Teamwork

Hello World

I’m using my daily thoughts and encounters to discover as many things as possible which bring together, rather than divide, our various belief systems and cultures.

Something on which many many folk around the world have in common is that the weekend equals sport. Amongst other things, for me this involves participation too, as I play hockey. This week I started thinking about something which I’ve touched on before – how teamwork in a sporting context could help us better understand each other in real life too.

Sport is one of those things that transcend outward appearance. No matter how big, small, handsome, ugly, tall, short, with the right application and hard work anyone can achieve in sport. And being part of a team carries extra rewards in the form of support and friendship. So why can we be so quick to judge in other aspects of life?

Many years ago I stumbled across a TV game show called Trust Me. The premise was simple – two pairs of contestants were each sat in isolated rooms, and would find out what they could about the other pair before deciding on the fate of a cash prize at the end. Each pair had to decide whether they wanted to ‘Take’ the money for themselves or ‘Split’ it with the other pair. If they both said Split, they shared. If one said Take, they got all the money, but if both said Take, neither pair won anything.

What fascinated me was how two poker players and two professional gamblers all ended up with nothing; whereas in the second game two ballet dancers and two nightclub bouncers successfully split the money. Clearly the latter pairings had far less in common with each other, but were able to see past that, whilst the first pairings had outthought each other, failing to look beyond the mechanics of the game itself. The idea was for each pair to realize that they are actually half of a team of four trying to learn to trust, and in return exude trustworthiness.

This shows us that teams are often not teams in isolation, but teams within larger teams. The difficulty is when a ‘sub’ team protects itself to the detriment of the larger team. A department might look after itself instead of the office in which it works; the office instead of the company of offices; the company instead of its business sector; the sector puts itself ahead of the country, and the country ahead of the rest of the world.

What if my hockey team decided to work to the same principle? If the midfielders lose the ball, should the defenders shrug their shoulders and refuse to put things right, because the impending goal isn’t their fault? No, of course not. So why does such a ridiculous mindset become more prevalent in our daily life?

We are in fact all part of one huge team. Our own species – Human Race United. We all have to look after each other and help pick up each other’s pieces if things go wrong. Let’s not be distracted by who we are, what we look like, how stupid we’ve been, what we believe. The Lord knows I’m saying this to myself as much to everyone else, because we can all improve. If we do more for others, we may find that others do more for us than we as individuals could do for ourselves.

Thanks for listening, and take care.