The Sunday Mail
Changing Perspectives
Rutendo Gwatidzo
SUPPOSE people were drops of water. This means an individual would just be equal to a droplet, but if people come together, they would make a cupful, a bucketful, a stream, a river, a sea or even an ocean.
This notion shows that, together, we are much greater than our individual efforts. Some drops will be bigger than others but once they are in the ocean, they all become one and it will be difficult to mark them out.
Everyone would just enjoy the beauty and strength of ocean waters without caring much about which river poured the most into the ocean.
Also, once the water becomes an ocean, you find all types of fish and creatures that you cannot find in a bucketful. If you give someone a drop of water, that person may simply ignore it because it looks useless.
This scenario illustrates the beauty of teamwork. Alone, one achieves little, but as a team, they achieve much more. Teamwork is one of the winning strategies for any project one can do in life. Surprisingly, it is one of the least considered strategies by many.
Many people, including managers, tend to focus on individual efforts and individual results. Alone, one can go fast, but is likely to reach a limit. As a team, you may go slow trying to accommodate everyone, but you reach far most of the time. Teamwork works wonders as it improves productivity.
Sharing strengths and weaknesses brings stability that cannot be easily tampered with. Henry Ford, the man who invented Ford cars and one of the most successful businesspeople to have lived, once said: “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
Teamwork is the ability to work together towards the achievement of a common goal or vision. Henry Ford also said: “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress and working together is success.”
Alone, we quickly reach our limits, but together we go far. Look at soccer players, for instance. The one who scores would have received a pass from someone else and when they win, they do so as a team. The same applies if they lose.
There is a difference between a group and a team. A group becomes a team when each member contributes to supporting the strengths of others for the achievement of common goals. Without supporting one another, there is no teamwork.
Organisational status
Many teams within organisations compete against one another, instead of complementing one another. To make it worse, even within a specific team, individuals compete against each other.
For example, the sales department can be found competing against the marketing department. You can find people within the sales department competing against each other to the extent of even crushing others.
Of course, healthy competition should take place; it actually uplifts and promotes each other’s work. Satisfactory success should not come through crippling others in order to climb up the ladder. Rather, it should lift others up.
An organisation is just like a human body, where every part plays its role. If you hurt your toe, the whole body will feel it, and you may actually find yourself in the blankets simply because of one toe. The same applies in the workplace. The failure of one individual or one department may affect the whole business.
As such, putting minds and skills together as a team to accomplish results will most likely benefit the whole organisation. Martin Luther King once said: “We may have all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now.”
This statement simply shows that when different people meet in one organisation, they simply need to focus on accomplishing one vision.
The responsibility to succeed should not be on the founder only, but everyone riding on the same vision, because if the business collapses everyone else is affected. The secret is in working less as individuals and more as a team to accomplish much.
General facts of life
Teamwork achieves the seemingly impossible. Crazy visions turn into reality due to teamwork and collaboration. Even in life outside work, teamwork and collaboration remain crucial. Come to think of it, who can survive on their own without needing neighbours. Alone, the journey of life can become long, tiring and painful, but with others it becomes easy.
Sometimes being with others can be annoying but being alone can be more miserable. To enjoy life, one needs to be tolerant and put up with others for the accomplishment of great things.
Be challenged to be a team player if you are not one already. Learn to pass the ball to others so that if they score you win as a team. Trying to run with the ball by yourself puts you at risk of losing the ball.
Be inspired to provoke others to work as teams and be encouraged to tolerate others for the accomplishment of one common goal.
Rutendo Gwatidzo is a culture and change management strategist. She is an HR consultant, speaker, mentor and author of the book Born to Fight. She was included by the Institute of Corporate Directors Zimbabwe on the list of the 40 influential leaders in Zimbabwe 2022. Contact detail — 0714575805/ [email protected] / Rutendo Gwatidzo official fb public page
