The Value of Teams
John C Maxwell wrote “The question isn’t whether teams have value. The question is whether we acknowledge that fact and become better team players.” President Lyndon Johnson said, “There are no problems we can’t solve together, and very few we can solve by ourselves.”
Isn’t that what it’s all about – becoming better team players so that we contribute what we can at the same time as creating a safe space for others to do the same? …in every arena of our lives.
C. Gene Wilkes noted these points on teams:
- Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas, and energy than would an individual.
- Teams maximize a leader’s potential and minimize her weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are more exposed in individuals.
- Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal, thus devising several alternatives for each situation. Individual insight is seldom as broad and deep as a group’s when it takes on a problem.
- Teams share the credit for victories and the blame for losses. This fosters genuine humility and authentic community. Individuals take credit and blame alone. This fosters pride and sometimes a sense of failure.
- Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals connected to no one can change the goal without accountability.
- Teams can simply do more than an individual.
Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.
This week have a think about the individual strengths of your team members and whether you’re allowing them to cover you and to act in their strengths to the team’s best advantage. Read through the bulleted points above and ask whether you’re making the best use of these facts in your own team!
by Christen Killick
September 24th, 2018