Teamwork, like its name suggests, is work. But more importantly, it's an art, and one that's not easily mastered. A team is a living organism that constantly evolves and metamorphs. There isn't one single formula that's applicable to all, simply because the dynamics are never constant. Even within a single team, it could very well vary overtime and in different phases.
Just to figure out how to "be" , or what to "be" on a team, takes immense effort and brain power. Leadership is not meant for all, and oftentimes when fallen into the wrong hands, the team might as well be hijacked by dictatorship and tyranny. Stewardship perhaps is the most common and the most challenging role, in that one must justify one's being as far more valuable than what one's been given credit for, but at the same time be mindful in paying due respect to the person in charge. For others, stewardship is their means to maintain a low profile so to avoid jobs too cumbersome or difficult, yet the pitfall to this is the potential risk of slipping into the role of a free-rider. Free-riders might not have a care-in-the-world for their lack of contribution or involvement, but they sure will find themselves in awkward predicaments come the time for self-assigned teams. The real nuisance here isn't figuring out how to collaborate with these handful of characters, but the extent of ease and efficiency one demonstrates when assuming these roles. Because, let's be frank, the chance that you would always be able to stay rooted to one single role as you transition from one team to another is slim to none. And that is ultimately what renders teamwork such hard work.
For me personally, my experiences with teamwork had been a procession of self-revelations. I used to be so conceited that I would never settle for any role other than leadership. Whether or not I had consciously pursued such a role, at the end of the day, it just seemed right for me to be the one making all the shots. As I manage to promote myself to leagues with far more intense competition, it became clear that it was perhaps not in anyone's best interest for me to try to hog a position that I was no longer the best candidate for. I began to have to reconcile reality with what I have been used to: instead of giving instructions, now I learn to follow them.
Not to say that there's anything wrong with doing what you're told, but when you knowingly choose to stop just there, that's when you need to start worrying. These days, there is an alarming stagnation that overwhelms me. I can't decide if that's just how it is whenever I stagger around in an new environment in the blind faith that I would find my place when the due amount of bruises have manifested, or if it's merely a phenomena that comes with age and fatigue. The latter obviously doesn't make much sense given that I'm too young and too inexperienced with life to feel remotely close to what fatigue should be. I used to be so ambitiously charged with energy and initiation when it comes to teamwork, and it saddens me so that I seem to be failing to muster the same level of motivation with my team now.
The real catch to all this really is discovering the inevitability of teamwork as you grow older. Reality gradually sets in that as you take on tasks with much greater gravity and immensity, there's no chance that you can manage everything on your own. And there's no way that things will get done the way you want them to be every single time. At the end of the day, being able to juggle multiple roles on different teams at different times, and making peace with who you are and what you do with this group of people versus the other, becomes a prerequisite to survival.
留言列表
