Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Should team members be friends? Part 1

Aristotle suggested that friends must enjoy each other’s company.

If we substitute the word "team members" for "friends" we can develop team skills and enhance our value to the team by focusing on improving our skills as an effective team member.

Team Members Must Enjoy Each Other’s Company

What does it mean to enjoy another team members company?

What makes the members of our work team just tolerable and not enjoyable?

Some people within work teams place the focus of enjoyment on others. They spend time viewing friends, colleagues, and organizations as places and people that should see and desire to find the treasure that is within them. Team members work very hard at being likeable and making themselves desirable for membership on the team. Developing an environment that is like a market place.

Friendship, loyalty and rewards go to the team members who have the greatest “apparent” value, similar to a pair of shoes or a new car. Once the team members and organizations fail to “catch the eye” of the purchaser they “trade up”. Creating a team culture of deceit and high turnover of team members. They fail to see the other members as people of equal value to themselves; they see them as objects or goods to be used for their personal advancement.

Enjoying other team members company we learn what it is that makes a person a friend, developing traits and habits that make one a builder of team members and friendships as opposed to a purchaser and user. Some of these traits are transparency, dependability, accountability, trust. Once teams and organizations learn about being a team member as opposed to making themselves desirable to teams companies shift and become great.

  • How can a team member create a culture of respect and trust?
  • Is it the team members responsibility to create a culture?
  • What is the leaders job in facilitating team members enjoying the company of other team members?

- Michael Cardus is the Founder of Create-Learning-Team Building, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for TeamBuilding NY. Mike specializes in team building, team development, leadership development consulting and training, creating team building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team.
Located in Buffalo NY.
We travel to your location and facilitate team building and leadership training, wherever and whenever best serves your team.