Continental Japan Case Study
Most people folding origami sculptures simultaneously
The Results
- Employee Engagement:
- 600 employees participated in the record-breaking attempt
- This experience has molded us into a team that keeps their hands together and allows us to achieve our shared goals through collaboration.
- Bert Wolfram, Chief Executive Officer at Continental Japan
The Brief
Continental Japan, a subsidiary of the famous German automotive parts manufacturing company, was planning to host an annual kick-off meeting in Yokohama, Japan, with approximately 600 employees.
Since Continental Japan had experienced several corporate mergers, their employees were from different corporate cultures. Also, they were going to invite employees from their overseas offices. How can the company unite those employees from different backgrounds, ensure they achieved something great as a team and at the same time incorporate and introduce a bit of Japanese culture into their challenge?
The Solution
The Guinness World Records Engage to Unite programme was identified as the most effective solution in order to achieve the company’s goals. The Guinness World Records Lab researched potential ideas based on the brief and proposed the record title for Longest line of origami sculptures.
The record attempt was announced within the company prior to the event to generate conversations, excitement and of course, allow for practice. As soon as the record was chosen, the Guinness World Records Project Management Team provided support on pre-event logistics and schedule management in order to get the most out of this employee engagement programme.
On the event day and after attending the business kick-off meeting, all employees were greeted by a Guinness World Records official adjudicator on stage who delivered a motivational speech about the importance of uniting and working as a team.
The employees, most of whom hadn’t met each other previously, joined forces to show exceptional team work and achieved the record with 2,855 origami sculptures connected into one line.
I am really proud of our achievement to set this Guinness World Records title as well as the whole process on how we achieved it. This unique once-in-a-lifetime opportunity brought our teams together and enabled us to achieve the target on hand through strong collaborations – the same collaboration we strive to achieve with our customers, which lets us grow with them in a trustful relationship.