5 Team-building lessons from One Piece
One Piece is one of my favourite anime series (cartoon series based on Japanese comic books called manga). It is a story about a group of pirates (Straw Hats) who set out to find the biggest treasure in their era - One Piece.
One Piece is a story of life lessons, struggles, achievements, and loads of fun 😄. Many parallels can be drawn between team-building, starting up, and One Piece, as our protagonist starts his search for a kick-ass team (ship crew) to start on a journey to become the Pirate King. Below are 5 important team building lessons embedded across One Piece:
1. Build a diverse team
Luffy sets off to hire Zoro because he is strong, Sanji as he is an expert cook, Nami being an expert navigator, Chopper: Doctor and so on. Luffy is obsessed to have a well balanced crew. Diverse crew members help to collate diverse advantages, and are crucial to not only survival of the Straw Hats, but also to their progress into the New World.
2. Motivation >>> Other traits
People who dream, go farther. People who exist by taking the safe path will at best be average. Luffy is impressed by the dreams of people, which makes him offer them his crew-mate position.
Zoro wants to be the strongest swordsman out there. Chopper wants to be the best doctor out there. Sanji wants to reach All Blue ocean and cook the best dish out there. Nami wants to draw a map of the entire world and so on.
At the time Luffy’s crew-mates join his crew, they were not elite in their skills. But Luffy saw huge future potential in them, as they had a strong dream, and an iron will to pursue them, no matter what.
3. Individual Freedom
Luffy gives each of his crew-mate freedom to execute their responsibilities. He completely, and unconditionally entrusts in them their roles, without interfering (except maybe annoying them occasionally 😛).
Freedom leads to ownership, which leads to commitment, resulting in learning, and hence growth. Slowly, Luffy’s teammates grow stronger, and better skilled, which eventually helps the entire crew to achieve tasks which earlier looked impossible.
4. High Goal Setting
This might not be obvious at first. High goal setting makes it aspirational for the team as a whole to achieve the goal. In tough times, team bonds well and work together. Not to mention, challenges allows team members to grow, and evolve in their skills to become a better version of themselves.
Luffy keeps setting higher goals, and accepts increasingly tougher tasks for the crew. These ordeals act as catalyst in Straw Hats skills’ fine tuning and growth
5. Make it fun
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Having fun never hurts. It eases tension, makes work enjoyable, and boosts productivity.
Even in death-threatening situations, Luffy is able to find instances to share a good laugh.
If you want to fight boredom, allow people to open up, and de-stress the team environment, “make it fun.”
So if you are building a team for your new startup, or bringing together a group of employees to start a project - keep it diverse, aspirational, and have some fun along the way 😄