5 Lessons You (Only) Learn in Teams

I observe that athletics, military duty, and other high performance teams teach lessons that are almost impossible to learn on your own. As it turns out, many of these lessons pay massive dividends elsewhere in life. Furthermore, there are men and women walking around everyday with half a tool belt operating at an extreme disadvantage without them.

Working in teams teach you:

1. How the riding the bench feels. It takes three minutes to figure out someone you just met has never had to “sit the bench.” Coincidentally, this person often has never been punched in the face, either, but that’s a different blog. People that know how the bench feels can still have confidence and pride, but knowing what it’s like to want to be good enough, not actually be good enough, and have justice be served packs an important life lesson. Don’t like it? Get better.
2. Your actions affect others. In some ways, saying you don’t care about outcomes (SEE: DGAF) because you’re willing to absorb the consequences yourself is cowardice. Team environments teach a burden to produce excellence even when it’s inconvenient. Failing to do so matters because it isn’t just on your shoulders. It affects others. Whether missing the shot means losing a playoff game or it means losing a fellow soldier, you begin to understand that your actions impact others.
3. Mission. When you are a one man island from kindergarten to adulthood, you might start to think you can do stuff on your own. What a selfish mistake that is! It takes one experience with a high performance team to digest some humble pie and realize the most dangerous force on Earth is a coordinated team effort. If You, Yourself, and You are planning to do anything remarkable, you’d better hope you’re not competing against a team opposition. If so, expect a bloodbath and a quick death.
4. How to Show Up. Every. Goddam. Time. Humans shouldn’t be 83% less reliable than a microwave. Yet, often times, we are. High level teams create dependable savages. When left to our own devices small details like weather, traffic, mood, the stock market, or our feelings are all reasons not to show up. In high performance teams, you don’t get credit for reasons you didn’t comply. Teammates figure it out and show up one thousand times out of a thousand.
5. Injustice. The real world is bathing in unfairness. Want to see a waterfall of unhelpful emotion? Just wait until someone who hasn’t operated in a team environment is confronted with real injustice. Being a softy isn’t a compliment. Suck it up, buttercup! Injustice takes practice and if you’d been living under a safe rock until now, life is going to hurt.

If it’s too late for yourself, at least save a child and sign them up for basketball (or something) without an option to quit. He or she will need to behave like a teammate one day. We sure as hell need you to right now.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach