Team Building [人事1 組織改革]
When Japanese enterprises showed a lot of success globally, US research institutes tried to find out the KFS (Key For Success) of Japanese enterprises. It was a “strong team work”. So they formulate the activities of Japanese companies for team work as “Team Building Program”, which was disseminated in 90’s. Japanese companies used to do not only drink-communication but also a year-end and New Year party, a farewell and welcome party, an inter sports day, a company trip and so on.
Japanese were agricultural people who had to work together. And they used to do the festival for a good harvest. This became a Japanese culture, so it was not a big surprise for Japanese to adapt this culture into the company’s culture.
On the contrary, western countries’ people embrace the individualism. They have a high priority to their family than the organization which they belong to. In order to tighten the team work more, they needed some special program. Nowadays, the even some Japanese companies start to introduce this team building program since the traditional activities are less popular in Japan.
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Team Building Program is the one which all team mates play the specially designed games together and find out some important hints about team work in the organization from them.
For example, there is the “Blindfold Tent” game, which everybody has to be blindfolded except a leader and build up the tent from many parts by a leader’s instruction. Everybody waits for the instruction, a leader cannot instruct to all members at once, though. So they start to worry whether they are ok or not. A leader should share the progress to all the members not let them worry. In the real company world, a leader should share the overall business situation well to all the members so that all staff can understand the company’s situation and their contribution to the company well. Eventually their productivities will be increased. You can find out such kind of learning through the game.
“Finger Lift” is also one of the famous games which three people lift up one person by their joined forefingers only. Surprisingly you can lift up even a big guy when you can do this at a harmonized timing. This demonstrates a team work power, really.
So nowadays there a lot of specialized companies for team building and are developing a various kinds of games. They can customize the games based on the companies’ request. When the company does the organization change or they feel they should revitalize their organization more, this program will play an important role and show a quick result.
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In Singapore, all groups and divisions in our organization are doing this team building activities every year. They normally do this at the relaxed venue like a golf course facility and have a dinner together after that.
There are some groups to hold a bigger activity which designs two days course including overnight stay. They select a resort area and make the second day free. It means that this is a hybrid activity of a team building training program and a team bonding entertainment activity. They use training budget and entertainment budget for this.
One group (130 staffs) does this way every summer. They do the “dance performance team competition” during a dinner time after the team building program on the first day. This contest is very energetic and interesting finding out a lot of talents in the organization. After this, still their energy continues to be generated. They continue to drink and chat until mid-night, which is not a usual practice. Specially working mothers enjoy this unordinary night. This is why the all employee are looking forward this event every year.
Everybody do a serious preparation and practice for this competition since a prize will be given. They do this preparation for a month. It means that “Team Building” has started since a month ago. After this event, still some activities will continue to see the video of the team building program and the dance competition. This dancing competition is a preliminary contest for our company wide year end dancing party. So they can enjoy the atmosphere of strong team work for a half year continuously. This is the intention of this group to maximize their investment for not only one time effect but also sustainable effect for a long run. I call this “The effect of Rio’s Carnival”, because it is the similar effect as the people work very hard in order to enjoy the carnival.
Naturally, the staff engagement in this group is very high according to the employment survey and the performance of their job is also high.
As conclusion, if you use “Team Building” activity strategically, you can get a huge return.
スポンサードリンク
チームビルディングは、大切。という話だけではなく有機的な活動になっている。素晴らしいです。It is not just story which tells us "Team building is important and efficient." These activities and concepts is conscious of organic ties fully.That's fantastic and marvelous !
by シマダミツヒロ (2012-09-09 06:05)