Team Spirit

Most people fail to quite understand what that ‘team spirit’ is. Just avoiding mutual quarrels? Adjust together as a group in an insufficient space? Is it to postpone the outburst till the event is over, and then we are left to ourselves to settle the scores? Some people even try to over do it, by keeping their own work pending, and earn a name of ‘good-cooperation’ by sharing somebody’s work (which actually is quite interesting to our fellow). Ultimately this ‘kept-pending-bit’ will have to be re-allotted to yet another scapegoat. To most people, this team spirit gets squeezed out of us, like that joke where a person, who was appreciated by the whole village of by-standers when he happened to save a drowning person from turbulent waters, exclaimed “To hell with your appreciation, but first tell me who pushed me into the water?”

Quite recently a working woman happened to return home from work a bit late, carrying a large package, gift wrapped. Not even waiting to be asked the two urgent questions (why so late? And What is this gift for?), the lady was all the more eager to vomit out the puzzle that caused lots of indigestion within her! It seems, during the last working hour, the Manager announced that there was going to be a brief meeting with two dignitaries visiting this office to honour the occasion. All the staff was puzzled. It so happened that this manager was asked ‘at the last minute’ to take up a business target of a tie-up, for the controlling office to complete the short fall. This manager managed to do it in just one day, by requesting a ‘big’ somebody of a large client. The head of tie-up partners decided to celebrate this unexpected windfall of touching the target, after having slogged for a couple of months. They lectured in detail, showering lavish praises on the team spirit displayed by all the staff, ‘without which, the goal was unreachable’ they pronounced. This gift-wrapped item was a token of that appreciation. Right from the next person after the manager, down to the twentieth and last of the staff, they had to wait till the next day to find out what fault they committed to become co-conspirators of this ‘team-spirit’. And the manager perhaps chose to leave out the innermost of his own thoughts unsaid (“my dears, the team spirit works too well by itself, when you are kept ignorant of any urgent work, and I am left alone to handle it by myself”).

It was the question that prompted me to also narrate this funny incident. But the answer itself grew too lengthy, and so I chose to ‘axe’ my own readers here with the other half of it. (As a consolation, let me share on a ‘quiet-note’ that, our Master insisted upon ‘experiencing’ this team spirit at cellular level, when he imposed the uttering of an incantation deep enough to sustain a fusion of body-mind-and-breath coordination during some of our rigorous spiritual practices! It does open us up to newer dimensions. But that is quite another story, not at all funny to be told here.)

Regards,
Psn(20th January, 2010)

The question:
http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100119161147AAh92WC&r=w#NbUvWzq9WThW9GWqYeRc
In work environment, What is that we call "team spirit" ?
I work in a team of 20 and I don't know what really is team spirit is... do u know then share with me

My answer:
Our attitude undergoes a subtle change when we look at everything placing the priorities of others above our own. It is that 'subtle' shift that constitutes the bulk of team spirit.That is why those HR people devise 'rigid' tests to assess the team spirit, while recruiting from candidates applying for a job.

Quite often, when we do our own allotted share of job well, the team spirit gets taken care of by itself, even without our knowing it. And we just give a blank stare when somebody appreciates us for 'good-team-spirit', when we know that all we did was to do our job well, out of our own concern about our well being, our job security, our sense of dedication, our ethical outlook etc.

The team spirit is invoked most when the situation changes very rapidly, and vulnerability of failure/success hangs precariously on that 'flexibility' to give up one's own priorities with a preparedness to sensitize ourselves deep enough and subtle enough to obviate even verbal communication. To give a typical example, in an English movie, a team of soldiers go on a mission into enemy territory. When very close to the 'action' area, the threat of their presence getting is obviously more. One of the soldiers becomes sick, and gets frequent coughs. Now, this noise of coughing would reveal their position, and all of them would get killed. Above that, the whole army is waiting for the success of this mission. Realizing all this, this soldier with all his might suppresses his cough, and when the suppressed cough gets stronger (quite naturally so), he even closes his nose to suppress breathing, to avoid a burst of exhalation with noise. The mission succeeds, and only then the leader notices that this poor fellow died of suffocation. It is a dramatized version to invoke deep emotions from the audience. But effective enough to highlight the 'spirit' of team-work. If that soldier does not die, there is no 'noteworthy point at all' is what our mind would say. But when a life is sacrificed, his contribution towards 'team-spirit' looks as best! The movie gets applause. The truth is every link in the chain is vital link to make it a full chain. All we can do is to refuse, continuously, at all times, at any time to become the weakest link of the chain!(There was a joke, early computers were open, and mechanical. A pencil got dropped accidentally and repairs to machine costed much. The boss fired the erring worker, who once again dropped the pencil right into it saying 'ah! now I don't need this pencil anymore!)

Well knit families are the best training grounds to nurture this spirit of teaming up to the best possible extent.