People join, people leave. In the meantime, the team has grown.

Today was a welcome party for a new mid-career hire.

While surrounding our new colleague, I suddenly remembered myself about two years ago.

I also joined as a mid-career hire, and I was welcomed in the same way.

What can I do in this new company?

Will my past experience be useful here?

I remember sitting in that seat, filled with both anticipation and anxiety.

Back then, I could not have imagined that the team would change so much in a few years, or that I would become so deeply involved in this business myself.

I joined a new business team in its startup phase, tasked with promoting mobility services within a large organization.

At that time, it was still a small organization of just a few people.

The members who had gathered were people who had each experienced different companies and jobs.

Naturally, our ways of working and our perspectives on things were different.

Precisely because each of us had a desire to move the business forward, there were times when we exchanged opinions quite frankly.

It was not that anyone was wrong.

It was just that for people with different experiences to become one team, we needed to put into words and share what we valued and where we were headed.

I don't think we were a team just by belonging to the same department.

When we rented a small space and handed out flyers

At the beginning of the launch, when we exhibited at trade shows, we rented a corner of a booth set up by another department.

We stood in a limited space and handed out flyers.

We explained our service, which was not yet well known, from scratch to those who stopped by.

How to expand a SaaS-type mobility service within an automobile manufacturer.

The team had no ready-made answers and no accumulated know-how.

Who are we delivering to?

What kind of challenges are we addressing?

What are we communicating as value?

Every day was spent finding these things out through trial and error.

There were times when we struggled to get a real sense of our results.

For areas where we lacked manpower or expertise, we borrowed the strength of external partners.

They supported us with some of our inside sales and field sales, and I took on the role of connecting those activities and moving the team forward.

Checking the status of activities.

Having information obtained from business meetings shared.

Organizing challenges and thinking about the next measures.

There was a period when we were able to expand our points of contact and move forward precisely because we had external help.

On the other hand, through that experience, there were things I gradually began to feel.

If you read the reports, you can understand the challenges the customers are facing.

If you check the results of the business meetings, you can see what resonated and what didn't get across.

However, in what words did the customers describe their troubles?

Why are they continuing with their current operations?

What do they want to change, and where are they getting stuck?

To understand that kind of background, I needed to stand in front of the customers myself and receive their words directly.

Borrowing the strength of external partners versus us facing the customers ourselves.

I now feel that both were necessary.

I couldn't explain the meaning of the business in my own words

When I first joined the company, I still couldn't explain in my own words the meaning of working on this mobility service.

While I was considering a career change to an automaker, a SaaS-based new business happened to be my entry point.

To be honest, I didn't have a strong attachment to this business from the beginning.

The business was in the middle of being launched.

It also needed to be advanced while being supported by many people both inside and outside the company.

Why are we doing this business?

What is the meaning of creating a new mobility service within a large organization?

I think the answer to that hadn't connected within me yet.

My perspective changed after I had more opportunities to face customers myself.

Until now, the point of contact between automakers and corporate customers has been centered on products like vehicles.

Of course, making good cars, delivering them, and ensuring they are used with peace of mind is an important role for an automaker.

However, for corporate customers, introducing vehicles is not the goal.

Once they actually start using the cars, management tasks arise.

Mechanisms for safe operation become necessary.

They must comply with laws, keep records, prevent accidents, and manage daily operations.

There are challenges there that cannot be solved by the performance of the car itself.

What we are working on is not selling cars on behalf of dealerships.

Nor is it simply selling a single SaaS.

We address the challenges of corporate clients' vehicle operations, which were not fully visible through our previous touchpoints centered solely on the product of vehicles.

By connecting the feedback gained there to service improvements and the next business venture, we are expanding the scope of value that an automobile manufacturer can provide.

That is where the significance of working on this business lies.

Once I truly understood that, my approach to work changed.

The questions I ask customers have changed.

The words I use in business negotiations have changed.

The information I bring back to the company has changed.

Instead of waiting for someone else to provide the answers, we have started to think and act for ourselves.

When I saw the meaning of my work, my daily actions began to carry a sense of purpose.

And that change was not happening to me alone.

The entire team began to re-examine the meaning of our engagement with this business, and little by little, we started to face the same direction.

Just adding more people does not make a team

New colleagues joined our team, which had only a few members when I first joined, one by one.

People who have gained experience at different companies.

People with different areas of expertise.

People who bring perspectives that the team did not have before.

Before I knew it, the small organization had transformed into a team where each person had a clear role.

However, just because the number of people increases does not mean it naturally becomes a team.

As the number of people grows, so do the ways of thinking and the approaches to work.

Who is responsible for what?

What should I decide for myself, and what should I consult with others about?

Things that could be left vague when we were a small group gradually stopped working.

One of the reasons the team changed was that the quantity and quality of communication changed.

Not just sharing what was done, but talking about why it is being done.

Thinking not just about numerical progress, but how those numbers connect to customers and the business.

Knowing what each person is in charge of, what they are struggling with, and what responsibilities they carry.

Such dialogues gradually increased.

Another factor was that we became able to respect each other's positions and entrust responsibilities to one another.

Instead of everyone taking on everything, we trust and delegate to the person in charge of that area.

Support them if they are in trouble.

However, do not interfere more than necessary in the work that has been delegated.

It is easy to say, but it took time to actually be able to do it.

To delegate to someone, you need to know them.

To take responsibility for your own role, you must understand where the team is heading.

By repeating dialogues and sometimes exchanging opinions frankly, we gradually became able to trust each other's positions.

The structure of sales activities was also organized.

Introducing SFA and MA tools to visualize customer touchpoints and the progress of business negotiations.

Inside sales, field sales, and business planning teams becoming conscious of their respective roles.

While incorporating the so-called "The Model" approach, we have built our own business promotion system.

Work has become structured to a degree incomparable to before.

Because information has become more visible, we are now required to track progress, make decisions, and move to the next action faster than before.

The responsibility has by no means become lighter.

If anything, the challenges may have increased.

Even so, the feeling of carrying the workload alone has diminished.

When things go well, we rejoice together.

When things don't go as planned, we worry together.

We exchange opinions frankly, and sometimes emotions run high.

Even so, we have colleagues with whom we can share our joys and sorrows while moving the same business forward.

That is a very happy thing when it comes to working.

What we received from those who supported us

While welcoming new colleagues, we also reached a milestone where someone who has supported us until now is taking a new step forward.

It is an external partner who supported our field sales, worried with us, and helped move the business forward.

I am frankly sad that we will no longer be able to work together in the same way as before.

I wanted to work with them more.

There were still things I wanted to learn from them.

I have those feelings as well.

However, strangely, it is not just anxiety about being left behind.

That is because we have received so much from that person.

How to engage with customers.

How to structure business negotiations.

How to ask about challenges.

Ways of thinking to move proposals forward.

And the confidence that we can move forward on our own.

It wasn't just sales techniques that you taught us.

I feel that you have gradually given us the power to think for ourselves, decide for ourselves, and move forward on our own.

If it were the old us, we might have felt much greater anxiety about someone who supported us leaving.

But now, carrying what we have received, we can move forward on our own.

Within the team, such a small sense of confidence is being born.

A team that was supported by someone has gradually become able to stand on its own two feet.

Amidst the loneliness of people leaving, I was made to realize that as well.

We are in the middle of a baton pass.

The fact that our team, which started with only a few people, has gradually grown.

The fact that our trial-and-error activities have gradually become a system.

The fact that members with different experiences have re-examined the meaning of our business and are now able to move in the same direction.

And the fact that I myself have found a reason to face this work.

It is not just one of these things that has made us who we are today.

Someone thinks of something, and someone else gives it shape.

Someone tries something, and the next person improves it.

We turn what we learned from external partners into our own strength.

New people who join bring experiences and perspectives we never had before.

Both team growth and individual growth are the accumulation of such handovers.

Do not keep the experience you received only to yourself.

Turn it into value for the customer.

Turn it into a team mechanism.

Apply it to other work as well.

And pass it on so that the next person to join can start running from a little further ahead than we did.

New people join, and those who have helped us move on to new places.

At the welcome party, I was comparing my self from two years ago with the team as it is today.

People joining and people leaving.

In between, many invisible things are left behind.

Words I was taught.

Time spent struggling together.

Experiences that didn't go well.

Responsibilities I was entrusted with.

And the small confidence that we can move forward on our own.

Our team has also come this far while receiving such things.

This night, as we welcome new colleagues, is a continuation of that.

While holding the baton we received, it is now our turn to pass it on to someone else.