Team building at work has a narrow margin. If it’s too light, nobody learns anything new. If it’s too deep, people feel exposed in front of their manager. This guide shows how to run a short card game where each turn is one word and each player sets their own depth. You can use the Thesis deck, the free online table, or a stack of index cards with words you pick yourself.
Why a word, and why at work
Colleagues spend hours together and can still know little about each other. In Gallup’s 2024 workplace data, about one in five employees worldwide said they had felt lonely a lot of the previous day. Fully remote employees reported more loneliness (25%) than on-site employees (16%) (Gallup).
A conversation that goes one step past small talk can feel risky. In experiments with strangers, Kardas, Kumar and Epley found that deep conversations felt less awkward and created more connection than people expected (Kardas et al. 2021). One word on a card is a small step in that direction. “Work” or “Success” lets each person decide how far to go.
Setting up
- Group size. Thesis is made for 2–6 players. With a larger team, split into tables of 2–6. Mix people who don’t work together every day.
- The deck. 50 double-sided cards: an idea on one side, an everyday thing on the other.
- The die. You fold it from a card into a six-sided prism and roll it like a pencil. Its faces are six plain words: MEMORIES · BODY · PEOPLE · VALUES · CHILDHOOD · FUTURE. The only instruction is “Look at the word from that side.”
- Remote teams. Share your screen with the online table. One person draws, flips and rolls for whoever’s turn it is.
Choose the cards before the meeting
A few words in the deck are sensitive, Death and Betrayal among them. For a work session, take them out before you start. Then decide how many cards you need. A short opener for a meeting needs one card per person. An offsite can use the full stack you kept.
Words with a work angle make an easy first round:
Work sits on the back of Stone. For one colleague, work is where loyalty and extra hours go. For another, it’s a deal that has to pay back. Both readings can sit at the same table.
Balance has Watch on its other side. People can read it as work and life, as a body on a bike, or as a mood. The thing side gives anyone who’d rather not talk about their hours an easy way out.
Agree on passing
The first line of the rules is “Before you start, agree together how passing works.” At work, a pass needs to be free and invisible. Agree that anyone can pass without a reason, or turn the card to its other side. If a manager is playing, the manager says this part out loud.
The rule card also says: “What is said at the table stays at the table.” At work, agree what that means in practice. Answers don’t go into meeting notes, chat threads or reviews.
How a round runs
- Whoever suggested the game goes first.
- Draw a card. Choose a side: the idea or the thing.
- Roll the die.
- Look at the word from that side. Say as much or as little as feels right.
- The others ask what they’re curious about, gently, without judging.
- Pass the die to the left.
The person who goes first sets the length of the answers. A two-sentence answer tells the team that two sentences are enough. “A short answer is a full answer. You can always ask for more.”
Follow-up questions
The rule card gives three examples:
What did that feel like? Who else was there? Has it always meant that to you?
In a study by Huang and colleagues, people who asked more questions were better liked by their conversation partners. Follow-up questions explained much of that effect (Huang et al. 2017). On a team, one follow-up shows the speaker that a colleague was listening. Keep it to one per turn so the round keeps moving.
Success, with Notebook on the back, is a good card for the follow-ups. “Has it always meant that to you?” often brings out how someone’s idea of success changed between their first job and now.
Pacing
“Play for as long as it feels good.” In a meeting, that means a fixed slot. Give the game the start of the meeting, so it doesn’t compete with the agenda, and end the round when the slot ends. At an offsite, let the tables run and watch the energy. Stop while people still want one more card.
Heavy moments
Even work words can land hard. “Work” can bring up a layoff. “Balance” can bring up burnout. If that happens, thank the speaker, skip follow-ups and pass the die on. Nobody needs to fix anything at the table. “Every view is welcome, especially one that differs from yours.”
The last round
Close the way every game of Thesis closes. “When the group is ready to stop, finish with one last round: each player names one thing they discovered about someone at the table today.”
At work, this round does what the rest of the game prepared. Each person leaves with one new fact about a colleague, said out loud in front of the team.
See the rules and the box. The cards above have their own pages: Work, Balance and Success. For classrooms and workshops, see Thesis for teams and classes. The research behind the deck explains where the words came from. For facilitated groups, see group therapy icebreakers for adults.