Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung would have called it synchronicity. I call it downright irritating.

Less than 24 hours after our talented graphic designer delivered Brain Technologies’ new “59 Minute TeamBuilding” logo (below), an American tire company began promoting a national TV advertising campaign called “59 Minute Quick Tire Install™.” And If that wasn’t already one synchronous step too far, there was also the tagline I had created for the logo: “Where tomorrow meets the road.” I will cheerfully admit that I based this idea on a tagline that has long been associated with—yes—tires (“where the rubber meets the road”). You can forgive me for thinking that no good idea goes unpunished.

Nevertheless, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the several months I’ve spent producing the facilitation guide for “59 Minute TeamBuilding.”

As is explained elsewhere on this website, the idea behind the concept is about as simple as making biscuits with Bisquick®.

It doesn’t have to break the bank or crowd the schedule for you to “grow” your people and your teams. It doesn’t even require your to be a seasoned training, coaching or HRD/OD professional to pull it off.

And this isn’t merely another simplistic do-si-do around the training room dance floor. It’s an exhaustively tested, carefully syncopated, professionally coordinated week-to-week “game plan” for getting everyone on a work team deeply involved in the task of getting better and delivering more with the natural thinking skills they possess. And doing it collaboratively and with a reasonable amount of ongoing enthusiasm.

Putting the sinews of “59 Minute TeamBuilding” together sent me searching my files and my memory for “the best and the rightest” from more than three decades of facilitating team-building sessions.

Money-wise, benefitting from what materialized from my quest requires the investment of a ridiculously small amount of corporate or organizational pocket change. All that is needed to get started is to place an order for enough of our BrainMap® self-discovery assessments to supply everyone on your team with their own copy. That order also qualifies you for an e-mail copy of our 125-page “59 Minute TeamBuilding” facilitation guide and script free of charge.

After that, you simply need to find “an hour, less a minute” each week for as long as people are saying “Why didn’t we think of this sooner?” and let the valuable learning times roll!

My favorite exercise is probably the one I suggest for Week 6, which is the second session (if you follow my suggested schedule) using BTC’s mCircle Instrument®. The activity is called “Win As Much As You Can.” I certainly didn’t invent the game and by no means was I even an early user. But I’ve been using it for nearly a quarter-century and have always found it an effective approach for providing my participants with new insights about the value of cooperation.

Well, nearly always.

Not long after the government broke up AT&T, I was asked to spend a few hours in Miami Beach with a group of managers and employees at one of the company’s surviving fragments. The HR people who invited me wanted the conference attendees to explore new ways to cooperate. I thought this might be a good opportunity to use “Win As Much As You Can.”

It wasn’t.

The changes and upheaval within AT&T at that point were too much to permit this group to generate any serious interest in cooperating even if they were merely play-acting.

Quickly, the room dissolved in riotous pandemonium that refused to be calmed. Not even the bosses on hand could restore order to the room.

As I remember, we simply abandoned the exercise and broke early for dinner.

Moral of the story: Be sure you get people to commit to making good things happen together before you ratchet the drama too high.

“59 Minute TeamBuilding” shows you how to quickly get a team focused on the things that matter, and the effect just builds and builds and builds.