“There‘s no ‘I’ in team.”
A phrase that sets my teeth on edge. Often trumpeted to emphasize the importance of working together as a cohesive unit and to stress the essence of functioning as a consolidated group.
There are speakers the world over who have built entire careers by trotting out this concept to both the folks at HR conferences and to managers held prisoner at annual company leadership gatherings. It’s over-used, cliched and, let’s be frank, somewhat patronizing and annoying.
Because there is, most assuredly, an “I” in team.
A team is not just a band of anonymous, characterless automatons laboring towards a common objective. A team is comprised of living, breathing, individuals. Sentient, complicated, multi-faceted and occasionally messy human beings.
Much like a dispersive prism, a team draws in light, breaks it up into its spectral colors, and reflects it back out. A team is that reflected color spectrum – connected individuals (each one a “me”!!) with singular blends of skills, strengths, and idiosyncrasies. The combined effect of this explosion of color is what provides a team with its core strength … as well as its distinctive identity.
Teams can become turbo-charged – leading to iteration, innovation and even disruption – when a group of divergent individuals can truly come together to challenge each other with distinct and, perhaps, contrarian thoughts. The resulting creative friction (a good thing!) can spur a team forward; pushing them to evolve and break boundaries.
Yet, it’s not just about the sum of individual parts – another cliché. Rather it’s how these parts work together, in balance, to create a powerful whole. And teams – whether self-governed or with a formal leader – are best served when acknowledging and celebrating these individual contributions while still remaining committed to their shared vision. It’s a delicate, and magical, equilibrium because a team is not simply a homogeneous unit of cloned members working tirelessly in unison.
It’s well past time to embrace a new slogan – “There is a ME on this team” – even if it won’t fit on a t-shirt.
