Teambuilding
Ask any person in charge of an organization what is one of the most important parts of making a group perform well and they will most likely reply with “teamwork”. Ask that same manager what one of their biggest challenges are and they will probably tell you teambuilding. Classes have been given about it, countless books have been written about it, and some people even make a living off of speaking about it. If you want to know how important it is, ask anyone who is in a non-cohesive team how the feel about their team members and you’ll usually get a pretty negative response.
One thing the military has going for it is that you are forced to work together in a team. Now let me clarify something first... just because two or more people work well together at their job or sport does not mean that they have to like each other. Outside of the team environment, they can be indifferent of each other, or even harbor some resentment towards each other’s little annoying quirks, but they can still work well when they are placed in a situation where they have a job that others depend on them for and they, in turn, depend on the others to do their part. I will tell you that it has been my experience that teams who get along both inside and outside the team environment tend to be more cohesive and perform better than those who don’t, which is why in my civilian job I tried to get my group to do as much as they could together on their own time (usually their lunch times). In the Army, we have what is called “mandatory fun”. Usually it is an outing or event that forces you to take time out of your day off to spend with the unit, who are the same people you see on a day to day basis at work. Normally, folks do whatever they can to get out of these events, be it an organizational day or a dining out, but some of the most memorable times I had were from these events (not all of these memories were good, but they were memorable). After all the grumbling and moaning, the time spent developing these out of work relationships wasn’t as bad as we thought they would be. An added plus is if it helps to bring the team closer together, especially when you have a co-dependant relationship developed out necessity to keep each other alive on a battlefield, then its importance can never be properly conveyed by words.
Today was a teambuilding day for us. We started out with a little thing the military calls the obstacle course. Normally an event done individually and for time, the cadre threw in a few problem solving skills to challenge us to think and operate as a group. We have a pretty good team with a fair spectrum of rank and age between us and we didn’t let the freezing winds get the best of us. Some folks really stepped up and took charge of situations that had way too many chiefs trying to run, and others showed that they don’t work well under pressure. We learned a lot about each other, which is a good thing. Just because someone doesn’t do well on an obstacle or spazzes on a challenge doesn’t make them a bad person/leader/soldier. Just like raising the blinds on a dark room, it brings to light the things that need to be worked on that were not noticeable in the shade. More importantly, it shows the individual of the kinks in their own armor that they need to improve. On a side note, I heard someone repeat this cliché, but they changed the word “kink” with “chinks”. I guess it would be pretty disheartening to know that you had a bunch of Asians in your armor. No wonder our bullet proof vests are so heavy.
Ask any person in charge of an organization what is one of the most important parts of making a group perform well and they will most likely reply with “teamwork”. Ask that same manager what one of their biggest challenges are and they will probably tell you teambuilding. Classes have been given about it, countless books have been written about it, and some people even make a living off of speaking about it. If you want to know how important it is, ask anyone who is in a non-cohesive team how the feel about their team members and you’ll usually get a pretty negative response.
One thing the military has going for it is that you are forced to work together in a team. Now let me clarify something first... just because two or more people work well together at their job or sport does not mean that they have to like each other. Outside of the team environment, they can be indifferent of each other, or even harbor some resentment towards each other’s little annoying quirks, but they can still work well when they are placed in a situation where they have a job that others depend on them for and they, in turn, depend on the others to do their part. I will tell you that it has been my experience that teams who get along both inside and outside the team environment tend to be more cohesive and perform better than those who don’t, which is why in my civilian job I tried to get my group to do as much as they could together on their own time (usually their lunch times). In the Army, we have what is called “mandatory fun”. Usually it is an outing or event that forces you to take time out of your day off to spend with the unit, who are the same people you see on a day to day basis at work. Normally, folks do whatever they can to get out of these events, be it an organizational day or a dining out, but some of the most memorable times I had were from these events (not all of these memories were good, but they were memorable). After all the grumbling and moaning, the time spent developing these out of work relationships wasn’t as bad as we thought they would be. An added plus is if it helps to bring the team closer together, especially when you have a co-dependant relationship developed out necessity to keep each other alive on a battlefield, then its importance can never be properly conveyed by words.
Today was a teambuilding day for us. We started out with a little thing the military calls the obstacle course. Normally an event done individually and for time, the cadre threw in a few problem solving skills to challenge us to think and operate as a group. We have a pretty good team with a fair spectrum of rank and age between us and we didn’t let the freezing winds get the best of us. Some folks really stepped up and took charge of situations that had way too many chiefs trying to run, and others showed that they don’t work well under pressure. We learned a lot about each other, which is a good thing. Just because someone doesn’t do well on an obstacle or spazzes on a challenge doesn’t make them a bad person/leader/soldier. Just like raising the blinds on a dark room, it brings to light the things that need to be worked on that were not noticeable in the shade. More importantly, it shows the individual of the kinks in their own armor that they need to improve. On a side note, I heard someone repeat this cliché, but they changed the word “kink” with “chinks”. I guess it would be pretty disheartening to know that you had a bunch of Asians in your armor. No wonder our bullet proof vests are so heavy.
My commander dressing up a stuffed bobcat at "team building"
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