A team is not something that you can force people to become. It takes leadership, guidance, and enough concern for each individual to win their loyalty. In a team, each member has faith in his or her teammates to do what is best for the team as a whole, rather than doing what is best for the individual. It is that faith and dedication to the common goal that binds the individuals together and ensures the success of the entire team. It can’t be forced, it can’t be faked, and it can’t be fixed when someone has broken that bond. When you find yourself as a member of a team, appreciate it, protect it, and realize that you will all share the sweetness of victory together or you will all suffer the bitterness of defeat together.
Some excellent points of departure to reflect on and consider here, Kathy, as I find myself in two new volunteer leadership roles in my “Golden Years.” So much is happening in our world today and in our neighborhoods—same human dynamics at play and same responsibility all of us have to listen, learn and lead while knowing if it doesn’t work for all of us it doesn’t work. We must find a new and creative way to find solutions through communication, collaboration and cooperation. I still believe much of our trouble at all levels of society today is caused by ego, ignorance and miscommunication. I don’t have any easy answers, but I know we must find a way if we are to move forward rather than stay stuck in the same drama while watching so many suffer because of our inability to tame egos, come together as co-inhabitants of the same Mother Earth, and think, speak and act as fully conscious adults.
I think one of the biggest problems today is the lack of understanding how to communicate. Much of the so-called communication between people is in texting rather than face-to-face, and it is an entirely different perception of relationship which is really not relationship at all. Teamwork needs that hands-on relationship and face-to-face communication to work. Society in general has lost these skills and they need to be resurrected again.