Escape Room Best Practices: A Microcosm of High-performance in the Workplace

When we began analyzing the best practices for successful escapes at Escape Manor, we suspected that there would be some similarities between these best practices and team high-performance in the workplace.

We just didn’t know there would be so many.

While the physical environment, timeline and nature of the objectives are quite different than most workplaces, the fundamental attitudes, beliefs and behaviours required for success are closely related.

We have conducted over 70 team-building and leadership development sessions since we rolled out Escape Manor for Business/ Students over a year and a half ago, and we continue to see teams reap the benefits of this engaging professional development model.

Based on MentorU’s 5 Critical Components for High-performance, these team-building sessions weave together success factors in the workplace and escape room best practices.

At MentorU, we believe that all high-performing teams share the following qualities:

1 – Shared purpose

2 – Good communication

3 – Effective leadership

4 – Mutual trust

5 - Synergy

As it happens, these qualities – while demonstrated in slightly different ways – are equally as important in escape rooms.

Our team-building sessions start with an engaging and dynamic escape attempt, which serves as a mechanism to identify and analyze team strengths and challenges. Teams then complete a self-evaluation of their performance with the help of a professional coach, who helps the team reach below the surface to identify underlying group norms, values and beliefs that guide behaviour. Finally, teams identify one or two objectives to implement in their day-to-day interactions that can help them optimize their strengths and/or address their challenges.

The most common reaction we hear from our clients is “I have done a lot of different team-building activities, and this was by far the best”, or “I was pleasantly surprised – to be honest, I was kind of dreading this, and it was both fun and educational.”

In this series of articles, we will share a sampling of the escape room best practices and connect them to high-performance in the workplace.

We would love to help your team build trust and leadership skills. Contact us to let us know how we can help you!

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