Aside from the obvious enjoyment of interstellar travel and light saber duels, the Star Wars movies offer a great many lessons in other areas. Because team building is a primary focus of my speaking, I would like to point out a few lessons from Han Solo and others as they relate to teams.
- Small teams can accomplish great things. Rebel Alliance- 2, Death Stars- 0.
- Every team needs an Obi-Wan Kenobi to serve as the gatherer to bring members together. This person may or may not be the team leader either.
- The goals are sometimes more important than the team itself. Sometimes people, products, or processes are sacrificed to reach the goal. Luke Skywalker’s hand is never gonna grow back.
- Sometimes teams need to come together for a season and then disband when the job is done. The main crew in Star Wars is constantly evolving.
- Teams don’t always have to get along perfectly to work. Just think about all the constant infighting among the Star Wars crew.
There are so many more lessons to learn. If you want to see all of these principles in play and realize your own, have your team sit down and watch a few or all of the movies and analyze them in terms of team building.
I hope this helps you and your team. If you would like to delve deeper into team building, please get in touch. I frequently speak at conferences on this topic and also use it to coach individuals in high stress/high danger occupations in career transition.
This message was written by a team of geeks, nerds, gamers, and Dr. David Powers. You can always find us at www.drdavidpowers.com. Thanks for reading!
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