Teamwork is all about interaction.
Escape rooms are effective team building exercises because everyone involved is on the same team, working together to accomplish a task. Unlike sports, there is no training involved to participate, and unlike sports, just about anyone can play the game.
Escape rooms reveal the various talents that individual have and require team members to rely on each other. Humans are often tempted to think that everyone thinks like they do, but escape rooms reveal that our brains work differently. It's not all about what you know, but about how you see, interact with, and process information. Some people are good with organization. Others are good at mathematics or literature, and some people are competitive enough to push the team forward. All of these skills, and more, are very important in an escape room.
When people feel like they are part of a team, they work toward goals with more enthusiasm, and they enjoy the experience more. Yes there are some fanatics who do escape rooms alone, but that eliminates one of the best aspects of escape rooms. In fact, some of my favorite rooms have puzzles that cannot be completed by an individual.
Sometimes there are two buttons in two separate areas that must be pushed at the same time. Sometimes one person will have to shout information that is on a wall in one area so that the person in the other area can enter that information into a decoder or lock. I think these elements add to the teamwork aspect, and that is one of the most valuable aspects of escape rooms.
A good escape room also has low hanging fruit. In most groups there are people who have less escape room experience and skill than the others in the group. Good teams will leave the simpler puzzles for the more inexperienced players, and a good room will have at least a few simple puzzles.
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