People often ask me how, as an only child, I got started speaking about teamwork. I love the game of baseball and the fact is that growing up as an only child and throwing the ball up in the air got real old real quick. My father played catch with me when he had time, but he worked long hours so, to fill the time, he bought me a pitch back game that was exciting for a couple of weeks. The bottom line was that if I wanted to play baseball I needed to build my own team.
There were some people I immediately connected with. With others, it took a while and then there were some people who I just never connected with. Over the years, team members came and went for a variety of reasons. Looking back, I realized that, in many cases, those I selected as teammates were those who were most like me.
When I entered the workforce, reality set in when I discovered that I could not choose my own teammates. It has been said that we can choose our friends but not our family and, in many cases, teamwork in the workplace is like a family. In most cases, we didn’t choose our teammates any more than we chose our family. Some we connect with and some we don’t.
It also seems that the people we work with often remind us of someone in our family. Some may be good reminders and some may be, let’s say, not so good. Think about these questions and leave your comments below:
1. How many people do you work with that, in one or more ways, remind you of someone in your family?
2. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
3. Have you ever left a job because of someone you worked with?
Image courtesy of Jim Larrison
My teammates are definitely like family! I have one that reminds me of my mother and I think it is a good thing. In many ways, my mother and I are opposites, so having a teammate that has strengths where I am weak and visa versa, helps keep the team well rounded.
When building my team, I am always looking for a few common traits (since that helps us communicate and function as a team), but then I look to ways where we can expand our strengths as a company by adding people to the team that look at our clients, their challenges and our business in a different way. It is the wide range of strengths that makes us a better team!