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The
Power of a Team
A man was walking along a road and he came to the beginning of
a steep hill. At the bottom of the hill was a farmer with a
heavily loaded wagon. A tiny donkey was hitched up to the yoke
in front of the cart. The man asked the farmer how he could
possibly expect that little donkey to pull that huge load up
the hill. The farmer replied by yelling out, “Pull Benny,
pull!”, and then “Pull, Jackie, pull!”, and finally “Pull
Amos, pull!” Confused, the man asked the farmer why he had
just called his donkey three different names. The farmer told
him that the donkey was blind. He said that if he thought
there were two other donkeys pulling alongside him he pulled a
lot harder. That’s how he got the little donkey to pull the
wagon up the hill.
Why would the donkey pull harder when he thinks he has a
team working with him? Is it because he feels more confident
that the team will be able to get the job done than he would
have on his own? Simply knowing that others are supporting you
in your endeavor can be a huge motivating and encouraging
force. This force will put wind in your sails that help you to
sail right on passed the all of the doubts that come along and
challenge your confidence. Challenges like the huge pile of
work, the complexity of the job, the breadth and depth of
knowledge required, your own inexperience, and on and on.
Imagine a team supporting you with all of those issues. You’re
likely to immediately feel more confident that you can execute
and overcome all of these issues.
Accountability is another key dimension of team motivation.
Individuals sometimes feel more
accountable to other people than they do to themselves. How
many people do you know that go to a fitness club or gym to
work out because there are trainers and other exercisers who
hold them accountable for their progress? If you believe that
other people have made a commitment to support you, you are
inclined to want to prove to them that their trust and
confidence are well vested in you. This is like an inflation
proofing mechanism. Say your confidence is challenged and you
look around at your supporters and they are all cheering you
on, or waiting expectantly for the next thing you’re going to
do, or even rolling up their sleeves and pitching in to help.
You’re more likely to buckle down and get on with it despite
the obstacles. You’ll pull harder, just like the farmer’s
donkey. As Vince Lombardi said, “Individual commitment to a
group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company
work, a society work, a civilization work”. Even if the
responsibility for your work or project is yours alone, having
a team of supports allows you to make a commitment to it as
though it were a group effort.
Another key aspect of having a team, and my personal
favorite, is diversity. It doesn’t matter
whether you are the leader of a large enterprise organization
or a sole proprietor of a small home based business. If your
business depends exclusively on your own brainpower for
everything you do, you are severely limiting your capacity. No
matter how smart you are, you simply cannot out think a team
in all the aspects of a complex business undertaking. Don’t
underestimate the value of any insight you can get from the
most unlikely sources either. I regularly share new business
ideas with my seventeen year old son. I’m always impressed by
the level of understanding and the insights and creativity he
is able to apply to things you might think he knows nothing
about. Each of us has people around us that would be equally
willing to share their thoughts and ideas if we were more
willing to be open to receiving them.
People at the lowest levels in an organization often have a
clearer understanding on a specific issue. Their perspective
is not clouded with everything else that needs to be done in
the company. Sometimes the solution is simpler than we think
it might be. Humans have a tendency to complicate things. If
we don’t understand them, it must be because they are very
complicated and so we assume we need to engineer complex
solutions. Sometimes our ego gets in the way. We shy away of
asking other people for their thoughts and ideas because we
don’t want to appear vulnerable and not totally in control of
everything. The person who values input from a diverse range
of people, listens to them, and uses that input to make wise
and sound decisions is indeed more in control of their destiny
than one who believes they need to do it all by themselves. As
Stephen Covey put it, “Strength lies in differences, not in
similarities”.
In a large corporation, you have lots of peers and
subordinates to help you think things through and to provide
creative ideas and solutions to problems. Entrepreneurs who
don’t have this built in resource need to reach out and find
people who they see as advisors in some form or the other. The
relationship could be formal, as in a board member role, or it
could be casual and built on a loose arrangement with a
diverse range of individuals. The relationship can even
include family members and other social peers. A hundred
diverse ideas will beat twenty of your own any day of the
week. Those are goods odds. Why would you bet against them? As
a team, you will pull harder, think smarter, and dramatically
increase the odds of success in your favor.
Patrick Smyth is a leadership navigator and advisor to leaders
of high growth and emerging businesses. He creates compelling
visions and comprehensive strategic plans, and coaches on
effective leadership and management practices. He is a
recognized speaker, trainer, coach, and international business
strategist and author of the book Elephant Walk: Balancing
Business Performance and Brand Strategy for the Long Haul.
http://www.innovationhabitude.com |
