University of Pretoria Research Uncovers These 36 Benefits of Music Team Building.
Here’s what a 2013 University of Pretoria study found about music based team building. Participants reported the following in the focus group sessions which were held before and after the music team building sessions:
1. Relaxing.
2. Energising.
3. Revealed the fun side of colleagues.
4. Revealed talents co-workers didn’t see before in their colleagues.
5. Decreased sense of isolation.
6. Revealed a non-work side of colleagues.
7. Revealed the human side of colleagues.
8. Revealed the fun side of colleagues.
9. Makes participants experience self-insight.
10. Improved team work.
11. Increased respect for colleagues.
12. Increased inter-departmental integration.
13. You discover your own musical talent.
14. Experience a sense of being at ease and free with colleagues.
15. Experience being in the moment, in the music.
16. Team building should be done in the work place when possible in order to shift (if it’s bad) or build on (if it’s already good) the energy and perception of the place.
17. Participants in the musical team building experienced higher unity than those who didn’t participate.
18. Participants in the musical team building experienced higher energy than those who didn’t participate.
19. Participants experience a sense of camaraderie.
20. The team building offered something to talk about beyond work.
21. Enriched inter-personal relating.
22. The team building opened up possibilities for a more supportive culture between co-workers.
23. The team building was able to encourage unity in the entire branch, not just in the worker’s department.
24. Increase feeling of “connectedness” between team members.
25. Increased cooperation between team members after the team building sessions.
26. Increased inter-personal tolerance between team members.
27. Increased empathy for a co-worker’s point of view.
28. Improved communication.
29. Decreased conflict.
30. Increased mutual understanding.
31. Constructive co-worker relationship shift.
32. A feeling of inter-personal warmth towards one another.
33. Participants more likely to encourage one another.
34. Participants more likely to accept leadership.
35. An increased sense of approachability among co-workers.
36. Increased awareness and empathy for stresses your managers experience.
Realise that this wasn’t a cursory look into music therapy. It was a thorough and formal academic research project.
If you’re academically inclined, Download the pdf to learn more about the study and what it revealed.
If you’re in a corporate environment, the take home lesson is that musical team building in a group setting is a very, very, very good thing to do! The study concludes with this line: “…perhaps it is time not only for South Africa, but also for the international community to be “taking music seriously” in the corporate field, or at least more so than currently seems to be the case”