one-hour deadline, participants are forced to move quickly from design to construction, relying on rapid prototyping and collective problem-solving to ensure their boat survives the final race. This hands-on activity builds team synergy by requiring participants to leverage every member’s unique skills while adapting to extreme resource constraints.
Collaborate!
Only those teams who learn to set aside their differences stand a chance to win Collaborate, an interactive team building exercise unlike any other. Collaborate is a mission-rich peer bonding activity with a twist: competing teams must work together to maximise their scores. Teams are spread out and each team receives tasks, questions, and other quirky, fun-filled assignments in a mobile app. Accomplish each mission to earn your team points. On some of these missions, however, you’ll need to interact with rival teams, then work with them to accomplish your assignments.
Escape Room: Prison Break
This high-stakes prison escape simulation plunges your team into a race against time where every second counts toward a successful breakthrough. Locked in a cell by unknown captors, participants must decode cryptic puzzles and navigate conflicting opinions to find the exit before time runs out. The intense pressure necessitates seamless communication and the full participation of every member, turning a dire scenario into a powerful exercise in collective problem-solving. It is a visceral, adrenaline-fueled mission that transforms individual stress into unified team resilience, proving that clear coordination is the only key to survival.
Drone Challenge
The Drone Challenge is a high-tech aerial mission that transforms a group of novices into a squadron of precision pilots. Starting in Flight School, participants master the basics of drone handling before shifting into a strategic design phase where they must collaborate to construct devious obstacle courses meant to sabotage their rivals. This activity perfectly blends engineering ingenuity with real-time dexterity, proving that a team’s success in the modern world depends on their ability to build for the future and navigate turbulence with a steady, collective hand.
Not sure which fits? Tell us your group size & preferred date and we’ll recommend the best activity for the trust in teams outcome.
who is this growth day for
For teams running low on trust
If any of these sound like your team, a trust day rebuilds the reliability they’re missing.
Commitments get made but don’t always get kept
People double-check each other’s work instead of relying on it
Small frustrations go unsaid and quietly build up
Recent changes or turnover have shaken the team’s trust
People play it safe rather than depend on one another
trust that holds
What your team
walks away with
Through a shared challenge and guided reflection, the team learns to rely on each other again and carry that trust back into everyday work.
Keep your word
Do what you said you would, so people can rely on you.
Depend on each other
Hand off work knowing it’ll be handled.
Be honest early
Raise issues straight, before they fester.
Assume good intent
Give teammates the benefit of the doubt.
Own your part
Take responsibility instead of pointing fingers.
Rebuild after knocks
Repair trust when something has shaken it.
How a growth day works
The activity changes. The method doesn’t.
Whichever activity you choose, we wrap it in the same Frame → Pause → Commit method, so the day stays fun, but the trust lessons actually stick.
Deep, hands-on facilitation. Facilitators draw out the learning at every step.
1
Pre-frame
Set the mindset for the day: be focused, curious, present and open to being vulnerable.
2
Targeted outcome
Facilitated discussion with videos & slides to name the one thing the team will focus on in the activity.
3
The activity
Run the experience with that focus front of mind, so the lesson plays out in real time.
4
Guided reflection
What did you notice? What went well? Were you able to hold the focus? Facilitators turn the experience into insight.
5
Moving forward
Build a concrete action plan for putting the learning to work back in the office.
A worksheet runs through every step, from pre-frame to forming the action plan at the end.
Frequently Asked Questions, answered
Who is this growth day for?
Teams where work gets double checked as a matter of course, commitments slip without anyone saying so, and frustrations get aired everywhere except in the room. It often follows a restructure, staff turnover or a stretch where things went wrong.
What will be different afterwards?
People keep their word, and say so early when they can’t. Frustrations surface while they’re still small, colleagues assume good intent rather than a hidden motive, and the team has a way to rebuild after a knock instead of quietly writing someone off.
Why these activities?
We have four activities, all designed so a team has to rely on each other to get anywhere. In Cardboard Boat Building, teams have one hour to engineer a seaworthy boat from cardboard and tape, then put their trust in the build for the final race. Prison Break needs every member’s full participation and a team that can work through conflicting opinions to find the way out. In the Drone Challenge, teams learn to fly, then design obstacle courses for their rivals, counting on each other’s skills along the way. And in Collaborate!, even competing teams have to work together to maximise their scores, which is a great lesson in relying on others.
How is it different from Psychological Safety?
Trust is about reliability: do people do what they said they would? Psychological safety is about candour: is it safe to say the difficult thing? If commitments are being missed, this is the one for you.
Trust has really broken down. Can one day fix that?
What this growth day can do is get people talking about it openly, often for the first time, and give the team a shared starting point. If the damage runs deep, think of it as a great first step rather than a complete fix. For trust that has really broken down, a series of growth days spread over a few months can work better than a single day, and our Team Performance workshops, led by James, are designed for exactly that. We’ll tell you honestly which one fits your team.
Let’s design your teams growth day
Tell us the outcome you’re chasing and the team you’re bringing. We’ll shape a day that delivers it and is genuinely good fun along the way.
