Imagine your team is sitting around a table and each person is curiously examining a jar full of liquid with a jellyfish-like organism floating in it. You might be wondering what fermentation has to do with team building, but from years of experience, I can guarantee that it is a recipe for community and connection.
After an engaging hour-long session of sampling home-brewed kombucha, discussing the benefits of probiotics, walking through the brewing process step by step and munching on some snacks made with kombucha, your teammates are ready to brew their very own kombucha. Your office is filled with excited chatter about what people are naming their SCOBYs (kombucha brewing organisms) and unique flavors they are dreaming up
After teaching over 100 kombucha brewing workshops since 2012, I have found that the process of brewing this delicious and slightly strange beverage makes a perfect team building activity. I have worked with companies like Google, AirBnB, Indiegogo and Atlassian to bring people together over their curiosity about the popular probiotic beverage, kombucha.
The top four reasons kombucha brewing is an excellent team building activity for your company:
1. Levels the playing field. It doesn’t matter if you are an executive or in an entry level position, learning a totally new skill helps to lower your ego and connects you with your colleagues in a new way. Learning how to brew kombucha is not difficult, but it does require special steps and makes you relate to your food in a totally new way.
2. Creates accountability. Making kombucha is like taking care of a plant, except that plant gives you a delicious probiotic beverage. Some people are not very good at taking care of plants or completing tasks on time... Brewing kombucha with your teammates helps strengthen the “follow-through” muscle and helps people have fun by being accountable taking care of their new “food pet”.
3. Builds community around health. The office gossip could be about who got the most hammered at happy hour last week or it could be about how folks are excited to share the new kombucha flavors they made over the weekend. By choosing a team activity that is focused on creating a new healthy habit, you are supporting your employees in taking care of themselves. People who feel good in their bodies will undoubtedly perform better, collaborate well and be happy!
4. It's fun! One of the most important things about a successful team building event is that people have a good time. Learning how to make kombucha takes something that everyone can relate to and enjoys - food - and teaches them the secrets behind how to make it at home. Kombucha also has a delightful novelty about it because it uses a mat of cells (known as a SCOBY- symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) that everyone loves to feel weird about. This collective new experience creates lasting connection and community.
