The Equinox office recently organized a team-building activity where the entire company participated in an escape room experience. Staff members were divided into teams and tasked with solving puzzles to unlock a locked room within a 60-minute timeframe. No external tools, calculators, phones, or internet access were permitted during the challenge.
We chose the Gold Rush themed room at Escape Game Nashville, where teams competed to locate hidden gold before a fictional mob could reach it. Remarkably, every Equinox team successfully escaped the room — far exceeding the facility's typical 35% escape rate for that particular challenge.
Looking back on the experience, three things stand out as the keys to our collective success:
Everyone Contributed
No single person solved every puzzle. Team members each brought different perspectives, and progress came from collective effort. No one sat back and watched — everyone was engaged.
Communication is King
Team members called out discoveries to trigger new problem-solving approaches across the room. Sharing information — even pieces that seemed minor — led to breakthroughs. The teams that communicated well escaped. The ones that hoarded information or waited would have failed.
Resource Management Matters
Effective teams avoided fixating on a single clue and managed their time carefully. Knowing when to move on and try a different approach was just as important as the puzzle-solving itself.
These same principles apply to how we operate at Equinox every day. Departmental collaboration and information sharing are what drive project success for our customers. The escape room just made it unusually vivid — and a lot of fun.
About the Author — Amy Oldham is in Corporate Communications at Equinox Information Systems. To learn more about Equinox, visit equinoxis.com or call (615) 612-1200.