Tag Archives: pulling together

When the team works, there is camaraderie, sense of togetherness, and all those good things, but also there are those who may not be in sync with the performers within the team. While routine housekeeping, I stumbled upon John Murphy’s Pulling together, about extraordinary power of teamwork. An empowering word, indeed.

At the center of every high performance team is a common purpose — a mission that rises above and beyond each of the individual team members. To be successful, the team’s interests and needs come first. This requires “we-opic” vision, a challenging step up from the common “me-opic” mindset.

Effective team players understand that personal issues and personality differences are secondary to team demands. This does not mean abandoning who you are or giving up your individuality. On the contrary, it means sharing your unique strengths and differences to move the team forward. It is this “we-opic” focus and vision—this cooperation of collective capability—that empowers a team and generates synergy. A word of encouragement could open up to enhancing expertise or direct to acquiring a new skill or which in fact would improve the chances of team’s success.

Cooperation means working together for mutual gain—sharing responsibility for success and failure and covering for one another on a moment’s notice. It does not mean competing with one another at the team’s expense, withholding important data or information to “one up” your peers, or submitting to groupthink by going along so as not to make waves. These are rule breakers that are direct contradictions to the team-first mindset.

High performance teams recognize that it takes a joint effort to synergize, generating power above and beyond the collected individuals. It is with this spirit of cooperation that effective teams learn to capitalize on individual strengths and offset individual weaknesses, using diversity as an advantage. Unity, Trust, Credibility are lofty words interdependent with earthy ones, Support, Nurture, Stability. One set cannot work without the other – just how fresh legs do well with a mature mind; yet we turn to bulls in china shop and seldom see intelligence.

All the same, a leader is expected to share the successes as well as the failures, as co-operate is not just a term for getting the work done. Leaders set examples and expectations, diligence is a given, unless there are weeds that set off on a tangent and need to be, well, deweeded. When the team leader is honoured, the team does not automatically levitate to cloud-nine; communicate and share the accolades with each person of the team which enabled the win to sustain brightwork. Leaders are born, not often made; what’s not inherent cannot be taught; an old dog will learn new tricks when it comes to survival, and a young pedigree can bark and bite his way through when conditioned. Both are necessary for a team’s survival – a balance of experience and spunk.

Sustained teamwork is not impossible, “You must be careful how you walk, and where you go, for there are those following you who will set their feet where yours are set” – Robert E. Lee

A word or two of encouragement does wonders, but sharing of treats does enhance the ‘self’ multifold. Read confidence, esteem, and worth; now re-read with self as a prefix. Fantastic? Now, another scenario – team starves while leader is overfed, then find the same super team ridden with resentment, insubordination, indiscipline and worse still – rude behaviour. Go ahead, recognize leaders and flood with treats, but encourage the team and share the spoils.

Almost all employees, if they see that they will be listened to, and they have adequate information, will be able to find ways to improve their own performance and the performance of their small group – James O’Toole

Companies must realise, that the one talking the most, or the loudest isn’t the best. Oysters make and hold pearls at the bottom of an ocean, while tides ebb and flow all day. The tides’ energy is insatiable and useful but must be harnessed to be useful; pearls are precious and treasured – both in its own world and .

A Leader would know – the value of cumulative power and distinctive brilliance.