“Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story.” Casey Stengel
(This article is not a dissertation on building teams, but it is about a specific and critical part of forming a solid team.)
Here’s a fun fact: in 1624, the English poet John Donne wrote “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,” and in that work, one of his (famous) lines is, “No man is an island.” Yes, that is where that line comes from, and even though it wasn’t written yesterday, it still rings true today.
People have different personalities, and some of them would rather work alone, but it is rare that one person can do a better job than a team. We need to understand why because, as supervisors, we are required to build teams and monitor, facilitate, encourage, and help shape them into productive units.
When you think about it, all leaders try to do the same thing. They are trying to influence and motivate individuals to achieve goals.
Most of the time, these individuals are in groups that need to perform better, and the only way to do that is for them to work together to become more than the sum of their parts. That is team building. To break it down to the simplest form, good leaders are team leaders. That is what we do. That is how we lead.
And to be clear, as a supervisor, you should think of all your employees as a team — “your team.” And that’s because, in the end, your team will be accomplishing most of the work given to you — to be completed.
As a side note, when you “speak” of them or write about them, you should refer to them as “our team” because, in fact, you are an intricate part of that team. You are a member, not just the boss.
Teams are so much better than groups. Teams are better because there is a common purpose that all the individuals on the team believe in and want to accomplish. They also need to know that they are not superhuman and cannot, nor are they expected to, complete the entire task by themselves. I need to give you a great example of this.
I taught and worked at a prestigious military college for over twelve years. For the time I was there, the course was 12 weeks long and comprised about 20 seminars. Each seminar consisted of (roughly) officers from: 7 Army, 7 Air Force, 4 Navy, 1 Marine, and one international officer. These were all mid-level officers who were excellent in their field. Looking at their records, you could see why they were truly “selected” for this respected college.
The difference in this college was that there was NO Distinguished Graduate program. There was no “Top Officer” in the course. At the end of the 12 weeks, everyone in the class graduated. Several times, the thought of instituting recognition for those who went above and beyond the normal duty was suggested, but it was never adopted. And here is the reason. In the seminar, we had 20 highly competitive officers, all exceptional in their particular discipline, and competing for a “top slot” would have been a natural desire.
But taking that “prize” away from the student body allowed them to actually help educate the other students in the seminar about what they did and how they did it so well. And they happily did it for the benefit of all rather than keep information to themselves, allowing them to gain points and be “№1.” As facilitators and instructors, we saw that the students received far more education from the interaction with their peers than what was simply given from the podium.
That, my friends, is cooperation over competition. That is what we are shooting for in our teams.
On a team, we are all equal. We are all knights at the round table. As a result, we all benefit from the combined talent and strengths each member brings to our team.
We are all like a single cylinder in an engine — if one isn’t working correctly, our engine loses power.
There is no “distinguished graduate.” Make sure everyone on your team understands this axiom, and your team will flourish.