On Being a Team Player
Much is made these days about being a team player. Schools try to instill the values of “the team” by continuously forcing group projects into the curriculum. We watch our sports teams and hope that the team members won’t hog the ball. In a country built by rugged individualism, the media extols the virtues of “community”. Even in raising our families, Hillary Clinton says that “It Takes a Village”. I googled definitions of teamwork, and found a thousand platitudes from Vince Lombardi to Paul McCartney.
But hidden in these platitudes was a quote from Susan Gerke, who headed IBM’s Leadership Development: She said: “Conflict is inevitable in a team ... in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict”. Translated, conflict is a necessary part of the process, and therefore has to be accommodated. Let’s take a look at what teamwork is not.
Teamwork is not mindlessly following a leader, buying into the argument if you oppose his views, you are not a team player. If that were the case, teamwork would become a cult of personality as opposed to common people coming together to achieve uncommon results, to paraphrase Andrew Carnegie. We would be living in a world of David Koreshes or Jim Joneses, drinking the Kool Aid.
Teamwork is not compromising your own goals, principles and ethics to placate the majority of the group. Ask the Germans who joined the Nazi Party because of group pressure.
Teamwork does not prevent you from speaking out for what you think is right. Be true to yourself first. There IS a difference between compromise and capitulation. Compromise can only occur when one is able to rectify the difference between the stated goals of the group and one’s sense of right and wrong.
And when the group refuses to listen openly and fairly to the views of others, then the group is not worth belonging to. That is when one needs to walk away, teamwork be damned. Teamwork contemplates tolerance of opposing views, respect for diversity in opinions, integration of divergent ideas, and compromise for the good of the entire group, not just a vocal few.
Teamwork, like everything else, is something that must be done in moderation, with intelligence and compassion. To have it any other way, makes it a dangerous vice.
But hidden in these platitudes was a quote from Susan Gerke, who headed IBM’s Leadership Development: She said: “Conflict is inevitable in a team ... in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict”. Translated, conflict is a necessary part of the process, and therefore has to be accommodated. Let’s take a look at what teamwork is not.
Teamwork is not mindlessly following a leader, buying into the argument if you oppose his views, you are not a team player. If that were the case, teamwork would become a cult of personality as opposed to common people coming together to achieve uncommon results, to paraphrase Andrew Carnegie. We would be living in a world of David Koreshes or Jim Joneses, drinking the Kool Aid.
Teamwork is not compromising your own goals, principles and ethics to placate the majority of the group. Ask the Germans who joined the Nazi Party because of group pressure.
Teamwork does not prevent you from speaking out for what you think is right. Be true to yourself first. There IS a difference between compromise and capitulation. Compromise can only occur when one is able to rectify the difference between the stated goals of the group and one’s sense of right and wrong.
And when the group refuses to listen openly and fairly to the views of others, then the group is not worth belonging to. That is when one needs to walk away, teamwork be damned. Teamwork contemplates tolerance of opposing views, respect for diversity in opinions, integration of divergent ideas, and compromise for the good of the entire group, not just a vocal few.
Teamwork, like everything else, is something that must be done in moderation, with intelligence and compassion. To have it any other way, makes it a dangerous vice.
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