First, let's get the biggest hurdle out of the way: Despite team building's tarnished reputation (thank you, rabbit killer course and endless mess mom exercises!), team building can actually have a positive effect on a team's performance—if done right.

According to entrepreneur.com research shows that team building works. If you avoid offensive, awkward and forced situations. So don't ask your team to reveal their worst fears, and avoid pushing them into situations they don't want to be in. Few people like this forced mix of work and personal life.

What can be done instead?

1. Team building works – if it's done right

David W. Ballard of APA's APA's Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program, denominator these five simple activities:

• Volunteering. Planning volunteer work encourages your employees to “give back to the community” And according to Ballard, research even shows that volunteering gives employees new energy on the job.
• Physical activity. Ballard suggests activities such as softball, bowling, walking or running. Be sure to also choose activities other than the CEO's favorite so that participation doesn't feel forced. He also advises that you make sure you choose activities where everyone can participate and where the risk of injury is small.
• Excursions. Casual outings to a nearby park or museum, or a trip to a football game, can have a big impact on your team.
• Professional development. When you invite your employees to a really good workshop, they get both training and the development of their professional relationships in new surroundings.
• Shared meals. Something as simple as you and your team eating together regularly helps your employees get to know each other in an informal way.

2. A diverse team is a good team

So who should you have on your team? The research comes up with several different propositions. Make sure you have:

• Both an analyst and a strategist on your team. Their two different ways of working balance each other and make for a more well-functioning team.
• Socially sensitive team members. The research says, that women in particular are good at sensitive things. That the members of the team are able to "read" when other members are frustrated. Busy, confused or embarrassed strengthens team cohesion.
• Both extroverts and introverts. Extroverts often make a good first impression, but research shows, that as a project progresses, their initial high status declines. For introverts, the opposite is true: their status rises during a project. Therefore, make sure you also give your quiet employees a chance on your team. They may turn out to have a greater value than you thought.
• Many different subjects represented. It makes for more innovative teams, as long as no cliques occur. Private friendships are of course fine, but cliques are not good for your goals.

3. Your star depends on his team

We have all heard stories of how a star employee is headhunted by another company that has high expectations that he will deliver the same results in the new company. But that doesn't happen – the star falls through. It turns out there is a reason for this.

Because your star employees are more dependent on their team than you might think.

Research from 2006 among cardiac surgeons shows that surgeons' performance improved over time when they had the opportunity to work with the same team over a longer period of time. When the surgeons replaced other doctors at a well-known hospital, but with a unknown team, this improvement could not be transferred.

So even if the surgeons were familiar with other hospitals (and therefore there is no question of them being confused or "out of place"), they did not have the same tacit understanding of their team. And the result is that they do not perform as well as in their primary hospital with their normal team.

4. Distributed teams sometimes outperform local teams

One survey from Mannaz shows that Danish companies' three biggest challenges with distributed or virtual teams are:

• To feel with the team
• To create cohesion in the team
• To ensure communication among the project participants
• To motivate the project participants
• To create trust among the project participants.

But it turns out, if these challenges are addressed, then virtual teams can beat non-virtual teams. The solution can, according to 2009 MIT research, is divided into two types of processes:

• Task-related processes. Processes that increase the level of mutual support, effort, coordination, balance between participation and task-related communication.
• Social-emotional processr. Processes that strengthen team cohesion and identification, create a common goal and the team's informal communication.

One of the conclusions from the report is that virtual or distributed teams perform better because they need to have some tools and processes in place that improve e.g. communication and collaboration.

Surprisingly, even a very small distance, such as the distance from the 1st to the 2nd floor of the same building, had great significance. In fact, the study shows that teams sitting on different floors of the same building performed the worst. The researchers explain this by saying that the trip up the stairs is expected to have no significance, and that therefore some of the necessary task-related and social-emotional processes are not initiated. Which, according to the researchers, can clearly be seen in the results of these teams.

If both the task-related and the social-emotional processes are in place, then virtual teams actually perform better than local teams – even if they score equally high on the use of the task-related and social-emotional processes.