Teamwork

We've all heard the phrase "There is no I in team". It's supposed to mean that you shouldn't be so selfish that you compromise the ability of others to succeed as part of a team. As a teacher, I got to assemble teams every day and monitor their performance. As a grad student of education, I learned about the importance of peer-reviews, constructive feedback, and having a respectful learning environment.

Despite all that, you still find people who want to be A holes and make it all about themselves.

:silly: every team-member has/is the student,teacher,peer . . . A hole :silly:

great graphic . . . there is an i in team :laugh:
re: A hole . . . I. . eye . . playing . . .

my experiences with formal structured teaching-learning environments and with modern day coporations is that peer review is utilized productively and destructively . . . The first example is a setting where learning is the common purpose, the second is a setting where money is a common purpose, yet both forces occur in both structures.

Peer review is a way for managers to put off the tough part of their job responsibilities on someone else or a group.
(It's not my fault or I didn't make that call)

A popular/incompentent person gets a good review an unpopular/highly compentent person gets poor reviews.

A high competent person is threatening to the incompentent.

The incompentent doen't understand competencies so how can the review it.

As always the squeeky wheel get the grease so why go to the trouble in the first place...so the manager ......

I love the whole "This is how it works on paper so we're going to say we're doing it that way, but really we're just going to do it vaguely in this fashion with a heavy biased based on how we feel at the time."

I've always liked the sentiment, and tried to abide by it when in a team...

But, upon reflection...sometimes the 'I's in a team - the individuals - are what make the team so awesome. Sometimes you need all those separate cogs in the wheel, y'know? Everyone brings something different and valuable...

It's the ones that think that they are the most important cog who are the a-hole 'I's...they forget that without all the other cogs they would be pretty ineffective.

Ever been on a team full of idiots? Sometimes it's just easier to take over for the sake of getting anything done.

On the flip side, I've been the idiot who distracted everyone else by screwing around.

I guess it all works out for me in the end, but I do know some people who occupy the "A-Hole" on a regular basis.

Oh wow. Yeah I had to deal with a lot of incompetence when I was in corporate cubicle land. When I say peer-reviews, I mean one student reviewing another's work to see if it meets the criteria laid out in a rubric. And when I say teams, I mean people working together as evaluated by criteria laid out in a rubric.

So with that in mind, I guess in Jediism you might have a team with peer reviews working off criteria when you have some student complete the initiate program and then you check to see if it's done and correct any mistakes, etc. And again any time you have a council meeting there's a team, etc.

I just wonder what's behind the thinking of selfish people when they try to make a group dynamic all about themselves. I work in a lot of groups like Anonymous, Occupy, Zeitgeist, FOSS, etc and so I see it pop up from time to time. Usually one of the more experienced members of the groups has a big talk about how "inflated egos destroy teamwork" and that may work, it may not. Sometimes people have to be kicked out. Sometimes they throw temper tantrums.

Is there a way to just deal with it up front before it becomes an issue? Or if/when it pops up a simple way to redirect the person? I'm just having a brain-block on this one.

Whyte Horse wrote: Oh wow. Yeah I had to deal with a lot of incompetence when I was in corporate cubicle land. When I say peer-reviews, I mean one student reviewing another's work to see if it meets the criteria laid out in a rubric. And when I say teams, I mean people working together as evaluated by criteria laid out in a rubric.

So with that in mind, I guess in Jediism you might have a team with peer reviews working off criteria when you have some student complete the initiate program and then you check to see if it's done and correct any mistakes, etc. And again any time you have a council meeting there's a team, etc.

I just wonder what's behind the thinking of selfish people when they try to make a group dynamic all about themselves. I work in a lot of groups like Anonymous, Occupy, Zeitgeist, FOSS, etc and so I see it pop up from time to time. Usually one of the more experienced members of the groups has a big talk about how "inflated egos destroy teamwork" and that may work, it may not. Sometimes people have to be kicked out. Sometimes they throw temper tantrums.

Is there a way to just deal with it up front before it becomes an issue? Or if/when it pops up a simple way to redirect the person? I'm just having a brain-block on this one.

In my experience, it's about understanding what motivates people and what they do best. Some people are highly Ego driven and view everything as a competition. In that situation they see all the members of their group as competition to compete against. The trick to that is understand what's happening and redirecting that competitive energy by making them understand it's their group vs other groups and they need to help their group win. We used to do this in America very well. It was called the cold war.

a strong team leader....

Not a "my way or the highway" type necessarily, but one skilled in multiple leadership styles and understands the strengths, weaknesses, and personality types of the team members...

Ie: if you know one member is a whiner but skilled in one area make use of their skill and allow them semi autonomy so they get the job done and their whining is kept minimal (or at least kept away from the others)

I couldn't work in a cube farm...and while I can function exceptionally in a team setup I'm even more effective on my own...I prefer complete autonomy...mainly because I can't stand having to depend on others...

Perhaps better to plan for the drummer with a different beat than to attempt to keep them from marching in.
Saves a lot of energy
Screen yes . . yet still expect and plan for the different beats. It is a natural thing.
Intolerance of intolerance = intolerance