vsbabu.org

Musings on TEAMWORK

In pretty much every seminar I’ve attended in the past 2 years, speakers have been enthusiastic to keep explaining the virtues of TEAMWORK. Some went even so far as to assert that being a TEAM in itself is the primary goal and not the WORK.

May be it is my Indian heritage acting up, but I can’t quite comprehend having WORK (or goals) taken out of TEAMWORK. While I was commuting to work this morning, I kept getting these thoughts.

In every seminar, the favorite anecdote the speakers had to quote was: Michael Jordan was once told, “Basketball is a team game and there is no 'I' in the word 'TEAM'.” Not a single speaker mentioned Jordan’s reply:“There may be no 'I' in 'TEAM' but there is in 'WIN'."

I doubt Jordan’s team would’ve lasted if they were not winning. If they keep on winning because of Jordan’s star performance, that is what makes them a team. Admit it, win more, keep a team that works. It might happen that team mates might get a bit green about Jordan. That should not be considered as Jordan’t fault. Abraham Lincoln knew that long time ago when he said “The way to strengthen the weak is not by weakening the strong”.

Related: Rediff has more to say about Indian Cricket team’s performace in New Zealand.

With professional people-skills gurus being overly judgemental and narrow-minded these days, what is even the need to listen to such people? Never mind, but hiring them to speak seems to be common practice in US. Perhaps renting videos of Friends and watching that together might be more effective and less expensive

A multi-lingual colleague once told: “T.E.A.M in German expands to toll ein Anderer macht’s which means Great, someone else will do the work.

Previous musings:

1. Improving efficiency in IT teams.
2. Culture of Candor.