Your Careful Example

I was over at Non-Working Monkey's blog (see blogroll on right) reading the archives and was reminded of this story. I can only be non-working in a spiritual sense. But, oh, how I long to be literally non-working.

Years ago, at another company of course, I was being groomed to be a Manager. As such, I was requested (read required) to attend the annual strategic planning session for my company. A number of other up-and-coming types had also been summoned as we would also have training on how to go about strategic planning. One of the exercises was to put in chronological order a list of twenty project management steps. These were basic steps required to see any project to a successful completion. First, each person filled in the paper and turned it in for analysis. Next, teams were assembled and the paper filled out by teams. These papers were then turned in for analysis. In the analysis, we found that all of the teams (except one) out-performed the average of all the individuals by a wide margin. A number of people also learned the twenty basic steps for project management.

The moral of the story: When we work together as a team, we will usually do far better than working individually. I was one of three people in the company that completed the list perfectly and thus out-performed all of the teams. I think I learned a different lesson than what they were trying to teach.

There is no "I" in Team. But there is most certainly a "ME".