BUSINESS & FINANCE
Teamwork Is Hard Work, But Well Worth It
Teamwork is the last real untapped advantage in organizational life that is totally free!
-Patrick Lencioni
What’s the best team you’ve ever been on?
What did that experience feel like? What were the results of the team?
Have you been on a not so great team?
What did that feel like?
What were the results of that team?
Chances are that most of us have felt and experienced a lackluster team more often than we’ve experienced a great team. Why? Because real, high-performing, cohesive teams are rare.
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Which is too bad because teams have the potential to unlock human and organizational potential.
Why Is Teamwork Rare?
The reason teamwork is hard work and rare is for all the same reasons marriage can be challenging. Both require a lot of vulnerability, emotional investment and pushing and growing and challenging of ourselves and being willing to do that for others.
Fun right?
No, not for most people. Definitely not for me. But I want it for myself and the teams I lead because I know, despite the discomfort involved, that when true teamwork is achieved everyone is better because of it. And that is really rewarding and fulfilling. The best things in life require a lot of work, but are well worth it.
A Community At It’s Core
The team relationship is unlike any other. It should be a place of trust, vulnerability, support, challenge and growth. Psychologist and marriage counselor David Schnarch calls marriage a “people development machine”. And a team has the capacity to be the exact same thing, although maybe not in the same specific way.
Brene’ Brown, author and researcher on vulnerability and what she calls “Whole Heartedness”, points out that our greatest joy and happiness in life comes from being in a safe community where we can be vulnerable. And a team, like a family, has the potential to be that for us in our work lives. Even His Holiness The Dalai Lama believes that belonging to a community is the single greatest source of happiness in life for anyone anywhere.
This is a big reason why great teamwork is hard to achieve. It requires opening up and going places with people that is healthy and required for great relationships but typically avoided at work. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable. And some leaders think, although incorrectly, that it could lead to liability or severe negative consequences. So the colder the better and less risky has become a norm. But with that comes less realization of fulfillment, performance and greatness.
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Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks, built a huge business and even industry based on our need for connection. He calls Starbucks the “third place”. First, home, then work, then Starbucks, a place in between the two, a getaway and place to meet with friends, family and colleagues to connect.
In really cohesive teams, people are so personally connected and invested in each other that they want the best for each other and the entire team.
As a result, being part of a team can be one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives.
