In the 21st century, machines and other labor saving devices are no longer your biggest assets but people. Whether you like it or not, for better or for worse, your success is highly determined by your ability to work with people. Work poorly with people and you’ll get poor result. Love and provide them with all the support they need to achieve their fullest potential and you’ll get success like you’ve never imagined before. Thus, the new edge today is no longer a high IQ but a high degree of Emotional Intelligence. Sadly, you don’t learn this intelligence in school because of our educational system’s remarkable tendency to stick to obsolete traditions and ideas. Thus, it’s not such a surprise to see skilled and intelligent but emotionally incompetent people.
In many instances of our lives, we were, are and will be working with people through teams. But what is a team, anyway? In layman’s term, a team is a group or an association of people who works together for a common goal. A team can be composed of ten million, ten or even two people. People get together to form teams to achieve goals which an individual cannot achieve or finds it hard to achieve all by himself. Teams can be compose of likeminded people but most of the time of different people with different personalities, experiences, expectations and reasons for being part of the team. People on teams don’t necessarily need to set aside these differences to work out and balance these differences to achieve a set of shared goals which makes everyone in the team better off. This is what’s ideal.
Yet, in reality, teams can be messy, stressful and too demanding because people in teams are different. And when differences exist, there is always a potential for conflict but people work together because of the goals they share. Thus, for people to get ahead in life having a high IQ is no longer enough but people need to know not only people skills but the principles behind these skills such as empathy and sensitivity. For people to be effective, learning how to work with teams is vital and, even, the only way for people to achieve greater success and a more significant quality of life. In other words, your level of success in life is highly determined by your effectiveness with people. Highly successful people are effective with people while unsuccessful people are not.
That’s why working out on teamwork works. If people just learn how to work with teams, imagine the unlimited potentials they can achieve by working together. Yet like anything else, learning how to work with people or developing teamwork in the teams you have in your life (such as your family and the people you work closely with) is not a rosy walk but something you need to work on if you are really serious with living a significant and meaningful life. Learning to work with people is a non ending process of developing one’s patience. In fact, teams are effective when people communicate directly and openly. And communicating effectively is not a function of efficiency but of effectiveness. Efficiency focuses on the means while effectiveness on the ends or results. When it comes to people, effectiveness is the only way to go.
According to a lot of studies on organizational and human behavior, the number one reason why people are not performing to their fullest potential in the workplace and their own set of teams in life is simply because of the LACK OF INSPIRATION. Majority of organizations and teams set themselves to fail because they have systems that promote obedience but not necessarily loyalty. People are not robots that have no feelings and are programmed but special beings capable of thought, creativity, making choices and a whole lot of unlimited potentials. Our biggest assets are not robots nor machines but PEOPLE. Being part of teams which is compose of people, one of our responsibilities is to set up a system and an environment where people in the team can exercise their human endowments. That takes high emotional intelligence and maturity.
Because in the final analysis, when the curtains are down, what matter most in our deathbeds is not the amount of money we make nor how successful we are in life but the people we have touched and loved because we have given these people the opportunity to be the best people that they can be. That’s why working out on teamwork and learning how to work with people to help them achieve their potentials as well as your own potentials works.
People are far better off if they just know how to work with other people. But it all starts with self awareness. Great work, Sir EJ!
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