Sometimes playing in the sun is not always that fun. It can be a lot of work to convince your team to PLAY in the heat. Don’t worry, you don’t have to push your team event off until winter.  We’ve got a handful of games that are a guaranteed good time, regardless of the summer weather outside.

It’s Wednesday at 2pm and you are bored. You glance at the rows of desks where your co-workers sit quietly transfixed on their glowing monitors, as if they are all being beckoned to “go to the light”. A spreadsheet gleams back at you from your own screen, the sexy allure of its many complex calculations has faded long ago. You start to shake with Facebook withdrawal, as it has been 40 minutes since you checked your last pithy post that has received only one like...from your mom.

According to Gallup, the average full-time worker spends 47 hours a week on the clock. So ponder this for a minute: If work isn’t a fun environment, that’s an awful lot of drudgery. Perhaps the grind explains the miserly 32.6 percent of employees who are engaged in their work.

In elementary school, we probably all had few teachers who said, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question.” And, as kids, every time we heard that line, there was a collective eye roll. But in spite of the inherent snarkiness of adolescence, the point was made: No one deserves to be ridiculed for being curious. It’s a good rule. And it’s one way that teachers create what’s known as psychological safety in their classrooms. The intent is to foster a space where students can feel confident that no one will embarrass, reject or punish them for speaking up.

The internet changed everything. The world gained global access to ever-growing sources of information (both real and false), commerce (both legit and scammy), platforms for socializing and endless entertainment. At The Go Game, what we’ve appreciated most—well, aside from hundreds of hours of delightful cat videos and dazzling memes—is seeing that play is truly universal.

Far be it for us to stand in the way of fun, whatever the form, but we’ve noticed a trend lately: Some organizations are blurring the line between team building and recreation. Most corporate adventures pursued under the guise of team building sound ridiculously fun—excursions that include bungee jumping, paintball, GoKart racing, rock climbing and so on. And while we whole-heartedly approve of the spirit of these exploits, there is a key distinction between recreation and team building.