What Is Team Building?
Team building is a method for building strong teams. It refers to creating a team that can achieve its goals by drawing out the skills, abilities, and experience of team members to the fullest.
“Team building,” translated into Japanese, means “constructing a team.” It is a set of theories and methods for working on human processes such as organizational culture, motivation, satisfaction, communication, human relationships, leadership, and norms in order to enhance a team's capabilities.
Team building was born in the United States in the 1950s. In Japan, after the bubble burst, attention turned to soft aspects such as people and human relationships, and team-building methods were introduced mainly through coaching training and facilitation training for leaders.
Benefits of Team Building
Team building has five major benefits.
(1) Revitalized communication
Team building revitalizes communication. Good team building creates positive communication among staff who previously had no contact with each other.
(2) Improved motivation
Putting the right people in the right places and developing their abilities through team building creates a willingness among staff to contribute. This willingness to contribute becomes staff motivation, and when their work is recognized and the team's results are evaluated, it becomes the driving force for further motivation.
(3) Innovation emerges more easily
Introducing team building makes it easier for ideas and innovations to emerge from communication.
(4) Improved team productivity
Good team building, by meshing communication, the right people in the right places, and capability development, leads to improved productivity as a team.
(5) Greater resilience to obstacles
In an era of fierce market competition and rapid social change, various obstacles tend to arise in the projects assigned to a team.
However, if a solid team structure can be built through team building, members can support one another through a shared sense of purpose, motivation, mutual coordination, and helping each other. As a result, even in the face of major obstacles, strong unity allows the team to break through difficult situations.
The Five-Stage Process of Team Building: The “Tuckman Model”
Team building has a framework. The “Tuckman model” is a framework that divides a team's state into five stages and shows the elements needed at each stage. It is named after psychologist Bruce W. Tuckman, who proposed it.
According to the “Tuckman model,” teams develop by going through the following five processes. It is said that a team becomes good by understanding which stage it is at and taking appropriate measures to move forward.
(1) Forming
The stage when the team has just been formed. Members who don't know each other are feeling each other out. It is important to build mutual understanding, foster a shared sense of goals under the leader's guidance, and identify the factors and issues that hinder goal achievement.
(2) Storming stage
The common goal has become clear, and a flood of differing opinions about it gives rise to friction and resistance. It is important to voice your views without fear of conflict and to keep the discussion going.
(3) Norming stage
Members come to understand one another's positions and ways of thinking, and the team moves toward stability. What is required is an attitude of taking initiative, dividing roles appropriately, and working toward the goal by making the most of each member's strengths.
(4) Performing stage
The team functions as a team while each individual exercises their abilities. Members support one another and collaboration becomes established. Appropriate staffing accelerates the improvement of results.
(5) Adjourning stage
This is the stage in which the team disbands as the project ends. The team confirms whether its objectives were achieved and verifies the effectiveness of the team building.
Key points of team building
(1) Achieving appropriate staffing
In team building, members need to understand one another's skills, experience, values and so on, so that people can be placed in the right roles and responsibilities can be clearly divided. Staffing is arranged so that each part of the project progresses efficiently as the project is carried out.
(2) Forming a vision
To achieve a goal, the team needs to share a purposeful vision. Because team building clarifies the goal, it strengthens cohesion, and each member comes to think, “I want to achieve this goal with this team.”
Mysterious things that happen in team building
A mysterious party trick experienced at a university sports club training camp
Now, from here on, let us talk about team building while sharing some slightly mysterious episodes experienced by our CEO, Ashida, that occurred during team building.
“Whether you believe it or not is up to you.” (laughs)
Ashida was a member of a university karate club. He says he often had mysterious experiences during the entertainment after dinner at training camps.
One sturdy club member would be seated on a chair, and four other members would slide their index fingers under his knees and armpits.
Then, on a signal, they would try to lift the seated member. Of course, even with four people, lifting him with only their index fingers is hard. So the four would stack their palms on top of one another and try to “feel the wind on their palms.” Once they felt the wind, they would try again to lift him. And then...
The sturdy club member would be lifted so high that he nearly bumped his head on the ceiling. (Being a skeptic, Ashida) tried it many times, but the results before and after were completely different every time.
This experience may have nothing at all to do with team building, but it seems to offer a big, thought-provoking hint about the process of “becoming of one mind.”
The clouds vanished at an aviation event, part 1
Do you know the film “ALWAYS: Sunset on Third Street ’64”?
On its release day, our company carried out a project to promote the film by flying three airplanes over Tokyo Tower trailing contrails.
Because the film was the third in a trilogy and was released in 3D, the idea was to draw “333” in the sky.
However, the day of the release event was unfortunately cloudy.
Contrails are white, so they become very hard to see when it is cloudy. We held several rehearsals in the morning, but the contrails were not visible at all. The staff were dispirited, and the whole team was as gloomy as the sky. The real performance was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., but even 10 minutes before, clouds still covered the sky.
The planes were still heading toward Tokyo Tower, but we had already decided to shift to the backup plan...
Then, one minute before, the clouds began to disappear—only above Tokyo Tower.
The “333” was drawn beautifully, and by that evening it had become big news.
Distributor: Toho
The clouds vanished at an aviation event, part 2
The other story is also something that happened at an aviation event.
At the request of a Swiss watchmaker, and as support for the reconstruction of Fukushima, we were producing an air show over Fukushima by inviting the jet fighter aerobatic team owned by this manufacturer. In fact, the first attempt at this event had been cancelled due to bad weather. So this was our second attempt, and failure was not an option.
On the day of the show, it happened as the jet fighters were taxiing at Fukushima Airport to head for the venue in Fukushima City.
Incredibly, a huge cumulonimbus cloud formed in the sky near Fukushima City, the venue.
Judging from the cloud's movement, the forecast was that it would be over the venue by the time the jet fighters took off and arrived. Judging this to be dangerous, we radioed the jet fighter pilots to warn them.
Even so, the jet fighters took off and headed for the venue. And as they approached the venue, the cumulonimbus cloud, amazingly, dissipated without ever entering the sky over Fukushima City.
The air show was a success.
Summary
Now, it may not be appropriate to introduce such outlandish, mysterious episodes here. You may think that team building is about people's involvement with one another and has nothing to do with natural phenomena, and that these were probably just coincidental changes in the weather.
However, according to Ashida, whenever a project succeeded, there was always a sense of unity among the staff.
And that, in some cases, when that sense of unity reaches its MAX, small miracles happen.
That is what he says.
Even if nothing mysterious happens, it is self-evident by ordinary reasoning that when there is discord in a team, the team's results are hard to improve. Conversely, we have often experienced that when team building goes well, great results follow. And many of our staff have had similar experiences of small miracles happening once team building has matured.
Team building is an essential concept for any organization in which multiple people must work together to achieve results. Team building brings about a shared sense of purpose and motivation to carry out work. If you are struggling with a lack of communication or poor coordination within your company, why not try introducing team building?
Column articles are scheduled to be published on the 1st of every month.
Column scheduled for January
- If you don't change your meetings, your company is finished. Part 1