Teams and Ubuntu

What?

Our readings for this week focused on teams!  Northouse  (2007) writes teams are “organizational groups composed of members who are interdependent, … share same common goals, and … coordinate  their activities to accomplish these goals” (p. 207).  Jackson and Parry writes that thinking in terms of teams challenges the traditional understanding of leader and followers.  This is especially necessary as companies become more flat in their hierarchical structure.  The concept I must like about teams according to Jackson and Parry is how thinking of leadership in terms of teams allows anyone to step into the leader role.

So What?

As I think about teams I am reminded of a recent Facebook picture of a group of little boys from Africa.  Along with the picture is the story of how “an anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that whoever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each other’s hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ‘‘Ubuntu how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''  The post then goes on to translate Ubuntu to mean “I am because we are.”

Now What?

Often in the American culture, a person strives to take the lead and gather followers.  However both the readings this week and the Ubuntu term challenges me that success is only possible when each person does his/her part while working in harmony towards a common goal with others.  Sometimes that will require you to lead and other times it will require you to be an active member of group.  Whichever role you find yourself in at the moment, remember as part of a team, the success of one is really the success of all.