Who is on Your Team, by Wendy Keane

Having a supportive team, committed to common ideals and goals
builds positive energy that ensures success for both
the individual and the group as a whole.

Many people hold the concepts of teams and team building in high esteem, yet some teams succeed where others fail.

What is the difference between team failure and team success?

This phenomena is not dictated by analytical intelligence but by the emotional tone of the individual team members. If we use analytical intelligence as the criteria for team selection, we validate the credentials of a person without considering the impact an emotionally destructive person could have on others.

So if team members like each other, can speak openly and honestly together about their common goals then the understanding within the team will be high and the energy positive.

Team failure occurs when members do not like each other, cannot allow/accept communication other than their own, do not value the common team goals (not real to them), so have no understanding of the positive outcomes that are achieved by working together.

The result of this breakdown in understanding how to succeed causes upsets, arguments, inhouse fighting and separation, which puts the teams energy and focus on continual damage control, instead of winning.

Thinking someone is on your team who is not, causes sabotage and betrayal – strong words indeed – but when a person on your team has a hidden agenda which is opposed to the group agenda, the result is always struggle and failure.

We can identify these different emotional levels by noticing what a person creates / doesn’t create in life outside of the team:

• Do conversations with these people dwell on the positive or the negative.
• Do they relate circumstances specifically or do they generalise most things.
• Are they proactive when things go wrong or do they make little effort to improve conditions.
• Do they create positive relationships with others or are they unable to maintain good relationships.
• Do they pass on good news and drop out the bad.
• Are their associates mainly well and happy or are they mostly ill or dependent on alcohol/drugs or medications.
• Are they easy to be around or do you feel uneasy and drained/not quite good enough around them.
• Do they have a large circle of friends/associates and interests or do they keep to themselves, reluctant to join in or interact with others.
• Are they able to take responsibility for their actions or do they blame others for the position they are in – is it always someone else’s/your fault.
• Do they have mostly constructive solutions to their problems or mostly destructive solutions.

Noticing where our team members are emotionally by using the above criteria, we have a responsibility to both ourselves and our team to honour what we observe. If we chose people using the first criteria, we will be giving ourselves the best possible chance to make it. If we find ourselves surrounded by people mostly using the negative criteria, we have little chance of success. That is not to say that we don’t all use the negative emotional response sometimes – we are looking here for peoples reactions most of the time not just a one of a kind negative reaction brought about by difficult circumstances.

While knowing how to choose your people, who will support, and who will not, can be a difficult task, the best criteria is to value how you feel around these people using the list above. Be honest and courageous about what you observe for yourself. It is never noble to put ourselves in a compromising situation instead of speaking out (with compassion) to clarify what is going on within our team. The rules of your game will define the players and if your rules allow this low emotion to play in your team, you in fact, have become a part of the problem. So honour yourself and who you really are by lifting your own and your teams’ emotional level, so you can play at winning in the game of life.

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