Recently I have been very disappointed by the lack of teamwork both my work team and rugby team have displayed. During high school and college I learned a whole lot about what makes a successful team. Accountability, responsibility, working together, bonding, a positive attitude, confidence in your teammates. These are the things that make teams fun to be a part of and make them successful. Right now my teams are characterized by egos, individual glory, negative thinking, and selfishness. These factors are highly destructive to the teams. Currently both my work team and my rugby team have far more of the latter than any team should have and it is making me ashamed of being part of these teams. I suppose that I will start with my work team. First of all no one trusts anyone else and believes themselves to being the smartest one in the group. In a good team, if you are the best one in the group (which obviously can't be everyone) you should use your superior skills and knowledge to help the others in your team improve themselves, not constantly show off to prove that you are the best. Shameless showboating harbors tension and feelings of distain within the team. Although showboating may make the individual feel better (read inflate his ego) the team is much worse off as a whole. Then there are the personal squabbles and facades of liking. Seemlying always people are bitching at each other or talking bad about someone behind their back. Also there is blaming... constant blaming. Everyone lack accountability and refuses to admit a mistake is made, once again in the name of ego. Until recently my rugby team was a great example of how a team should work. We worked together to get wins, we worked hard and then played just as hard. Now throw in four or five big time rugby egos. Now the whole system is out of whack. Instead of running plays in practice some of our new players are displaying their 'superiority' against our backup players. They blow off practicing the play in order to make a selfish run off on their own. Our coach, if anything, cheers this kind of selfish effort in practice and calls it high intensity. Then the negative attitudes start emerging from the newbies. If you were an outsider listening in you would assume that we struggle to win a couple game a season instead of one of the better teams in the country. The newbies demand that we cleat (read stab our teammate with our cleats) during practice. One of the most outragous things that I have ever heard. Then there is screaming at teammates and just out in frustration. Yelling doesn't really help people get better. It darkens the mood and demotivates, while no lessons are learned. My team still consists of many guys that I like to hang out with, stand up for, and have them on my side. But the new players (and my whole work team always) make me embarrased to be part of a team that functions so poorly. I want to seperate myself from them and that makes me a bad team player. The ego is a funny thing. We probably get the most satisfaction and reward from achieving goals as a group but once our ego steps in it makes us abandon the group in a vain quest to stand out from the rest of the team to prove our superiority. But usually the only one that we prove this to is ourselves, while our teammates grow bitter at how selfishness is harming the goals of everyone including the egomaniacs. Big egos make me want to walk away and find a team that harbors successful team behavior. I think that both emotionally and physically they will provide me with the best rewards of all.
