The childhood game, Red
Rover, was a yearly ritual at my birthday party as a kid. The game goes
something like this: form two teams and have everybody stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with their teammates, holding hands and facing the other
team. Leave enough distance for players to run between the lines of teams. One
person shouts out, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send ‘so-and-so’ over”. ‘So-and-so’
then attempts to run between two players and break their interlocking hands. If
the bond is broken, ‘so-and-so’ chooses one player from the opponent’s team to
bring over to the other side with them. The idea is to get all players on one
side.
I’ve been thinking a
lot about teamwork, talent and working in pairs to achieve goals. Team tennis
is essentially a match between individuals or pairs. You need your doubles
teams to be successful just as much as you need your singles players to win
matches. Points are tallied by breaking down your opposing partners’ bonds and
finding their weakest links. In Red Rover, the common sense strategy would be
to attack the two weakest partners and try to run through the bond that appears
easiest to break. But sometimes even the strongest and biggest individual
effort cannot break a seemingly weak link. This is why team work and
partnerships are so essential to not only success in games and sports but in
our everyday lives.
The cohesiveness of
teams has long been a fascinating phenomenon to me. I’ve done research papers
and studied for years on the topic of organizational behavior as it relates to
teams. The power of teamwork and combining talent efforts is perhaps most
important in the business world. Think of your workplace. How many times during
the day to you rely on other people’s insight, advice and production? Do you
attack your competitors at their weakest points? Are your partnerships so solid
that even the strongest forces cannot break them down? As a tennis player, this
idea of teamwork is sometimes lost in the game of singles. But each singles
players will still rely on the advice of a coach, the encouragement of a
teammate and the support of the fans. No one acts alone in any sport. Track stars
who compete in relay races each bring something to the field. For every Michael
Jordan, there is a Scottie Pippin. You can’t win alone. There is always, and
should always be, room for two, or three or more.
Just as we can’t win
alone, we cannot lose alone either. The last two kids standing on the Red Rover
line will either win or lose together. A co-worker may fail at a project but it’s
the company that takes the hit. When your tennis team goes down 0-7, it’s as a
team. So, who will you send for the next time you need to strengthen your link?
“I will stand up for
you no matter what you’re going through”
No comments:
Post a Comment