SMS Security, a family-run security provider in the Greater Toronto Area, used a hosted Minute to Win It team building activity to announce that Sarah O’Brien was taking over as CEO. Hands-off planning let Sarah deliver her presentation and then play alongside the 50 office staff and technicians she would be leading, which gave newer staff their first real chance to get to know her as a teammate, and the day itself signaled how the company would operate under new leadership.
Case Study Snapshot
| Company | SMS Security |
| Industry | Security services |
| Group | Office staff and technicians |
| Work Model | Field technicians at client sites across the GTA, office-based staff, and several remote or mobile roles |
| Team Size | About 50 participants |
| Activity | Minute to Win It (in-person, hosted) |
| Occasion | Late-summer team event doubling as the CEO transition announcement |
| Primary Goal | Let the incoming CEO focus on her presentation, then join the team as a player instead of running the event |
| Outcome | Stronger day-to-day rapport between the CEO and field technicians, and a visible signal of the company’s new direction |
About SMS Security
SMS Security is a family-run security company that has served the Greater Toronto Area for 38 years. It supplies both the people and the systems that keep a building secure: concierge and front-desk security staff, mobile patrols, and parking enforcement on one side, and video surveillance, access control, and alarm installation and monitoring on the other.
Most of its clients are condominiums, and it runs a 24/7 emergency response service for all of them.
The company employs between 450 and 500 people, and the large majority of them are guards posted at client sites. The remaining 50 or so are office staff and technicians, and that group was the audience for this event.
Sarah O’Brien grew up in the business and has worked across many of its roles. In 2026, she stepped into the Chief Executive Officer role, taking over from her father.
SMS Security’s Team Building History
SMS Security runs two team events a year: one at Christmas and one toward the end of summer, as the calendar turns to September.
The company’s technicians spend every day in the field at different sites, and several other roles are remote or mobile, so most of the team rarely shares a room with the office staff.
“Our technicians are really in the field every day at different sites, so they don’t see a lot of the office staff,” says Sarah. “We try to get together and get people to do a bit of team bonding.”
Team Building Around A CEO Announcement
The late-summer event in 2026 had a second job. It was where SMS Security announced that Sarah was taking over as CEO from her father.
That changed what Sarah needed from the day.
In past years, she and her colleagues had planned and run most of the games themselves. One Christmas, she hired an outside escape room provider for the first time, and it worked well enough to convince her that handing the event to a vendor was the right call.
This time, the speech was her job, and she wanted the rest of the day off her plate entirely.
“I wanted it to be really low touch from my perspective,” she says. “I wanted something where I did not need to be too involved, because I was more focused on my speech.”
Sarah had also never participated in one of her own team events. She had either planned and run them or stood off to the side helping. Being announced as CEO and then disappearing into logistics would have wasted the chance to meet her team as a player.
Why Sarah Chose Outback Team Building
Sarah started her search by asking an AI assistant for team building companies, which is how a growing number of planners begin these days.
Outback came up alongside one other provider, and she looked seriously at both.
The other company offered a similar game at a lower price, but the difference showed up in how each one handled the conversation.
“They were trying to do everything by email, and when I spoke to them on the phone, it just didn’t feel like they fully understood what I was doing,” says Sarah. “With Jordan, I felt like I could really explain what I needed, and he really understood. It was pretty easy.”
Jordan Menu, one of our Senior Employee Engagement Consultants, took her brief, which came down to four things:
- Group Size: About 50 people, split into small teams
- Length: One to two hours
- Energy: High, because her technicians are competitive
- Setting: Outdoors, at least at first
He came back with outdoor options to match, and he kept checking in through a stretch when Sarah’s schedule made her hard to reach.
“He really stuck with me through all this,” she says, then laughs. “He called me a lot, and there were a lot of calls I didn’t answer. But he stuck with me.”
The presentation then forced a change of plan, because the event had to move indoors, and the outdoor shortlist no longer fit.
Choosing Minute to Win It as an Indoor Team Building Activity
By the time Sarah needed to pivot, she had already done her own homework on Outback’s website.
The activity pages include videos that show each game being played by real teams, and she used them to build a short list of indoor options before asking Jordan which one fit her group best.
“I do find those videos very helpful, the ones that explain the games and give you a preview of what other teams have done,” she says. “When I knew I had to pivot indoors, I already had a few in mind, and it really sounded like he could do whatever I wanted.”
They landed on Minute to Win It, a game-show-style activity where teams race through a series of 60-second challenges. It worked for SMS Security because:
- Team Size: Teams of six to eight, so a group of 50 splits into small, competitive units.
- Duration: About two hours, inside her one-to-two-hour window.
- Venue: Built for indoor spaces and runs year-round.
- Scale: Works for 10 people to 2,000 or more, which leaves room for a company that’s already outgrowing its space.
“We knew it would be high pace, high energy, and quite competitive,” says Sarah.
Minute to Win It, With the New CEO On a Team
For the first time, Sarah was on a team. She delivered her presentation, then joined a group of colleagues she had barely met, including technicians she had only seen in passing, and spent the next two hours competing alongside them.
One task asked players to balance pencils on the backs of their hands, flip them, and catch them, and it surfaced skills nobody knew their colleagues had.
“It’s a skill I had no idea some of our people had,” says Sarah. “You start connecting with people in a completely different way.”
Her teammates learned something about her too.
“The team also gets to see a leader’s vulnerabilities,” she says. “There are things the technicians can do that I can’t, and I think it’s great for them to see that.”
The feedback from the room was the strongest she has had for a company event.
“Everybody loved it, and time just flew by,” she says. “People were saying it felt like we were at a corporate place, because it was so well run.”
The Result: A New CEO On First-Name Terms with the Field Team
Sarah’s presentation had leaned on how she grew up in the company and worked across so many of its roles. But a lot of newer staff didn’t know that history, or her.
Two hours on a team closed some of that gap, and she noticed the difference as soon as technicians started coming through the office again.
“Now, when some of our technicians come in, I’m greeting them by name,” she says. “In a team our size, that closeness wasn’t there before, and it breaks down barriers when you need to ask for something at work.”
The day also sent a message about how the company would run under her, since SMS Security is a 24/7 service business and taking a full day away from it is hard. With that much of the business running around the clock, the company had always kept its team events short, so giving this one a full day was a visible change of pace.
“Prioritizing this and spending the money on it signaled that we’re headed in a different direction with how we’re going to be operating,” says Sarah. “It signaled how important team building is to me, and taking the time for it, and I think that really meant something to the whole team.”
Why Facilitated Team Building Works for a Leadership Transition
A leadership announcement puts the new leader at a distance from the room, on a stage giving a speech while most of the audience hears the new title for the first time.
A hosted activity gives the leader a way back into the room. At SMS Security, Sarah finished her speech and sat down at a table with a handful of colleagues, judged on the same pencil flips and cup stacks as everyone else, while our event host ran the clock, the scoring, and the supplies.
Nobody from the company had to organize anything, which is the only way the organizer ever gets to play.
Minute to Win It helps here because every challenge has a visible winner within 60 seconds, so strengths and weaknesses show up fast and in public.
A technician who can catch pencils watches the CEO drop hers, and both walk away knowing something about the other that no all-hands meeting would have shown them. That’s the same knowledge Sarah draws on now when a technician walks into the office and she greets them by name.
Most of SMS Security’s team spends its days at client sites rather than the office, and the day showed them their leader cared enough to spend a full one on them, in a business where a full day is expensive.
When Is Hosted, High-Energy Team Building the Right Fit?
A hosted, high-energy activity like Minute to Win It suits a wide range of teams and occasions, from holiday parties to conference breakouts. It’s an especially strong choice if any of these sound like your team:
- You’re announcing a leadership change, a reorganization, or a new direction, and the leader needs to be in the room as a participant afterward
- Your workforce is split between an office and the field, and the two groups rarely meet
- Newer staff don’t know the leadership team well, and the gap’s starting to show in day-to-day work
- Your team’s competitive, and a slower-paced activity would lose them
- The organizer’s also the speaker, and the event has to run without them
If more than one of those applies, a facilitated activity is worth a serious look.
SMS Security came into the day with three goals:
- Announce Sarah as CEO and have the message land
- Give her a chance to get to know her team as a teammate
- Keep the planning off her plate so she could focus on the speech
Minute to Win It delivered on every one of them.
Planning a team building event around a company announcement?
Get in touch with one of our Employee Engagement Consultants, who can help you find the right activity for your group size, goals, and budget.
