Teamwork, defined as the “the process of working collaboratively with a group of people in order to achieve a goal,” is often a crucial part of business. Every person on a team has the ability to positively or negatively effect the team’s ultimate goal.
With the upcoming Summer Olympics, athletes will pursue medals in both individual and team events. Michael Phelps qualified in the same eight events that he swam in Beijing in 2008. However, he later dropped the 200-meter freestyle to instead focus on the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. Phelps along with his coach, Bob Bowman, understands the importance of his positive contributions on the relay team – – – his contributions of speed and leadership for the team could be the difference between winning or not winning a medal.
Also in headline news, we can see the effect of one individual’s ability to negatively impact a team. The recent conviction of Jerry Sandusky in the Penn State child sex abuse scandal has resulted in sanctions against the college and Joe Paterno no longer holding the record as the winningest college football coach due to the vacated victories from 1998 to 2011. Whatever talents Sandusky brought to achieve those wins were irreversibly negated by his unethical and immoral actions that were never addressed when the incidents actually occurred.
In the business world, teams inevitably get better results than individuals working within the constraints of their job. Collective skills, knowledge, and talents of a diverse group working together ultimately make better decisions and produce a higher output.
So go for the Gold by being a positive team member, understanding your organization’s overall goals, contributing your time and talents daily, and doing more than what is expected.