What Is Teamwork?
In your mastermind alliance you build a small group of individuals committed to the same definite purpose. You all share the same burning obsession, you each benefit from the increased enthusiasm, imagination, and knowledge, and you are in agreement on the division of the rewards of your labor. Teamwork establishes much the same relationship, but since it involves working with people who probably don’t have the same burning obsession you do, it requires more effort on your part to maintain a commitment to the work you seek from others and for them to discover their own desires.
Management guru Peter Drucker says that all employees “have to see themselves as executives,” so that they see the work they do in the context of an entire operation. Managers must learn to subordinate themselves to the work they are doing and not become concerned with promoting their own positions at the expense of their employees. Drucker recalls the example of General Douglas MacArthur, who started every staff meeting with a presentation from the most junior officer present. MacArthur allowed no one to interrupt because he knew it was important to build the confidence of his officers. He wanted and needed that confidence.
Your habit of going the extra mile must extend to your associates. Even if your benefits are generous and your salaries good, people can come to take these things for granted. You should anticipate your associates’ needs and act before they even recognize them.
Teamwork sometimes appears among people who are forced by necessity to work together, but it is undependable and never lasts. The United States and the Soviet Union were allies against Hitler, but the alliance evaporated as soon as he was vanquished.
True teamwork depends on relating yourself to others in such a way that they work with you willingly. It is up to you to supply the motives for that willingness and to be alert to any changes in it. Teamwork is a never-ending process, and even though it depends on everyone involved, the responsibility for it lies with you.
Teamwork as a Model for Business
Years ago an article by Robert Littell in Reader’s Digest described a management system in use by the McCormick spice company in Baltimore. This system was revolutionary in its time, though more and more companies have now adopted something similar. McCormick called it “the multiple management plan,” which is just another way of saying “teamwork.”
When Charles P. McCormick succeeded his uncle as head of the company, he decided to share the responsibilities of running the show with those who could be taught to take it. He picked seventeen young people from the company’s front office and made them the Junior Board of Directors. They were charged with examining and discussing everything the company did, then presenting their findings to the regular board as long as they were unanimous in their decision.
As Littell wrote, “A flood of energy and new ideas was released. Men who had felt themselves to be merely glorified clerks tasted responsibility and clamored for more. Even in the first year and a half practically all of the Juniors’ recommendations were adopted.”
The same policy was applied to the assembly line, where a Factory Board was formed with the same charge. The three boards met together weekly in a spirit of harmony, everyone seeking ways to improve business and efficiency, to raise McCormick another notch higher.
McCormick’s personnel policy was truly forward-thinking. Dismissing a worker required the signatures of four superiors who thought the action was necessary, and anyone threatened with dismissal was allowed to plead his or her case. As Littell noted, “McCormick & Company charges itself with an error if it lets a man go until he has been helped to see that his going is just and necessary. . . .”
The multiple management plan worked for McCormick & Company because of the spirit of human understanding and teamwork the individual workers put into it a spirit which began with management and was readily embraced by the employees. And obviously this spirit of understanding and teamwork served to provide sound economies in the management of the company because it recognized and appropriately awarded merit, down to the humblest employee, and at the same time eliminated the unwilling and unfit from the organization.
People will work harder for personal recognition and a word of commendation where it is deserved than they will for money alone. No one wants to feel as if he or she is merely a cog in a wheel. Your job as a leader is to see that everyone has a role in your group or organization and that he or she recognizes the importance of that role.
Through the multiple management plan McCormick put the soul back into its firm and provided every worker with a very real desire and worthwhile motive to go the extra mile and to do it with a positive mental attitude. That is the essence of teamwork.
There is no record of anyone’s ever having made a great contribution to civilization without the cooperation of others. Even great artists like Michelangelo depended upon assistants, craftsmen, and patrons to make their work possible.
There is a state of mind that tends to make people akin, establishes rapport between minds, and provides the power of attraction that gains the friendly teamwork of others. This state of mind, like so many of the other priceless assets of life, is usually attained by the concentration of the mind on attaining a definite major purpose backed by an appropriate motive and self-discipline.
That state is enthusiasm. It is contagious. Infect others with your enthusiasm, and teamwork will be the inevitable result.
Source: Keys to Success by Napoleon Hill