Japanese teamwork spirit?

Does Japan have the best teamwork spirit?

It certainly seems reasonable to draw conclusions about over 120 million people based on 30 sixth-graders in one elementary school. Is the answer you're looking for "yes"?

Read it carefully. It's a question. Not a statement.

anomouse said:

Read it carefully. It's a question. Not a statement.

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Did you read Mike's reply carefully?

Is the answer you're looking for "yes"?

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So are you?


Edited to add.....
If the title of your thread here asked the question regarding Japanese Elementary School kids I would respond that kids anywhere in the world when faced with a challenge like this all have team spirit.

Oh and I am sure if you did a bit of googling you will find that there have been Elementary School teams from Cuba, Thailand and Africa that participated in this event as well. This video is from Thailand.

Who knows there are probably more as well.


FYI this race is an annual event held in each prefecture with the finals being held in mainland around November or so.

So here is an answer to your question, sure they have great team spirit, but they have no more nor no less than any other Elementary School kid anywhere else in the world that participated in this event.

The video is no longer available, so I will pose the question that came to my mind right away.

How does one measure spirit quantitatively? You can't. So, any answer will be subjective and qualitative.

Does a lot of Japan operate on the principle of teamwork? Yes.
Does a lot of that teamwork actually involve group spirit? Yes.

Does Japan have the most teamwork spirit? I don't know enough other cultures to answer that. If you go just by the word spirit, and listen to any loud American (redundant, I know) at a sports event, especially the Olympics, shouting "USA, USA, USA!", there's spirit for ya. (not that I agree with volume = quantity of spirit)

How do you define teamwork spirit?
Japan being a highly group oriented culture I would suspect working in teams to further the good of the collective to be quite natural for the people and Japan is famous for many industrial techniques and ideologies that rely on this so there certainly is much to learn about teamwork from the japanese for western countries but in no means is it exclusive to Japan.

alantin,
As far as I can judge, you defined (loosely) only teamwork, not the spirit. Can you elaborate?

Glenski said:

alantin,
As far as I can judge, you defined (loosely) only teamwork, not the spirit. Can you elaborate?

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Well.. Sometimes people here complain that working in teams is not really a Finnish thing and that teamwork spirit could be better. People think and act more independently and less about how their actions affect the other people around them in Europe (and America..) than in Japan.

Based on this I'd think that in Japan one would potentially find better teamwork spirit than in many European countries. Although it is quite a subjective thing to measure.

Still only speculating about the potential here. ^^
Keeping it vague..

I'm thinking more about working life than any kids olympics or stuff like that.

Vague questions yield vague answers. I dislike that sort of thing.

Do Japanese people exhibit teamwork a lot? Yes, it is practically built into life here. However, what spirit the team members exhibit may depend on the situation.

Case 1.
My wife was obligated to work with other mamas at the kindergarten to plan a vendor booth for summer festival. They put in several days together cutting out decorations and deciding what to sell, and on the day, each spent 15 minutes in the booth (after they jointly set it up). On that day, they were all smiles for the sake of the kids and crowd. At home, my wife quietly complained about the time needed to do the work, and that our family was obligated to buy tickets for the food at that vendor (in addition to being free to buy other tickets).

Case 2
My university staff meetings are held monthly. People feel an obligation to attend, even though all that really gets done is listen to the leader read minutes of several meetings nobody else attended, just so we are all updates. Questions and answers may follow, but not many are forthcoming. Attendance is not mandatory, but it is still taken, and it may reflect on one's performance reviews for promotion. Nobody really seems to have any "team spirit".

Case 3
The university has an annual cleaning day outside. It's only a couple of hours, but email is sent around telling everyone to join in. People begrudgingly do it, but not all.

Case 4
Private high school. Annual festival requires days of planning after classes with the teachers' assistance. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent for a day and a half. Skits are performed for awards. Two days of regular school time are lost for setup and cleanup. Student organizing teams are brought in to the staff room at the end and complimented on their efforts, bringing the students to tears of gratitude. Teachers' lives are totally disrupted that weekend, leaving everyone to work 8am to 10pm and all they get for their thanks is a rice ball dinner. Yeehaw.

Am I focusing only on the negatives? Yes, for a reason.

Glenski said:

Vague questions yield vague answers. I dislike that sort of thing.

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Well.. Sometimes it is necessary to avoid misunderstanding. ^^
I do agree that it necessarily doesn't really go that way.
it often is that people more eagerly do stuff when they aren't required to per se.
Although people also seem to complain more that doesn't really contribute to the common "spirit".

Glenski said:

Am I focusing only on the negatives? Yes, for a reason.

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Reading your cases was entertaining.
It would be nice to get some from the positive side too though.

A representative of Japanese teamwork
Senior high school baseball of summer,
"Koshien"
This began in 1915.
It is fought in a tournament of about 4000 senior high school baseball teams now.
An event of New Year holidays,
"Hakone Ekiden (The Tokyo-Hakone Come and Go College Ekiden Race )"
Ekiden is teamwork of a long-distance relay.
Ekiden is different from other individual competitions,
A player has very heavy pressure.

Re: vague questions yield vague answers

alantin said:

Well.. Sometimes it is necessary to avoid misunderstanding.

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Sorry, I don't get it.

Reading your cases was entertaining.
It would be nice to get some from the positive side too though.

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I don't see why. I was trying to dispel the notion that Japanese team spirit is always a positive thing.

Case 1 positive (sorta).
Undokai (from the kids' side). Nobody really loses (at the younger ages, anyway).

Case 2
Entrance exams. Teachers from all fields contribute to the grading, even of sections that aren't theirs. Lots of camaraderie, laughing, bantering. (There's a negative point in there, too, but you don't want to hear it.)

Case 3
Professional sports (when they win). Tossing of the coach/manager in victory.

Glenski said:

Sorry, I don't get it.

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I have noticed that if I state something that might be considered too definate sounding, some people tend to come down on me hammering how wrong I am in my opinnions without even understanding what I'm trying to say.

Glenski said:

I don't see why. I was trying to dispel the notion that Japanese team spirit is always a positive thing.

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I wonder, where you got the idea that I was suggesting that..
(Sorry if you were proving your point to someone else.)

As I said. I was considering if existance of good teamwork spirit is potentially more possible in Japan than in many europian countries, given the cultural differences.
Now. I'm sure you noticed me acknowledgeing that it doesn't neccesserily go that way.

Don't see why?
How about looking at a subject from more angles than just one..?

Glenski said:

Case 1 positive (sorta).
Undokai (from the kids' side). Nobody really loses (at the younger ages, anyway).
Case 2
Entrance exams. Teachers from all fields contribute to the grading, even of sections that aren't theirs. Lots of camaraderie, laughing, bantering. (There's a negative point in there, too, but you don't want to hear it.)
Case 3
Professional sports (when they win). Tossing of the coach/manager in victory.

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The first ones were much better. ☝
I wonder, if you can do better..

I was not pointing a finger at anyone in particular, alantin. Just making a point because the OP seemed to give me a feeling that he felt the teamwork spirit here was always positive.

As for providing better examples of the positive spirit, I'll have to pass. I'm really tired, really busy, and many foreigners just don't see the same positive side to some of the examples anyway.