Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Good reasons to feel bad

Thought for the day: Just because you have a good reason to feel bad, doesn't mean it isn't brain chemistry making you feel bad. Your brain makes you feel bad, and when you cast around for a good reason to feel bad, you can find one sooner if something in your life is worthy of sadness. But you should still try to make the bad feeling go away if you can.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Ideal Team

As I discussed in the previous post, many people grow up in families that do not embody the spirit of the ideal team as it is envisioned by employers. Yet they are expected to function in a work setting as if they did grow up in such a team.  Or, they are expected to be able to learn to be ideal team players by merely being reminded that they should work as a team. Or, at the very least, they can learn to be good team players by receiving instruction in team work.

How many courses, workshops and seminars are given in teamwork: creating a team, developing a team, leading a team, working as a team? Businesses are very insistent these days that employees conform to the ideal team concept. You see it in every job description, every ad for a job opening, no matter how low-level. I think employers must often be disappointed when their employees fall far short of the teamwork mark, when even their leaders are not really skilled at teamwork. And yet functioning as an ideal team continues to be the goal of every group.

Is it a skill that can be learned? If so, then it does not consist of a simple set of behaviors. There's more involved, I think, in simply learning how to act in a group situation. And that is because every group situation is different, and most are not the type employers want in their workplaces. And the fact that they don't know that is hindering their progress in creating the ideal team.

But how can an employer find out what kind of team her employees grew up in? Just asking might be seen as nosy. Perhaps she'd be better off asking herself that question--start there, perhaps. But even if she could glean that information somehow, what should she do with it?

Good question. More later.