Team building

This is a form of intensive group interaction designed to develop more closely-knit and effective working teams.

The teamwork mentality is a strong feature of coordinating group activity in areas as diverse as the career defence sector, missionary and charitable work, family businesses, farming cooperatives and the style of industrial relations pioneered by the Japanese. This system of working requires all individuals in a concern to put the interests of the concern before self-interest. Every individual is part of a team at his particular level. Resources are shared -- there are rarely strictly individual files, offices, equipment, or other strong personal identification with material holdings of the company. Promotion is based largely on length of service (on the time taken to assimilate the company's ideals) and moral and social behaviour are emphasized as much as business acumen. Financial reward is often not high, but staff and their families are usually provided with living accommodation, and medical, social, educational and recreational facilities. Although ambitious individuals may not find the system sufficiently flexible and may therefore leave, those who are prepared to allow the company to dominate their lives in this way are devoted to it, and the method is successful both in its effect on individuals and its ability to run a profitable business.