The Team Tradition You Didn’t Know You Needed
Building a strong, cohesive team isn’t just about meetings and deadlines—it’s about creating shared experiences. In this video, I’ll introduce a simple yet powerful strategy to bring your team closer together: establishing a new team tradition. Whether it’s a yearly event or a small recurring ritual, traditions foster connection, boost morale, and make work more enjoyable. I’ll share a few personal examples and offer ideas to help you get started (see below).
Brainstorming Board: Team Traditions for Stronger Connection
Annual or Quarterly Team Offsite – Dedicate time for reflection, strategic planning, and team bonding in a fresh environment.
Team Coffee Walks – Once a week, take a group walk to a coffee shop, or once a month, take drink orders and surprise the team with a special delivery.
Traveling Team Trophy – Find a quirky thrift-store trophy and pass it around at the end of each staff meeting. The recipient from the previous week awards it to a new teammate, sharing a few words about why they deserve it. Each winner must add something fun to the trophy before passing it on.
Themed Dress-Up Days – Plan occasional fun dress-up days to add energy and laughter to the workplace.
Daily Stretch Breaks – Meet in a conference room at the same time each day for a quick 5–10 minute stretch break. Rotate who leads the stretches.
Brown Bag TED Talks – Host a weekly or monthly lunch session where the team picks and discusses an inspiring TED Talk.
Celebration Posters – For birthdays or work anniversaries, create a simple poster where teammates write one positive word or phrase about the person being celebrated.
Community Service Project – Come together once a quarter or year to give back to a local cause as a team.
Fun Fact Friday – Once a month, have each team member write a fun fact about themselves and place it in a hat. Read them aloud and see who can guess the most correctly.
Team Potlucks – Choose a fun theme (e.g., favorite breakfast treat, Italian food, best snacks) and have everyone bring a matching dish or drink.
Want even more ideas? Ask your favorite AI tool for a list of 20 team traditions that foster connection!
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If you are looking for ways to create stronger cohesion on your team, I have a new strategy for you today, and that is to establish a new team tradition. Let me explain.
For the past several years, my girlfriends and I have established a new tradition, and that is every Super Bowl Sunday, we head up to the mountains. We ski all day, and the slopes are pretty empty on Super Bowl Sunday, which is great. Then we head over to my friend's cabin. We each bring a different appetizer or snack to share, and we sit and enjoy the game together, and it's the best. We look forward to this tradition every single year.
When I reflect back on my time at Boeing, I think some of my fondest memories revolve around the annual traditions that our team had created, and we would leave those traditions feeling more, more unified and more excited about the work that we were doing. We also had some weekly and monthly traditions that were not such a big deal, that just created stronger cohesion on the team.
And so I want to challenge you to consider establishing a new tradition on your team. What is something that you can do that brings the team together, that people look forward to doing, and it creates a stronger sense of belonging and cohesion that helps you then fuel the work in even more powerful ways.
If you're feeling stumped, you can head to the blog post and I will include a list of different ideas to get those creative juices flowing.