It's no secret that some people find team-building exercises, well, alienating.

不少人觉得团队活动很无趣已经不是什么秘密了。

While big, far-flung organizations still use team building in attempts to improve communication and camaraderie, many who participate end up wishing everyone had just stayed at their desks. In a 2012 survey of more than 1,000 office workers by Wakefield Research, commissioned by Citrix, nearly one-third said they had attended team builders that either weren't in line with company culture or that put employees in embarrassing or uncomfortable situations.

虽然大型跨地区的企业组织依然利用团队建设活动促进员工间的交流和感情，但许多参加者在活动结束后想的却是大家不如各自呆在办公桌旁就好了。在2012年思杰(Citrix)委托Wakefield Research对逾1,000名办公室员工进行的一项调查中，有近1/3的人说他们参加过的团队活动要么与公司文化不符，要么让员工很尴尬难受。

In response, many organizers have embraced new strategies to make team builders more engaging. No one wants to play long and boring games designed to educate employees about company processes or culture, the new thinking goes. Favored events now include cooking classes, learning to ice-sculpt, fencing and even donning fat suits for sumo wrestling.

为了解决这个问题，许多组织者开始采用新的策略让团队建设更加吸引人。这种新策略的出发点是，没有人愿意玩那种冗长无趣、仅仅是为了教育员工认识企业流程或文化而设计的游戏。如今受到员工喜爱的活动包括烹饪课、学习冰雕、击剑、甚至是穿相扑运动专用的胖人服。

The new kinds of team-building events, many of which tap into pop culture, are much more likely to engage reluctant participants, and are better tailored to different corporate cultures, says David Goldstein, chief operating officer of TeamBonding, a Chicago-based company that organizes team-building events.

芝加哥专门组织团队建设活动的公司TeamBonding的首席运营长大卫・戈德斯坦(David Goldstein)说，这些新型的团队活动有不少引入流行文化的元素，它们更能吸引那些不愿参加活动的员工，也能够更好地根据不同公司的文化进行量身定制。

No Recipes

没有食谱的烹饪比赛

Mr. Goldstein's company, for example, arranged a cooking exercise for Thermo Fisher Scientific, a maker of laboratory equipment based in Waltham, Mass. Some 25 managers from around the world, coming together for a week of meetings, on the first night were divided into five teams. Each team was assigned to make a course for dinner within a set time. The teams were told what to make, and whether it was an appetizer, an entree or dessert. The ingredients were all laid out. But there were no recipes.

比如，戈德斯坦的公司为总部位于马萨诸塞州沃尔瑟姆市的实验室器材制造商赛默飞世尔科技(Thermo Fisher Scientific)安排了一次烹饪活动。从全球各地来参加一周会议的25名管理者在第一个晚上被分成了五个小组，每个小组要在规定时间内为晚餐做一道菜。这些团队被告知要做什么菜，是开胃菜、主菜还是甜点。食材都已备好。只是没有食谱。

To make spanakopita, a savory Greek spinach pie, Ronald J. O'Brien, director of public relations for Thermo Fisher Scientific, says his team had to assimilate and understand one another's personalities quickly. 'We were all leaders,' Mr. O'Brien says, 'and the process highlighted the differences in the way we all approach a situation, which person would be in charge and how work would be delegated.'

为了做出美味的传统希腊式馅饼spanakopita，赛默飞世尔科技的公共关系总监罗纳德・奥布赖恩(Ronald J. O'Brien)说，他的小组成员不得迅速去熟悉和了解其他人的性格。“我们都是领导者，” 奥布赖恩说，“整个过程凸显了我们处理同一个状况采取的不同方式，谁应该负责，工作如何分配。”

Sometimes team-building events are one of the few times that remote colleagues come together. Other times, team builders take colleagues who work together all of the time and show them something new about one another.

有时候，团队活动是让不同地方的同事聚在一起难得的机会；而有些时候，团队活动又可以让每天都在一起工作的同事有机会展现出各自不同的一面。

Big Sandbox

大沙盒子

Superior Farms Inc., a lamb producer and distributor based in Davis, Calif., was looking for a new team-building idea for its 11 senior executives when it found Dig This, a company in Las Vegas that bills itself as a 'heavy equipment playground.' Co-workers doing team building there take the controls of heavy construction equipment to accomplish customized team missions.

加州戴维斯市的羊肉生产分销企业Superior Farms Inc.想为公司11名高管寻找一种新的团队建设思路，后来在拉斯维加斯找到一家名为Dig This的公司，这家公司把自己称作“重型设备游乐园。”在这里参加团队建设活动的同事要操控重型建筑设备，完成定制的小组任务。

Operating an excavator, which tends to be a new experience for everyone, put Karen Ellis way out of her comfort zone. Ms. Ellis, the Superior Farms vice president of human resources, says that if it weren't for the specific directions that her team partner spoke calmly and encouragingly into her headset, she wouldn't have been able to do her part for her team.

开挖掘机似乎对每个人都是全新的体验，也让凯伦・埃利斯(Karen Ellis)进入了一个自己完全不熟悉的领域。埃利斯是Superior Farms人力资源副总裁，她说，如果不是她的小组搭档通过耳机冷静地告诉她具体该怎么做并不停地鼓励她，她绝对完不成自己那部分任务。

'He was so patient with me and knew exactly what I needed to hear,' says Ms. Ellis, adding that it gave her a fresh perspective on someone she works with every day.

埃利斯说，他非常有耐心，而且完全知道我需要听到什么。她还说，这让她对每天都在一起工作的这名同事有了全新的认识。

One of the big trends in team building is to model events after what's happening in pop culture, including doing things for charities and nonprofits. Jibe Consulting, a management and technology company in Lake Oswego, Ore., chose an activity created by Wildly Different, a team-building company based in Orlando, Fla.

团队建设领域的另外一大趋势就是模仿流行文化的活动，包括为慈善和非营利组织做事情。俄勒冈州奥斯威戈湖市的管理和技术公司Jibe Consulting就选择了由Wildly Different设计的一项活动。后者是位于佛罗里达州的团队活动组织公司。

Some 70 Jibe employees were split into teams of 10, which assembled and decorated little red wagons, then completed various tasks to win toys and fill up their wagons. Teams that have the best-decorated wagon and acquire the most toys win award medals.

Jibe的70名员工被分成10人一组的小组，工作是安装和装饰一辆红色四轮小车，然后通过完成各种任务来赢得玩具装进他们的小车里。把小车装饰得最好看、并赢得最多玩具的小组将赢得奖牌。

'To see an IT guy stand up and hum a tune for us to guess the song showed me a whole new personal side of him,' says Melissa Humes, Jibe's HR director.

Jibe的人力资源总监梅丽莎・休姆斯(Melissa Humes)说，“一个搞IT的人站起来，哼着曲调让我们猜歌名，让我看到了他全新的另一面。”

'But the best part about the event,' she adds, 'was having the Ronald McDonald House come in and take all the wagons for the kids.'

但她又说，活动最棒的部分是看到慈善机构麦当劳叔叔之家(Ronald McDonald House)来拿走所有为孩子们做的小车。