Where does team building come from?

Modern team building was invented almost by complete accident.

It’s a surprising and rather brilliant story – one we love to share here at Madrid Adventure. Especially because our General Manager, Jeremy Hickey, studied History and Tourism at the University of Kent, and because team building has been our passion since 1999.

We were asked about it recently, and thought it was about time we wrote down our answer.

If you’re a team assistant looking for fresh ideas to energise your next corporate outing, the origin of team building might just give you the breakthrough you didn’t know you needed.

It certainly did for us.

Madrid Adventure is a corporate events company in Madrid specialised in team building. Since 1999, we’ve helped bring corporate teams together with fun & well-organised team-building activities.

The origin of corporate team building

If you had to identify a "father" of team building, most people would answer with one of these two people:

• Elton Mayo

• Kurt Hahn

In our opinion, Elton Mayo's work was more influential.

But we'll cover both of them in turn below to give you a better idea of the origins of team building.

Elton Mayo: The pioneer who brought psychology into the workplace

When it comes to the origins of modern team building, few figures are as influential as Elton Mayo.

Mayo was born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1880 and trained as a psychologist. He became a pioneer in the psychoanalytic treatment of WWI veterans suffering from shell shock.

After lecturing in psychology at the University of Queensland for over a decade, he moved to the United States, where he became a professor of industrial research at Harvard Business School.

Mayo is best known for his work on the Hawthorne Studies – groundbreaking research that helped shift management thinking away from purely mechanical or economic views of productivity, and towards the emotional, psychological, and social needs of workers.

The Hawthorne Studies

Between 1924 and 1932, Mayo and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments at the Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Illinois.

They were supposed to test how factors like lighting and humidity affected worker productivity.

But it didn't go to plan.

Published in 1939 as Management and the Worker, the findings showed that productivity improvements had less to do with physical conditions and more to do with human factors – such as feeling seen, heard and part of a group.

This insight would go on to shape modern management, HR practices, and modern team building as we know it today!

The "Hawthorne Effect"

One of the most famous concepts to emerge from the research was the Hawthorne Effect – a term coined by researcher Fritz Roethlisberger, who revisited the work decades later.

The Hawthorne Effect refers to the phenomenon in which people alter their behaviour simply because they know they are being observed. In the context of the factory floor, this meant that workers became more motivated and productive because they felt noticed and valued.

This concept remains important to modern team dynamics and is often mentioned in leadership today.

The Hawthorne Studies were a turning point: from treating workers as extensions of the "machine", to recognising them as emotional and social beings. These were revolutionary ideas in the 1930s, and they continue to be important today – especially for those of us working in team building and HR.

4 breakthroughs from the Hawthorne Studies

1. Social and psychological factors matter most
   Productivity wasn’t driven by pay or improved lighting – it was driven by relationships, recognition and morale.

2. Informal groups shape behaviour
   Workers form informal networks that establish their own norms and influence motivation and output.

3. Workplace culture has real impact
   A culture where people feel valued leads to more engagement, better teamwork and higher job satisfaction.

4. The Hawthorne Effect
   When people know they’re being observed or asked for input, they feel more important and perform better.

Kurt Hahn: The visionary who founded Outward Bound

If Elton Mayo was the first to study how strong teams were more productive, it was Kurt Hahn who made team-building activities popular.

Born in Berlin in 1886, Hahn was an educator who believed in the moral and emotional development of young people. After studying at Oxford, Heidelberg, Freiburg, and Göttingen, Hahn was forced to flee Nazi Germany due to his Jewish heritage. He settled in the UK, converted to Christianity, and spent the rest of his life shaping a radically different approach to education.

He is best known for founding Outward Bound, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, and the first United World College, Atlantic College.

All of these programmes remain active today and have inspired millions through experiential learning and personal discovery.

Fun fact: Hahn even appeared as a character in The Crown, portrayed by Burghart Klaussner.

Learning by doing

Hahn believed that adolescents have a sort of internal moral compass – but it gets eroded by modern life.

His solution?

He believed in placing students in environments where they would experience success, failure, teamwork and reflection. Things like hiking in the hills, orienteering or contributing to group activities we often think of as "team-building"

At Madrid Adventure, we don’t drag teams up a mountain (not yet, at least!).

But we do honour Hahn’s legacy in our GPS treasure hunt Madrid – a fast-paced, problem-solving challenge that demands cooperation, creativity and trust.

Hahn’s five pillars of transformational learning

1. Experiential Learning
   Learning by doing: because real growth happens through challenge and discovery.

2. Resilience and purpose
   Developing the courage to face setbacks, and the drive to overcome them.

3. Self-Reliance and responsibility
   Encouraging individuals to take ownership of their actions and contribute to the common good.

4. Character development
   Building integrity, empathy, and a strong sense of justice.

5. Respect for adolescents
   Trusting in young people’s innate decency – and giving them the freedom and structure to prove it.

The two founding fathers of team building

Modern team building, as we know it today, is really a blend of two great minds: Elton Mayo and Kurt Hahn.

Mayo helped to understand why team building matters – because strong teams are more productive, more motivated and more engaged. His research laid the groundwork for recognising the emotional and social dynamics in the workplace.

Hahn, on the other hand, gave us the how.

He created the kinds of challenging, purpose-driven experiences that bring people together – whether in the mountains or on the streets of Madrid. His belief in experiential learning and personal growth shaped the activities we now associate with team development.

Of course, team building has evolved.

Corporate team building today draws on psychology, leadership theory, technology and even game design. But at its core, it still rests on the foundations laid by Mayo and Hahn.

At Madrid Adventure, we like to think of them as the two founding fathers of team building, reminding us that good teams don’t just happen. They’re built, one challenge at a time.

Madrid Adventure is a corporate events company in Madrid specialised in team building. If you're interested in organising an activity in Madrid, then please contact us for advice, recommendations and a custom proposal.