Every now and again I dig into the archives. Here’s a post from 2012. Still true.
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Last week, in the manner that these things occur, there was a picture making the rounds on Facebook that poked fun (in an amusing way with just a dash of profanity) of the old cliché “there’s no ‘I’ in team.”
Which reminded me how much I’ve always truly disliked that saying.
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It goes without saying that assembling a group of individuals with unique talents that compliment each other can unleash all sorts of things – idea generation, innovation, a little-bit-of-friction (in a good way). The collective group could quite possibly get more done in a shorter period of time and accomplish things that an individual could not achieve on their own.
But you know what I’ve always found to be the undeniable truth?
That team is made up of a bunch of ‘I’s – as in INDIVIDUALS.
And each of those individuals must make a purposeful and conscious decision to bring themselves into the group. Each person must be committed, engaged and invested in moving the work of the team forward.
I daresay that if any one person belongs to a team and believes that the power of the group trumps their own INDIVIDUAL power, then that team is doomed. The team may not fail – but I may not hit its full collective potential if all the individual members check their ‘I’s at the door.
There’s a great deal of potential and ability in many.
There’s a LOT of capability and power … in one.
