Is our society operating on corrupted versions of true teamwork?
Our global society works through teams and there are many situations in life where we need to be part of a team. Families may see themselves as a team; corporations call upon their employees to contribute to and do their part for the team; we value working together as a team and most of us will have experienced a sense of satisfaction whenever a team pulls together to address a crisis – such as in a widespread disaster – or to collaborate to produce something. This can be anything from a newsletter to a product to sales figures or, indeed, to any outcome.
Then there are the sporting teams that many of us affiliate with, sponsor and barrack for. This type of team highlights that there remains within many concepts of teamwork the reality of individualism and self-gain. In the sporting arena, we are adversarial with all teams other than our own and the aim of the game is to defeat all the other teams and secure personal glory for our own, often at any cost. The many recently publicised doping scandals, ball tampering scandals and other unscrupulous practices attest to this. This type of team indicates that our concept of teamwork is accompanied by a slightly larger version of ‘self,’ where self is extended to include those who support the same team to the rejection of those who don’t – at times to the point of denigration and violence.
Hence, our teams are based on competition and winning and the teamwork and cooperation that occurs does so only in the context of one’s own team. In other words, our teams are actually highly exclusive.
Nor is this exclusivity limited to sporting teams. In business, there is fierce competition to secure a large percentage of the market share for the products that each corporate team produces and there is huge competition among brands – even when the brands are produced by different arms of the one same parent company! Such rivalry can be often observed in siblings in the same family and there is even a body of psychological literature on this ubiquitous phenomenon, which ironically, is seen as normal (1). This belief-based normality is often encouraged and validated in schools, both by the allocating of children to differing sporting houses, by encouraging the participation in competitive sport both at school and then between schools, as well as by having academically competing teams in the classroom.
The latter phenomenon – working in groups or teams in class – is seen as a ‘good thing’ as children can share their expertise and knowledge with each other. However, there can still be an edge to these situations and students continue to want to know which team effort was the best and whose information was right and whose was wrong. This reveals another aspect of what we have taken on as teamwork, namely a continuum of competence and value that extends from the best to the worst, with all shades in between the two extremes.
Is it possible that for some of us there is a comfort in allocating oneself a position on this line, even if one’s position is at the ‘lower’ end? After all, as the saying goes, we at least know where we stand. When it comes to teams (and groups), anything that differentiates and distinguishes us from other teams (groups), anything that individualises and identifies us, we’re there – in it up to our necks. These distinctions can take many forms, including income level, brand of car, footy team, type of school, where we like to holiday, all the way down to what we like to eat and when, the clothing that we wear and the country in which we live. There are ‘people like us,’ and then there are…. the rest, everyone else.
As I’ve witnessed in many other social contexts – even the good or positive teams have the propensity to demonstrate the same qualities of the ‘all about me’ focus, equally as much as the more overtly competitive teams.
This brief set of observations reveals some of the characteristics we have accepted and normalised as being characteristics of a team: individualism, self-gain, adversarial nature, exclusivity, competition, rivalry, notions of right and wrong, the best and the least, winners and losers.
Looked at in this way, has our current model of team and teamwork been corrupted and so are we working with a model that is fundamentally flawed from the outset and hence must always be limiting in its scope and activity?
Is it time for us to begin the process of re-defining and conceptualising what is a true team and if so, what will be the foundational concepts?
Working from the notion that we often perceive the teams we literally identify with as an extended (or even inflated) version of our ‘self,’ could the very notion of self be a root flaw in the activity of the term ‘team’ so that if we have a team of individual selves, we do not truly have a team? Is there a deeper truth on offer within the phrase “There is no ‘i’ in team”?
One version of this phrase has historically indicated that the individual’s interests must be sacrificed for the sake of the team, often bringing a sense of doing the right thing and even overriding what one feels within themselves. There is a sense that many selves are suppressed in order that one individual attains a form of glory. This glory then becomes an aspirational goal for the multiple other selves under the belief that ‘every dog will have its day.’
However, there does exist a very real possibility of situations where one’s true self is naturally enhanced in the awareness that, energetically, there is an underlying One-ness to us all. This view requires a paradigm shift to acknowledging that everything that we do is felt by, and contributes to, the all that we are all a part of, as well as a huge connection with the true depth of our personal and collective responsibility to this whole. Saying yes to this level of awareness and responsibility connects us with the interdependence that exists well beyond any individual teams to profound levels of mutuality and Brotherhood and to vast reservoirs of respect and care not witnessed under the corrupted, historical paradigm.
Parenting is one such example of this. The current model locates us in isolated families where Mum and Dad parent their children, perhaps at times backed up by grandparents and other relatives. An alternative and considerably more expansive model of parenting offers how every adult who enters a child’s field of experience is potentially a parent to the child; that every adult is aware of this and brings the same level of care and responsibility as do the parents, in the knowing that everything they do or express reflects certain qualities to the child for good or ill. This awareness also extends to adults who never physically see the child but who construct or market products that the child will ultimately utilise or consume. If a company manufactures beds and another bedding, do each of those companies consider that the quality in which they manufacture their goods and services, the relationships among their staff, their motivation for business, ALL bring a reflection of quality to children who use what they sell or make? This makes for a very broad understanding of Team and the true responsibility that goes with this.
Additionally, this latter situation would place parents in the position of needing to discern the prevailing energy of products and services that they buy. Refusing to buy goods that have been manufactured on the basis of greed for example, are then revealed and wiser, more supportive choices become possible. In this way, our collective, broader team becomes wiser too, as we all start to call out energies like greed or self-gain, which are actually inimical to us all.
In the face of such awareness, one can most assuredly state that our current and historical models of team and teamwork are indeed corrupt insofar as they serve only the immediate self-interest of a narrow group, disregarding the whole of which we are part. Working with the whole serves all of us and opens us up to deeper aspects of ourselves that we have long since forgotten or ignored. These aspects actually support us to connect with our true Self, our Soul.
This awareness of our true ‘team’ – humanity – then invites a true and purposeful way of interacting in our more localised and personal smaller teams: it is no longer just about ‘me and mine’ but about the relationship of ‘me and mine’ to our global family. This can all occur with a relatively simple shift in awareness that the ‘I’ lives within an inextricably interdependent whole that it will one day surrender itself back into. Then what is required is to move in a loving and caring manner, knowing that our every movement reflects this quality to everyone else, giving them permission to do and be likewise. In this model, we are none of us a ‘dog’ waiting for ‘its day.’ Every day is our day and can be lived as a beautiful confirmation and expansion of the loving qualities that are part of us all.
The most challenging part of this process is perhaps, the honest admission that long ago we ditched this true model and way of being for a series of increasingly corrupt and dehumanising alternatives in order to entrench the reality of individualism. Now it falls to us all to reclaim these true ways of being from the corrupted versions we have all complicitly created.
By Coleen
References:
- Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services, P. (2019). How to Reduce Sibling Rivalry. [online] Melbournechildpsychology.com.au. Available at: https://www.melbournechildpsychology.com.au/blog/how-to-reduce-sibling-rivalry/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018]
Related Reading:
Corporate Social Responsibility – How could our working world be?
Corruption at work – what is it?
Human nature and our schooling – examining the purpose of education
Words on Serge Benhayon 
It seems to me that the very foundations of our current way of living is flawed, nothing has truly worked we keep patching and covering up the cracks in our society but when the foundations are corrupt then whatever has been built on that foundation will not flourish. And let’s be honest with ourselves we are not living in a society that is flourishing quite the opposite the majority of the human population is suffering from ill health. This speaks volumes in itself about our way of life.
Growing up is just one long competition starting in earnest when we start school! Spelling bees that go to national levels. Have you ever played a musical instrument? There are seats 1st, 2nd etc. for every instrument, that there are playoffs to challenge the person above you. Sports can be individual but even team sports have a captain. No one ever remembers who came in second but the Valedictorian will include it on their CV for years as a badge. The corruption of true brotherhood starts young. There is a reason that the military’s around the world have always recruited the young. They can be moulded to do things that would morally be objectionable to older people.
Thanks Coleen, and may I add the idiom ‘that all is fair in love and war’ as it seems to fit into the ‘take advantage at any cost’ attitude and has a huge chunk of individuality in it, the same as what you have shared. When we witness our children at play there are none of the outrageous behaviours of individuality until they come to learn all the traits we have shared, thus could the answer be in the parenting and teachers who champion the ‘I’ above all else? The brotherhood we witness in the youth who have not been tainted by our team building systems are still connected to their Essences, Inner-most-hearts, Souls and are Esoteric by nature and have no idea about the corrupted version of brotherhood and team work.
‘Us and them’ is so easy to go into doesn’t matter where or in what context we use it, we find it in every aspect of our society. Everyone contributes to this way of living and like you’ve mentioned, we find it normal.
It is only by becoming more aware we can see through the falseness and can choose bringing truth in the corrupted versions of teamwork.
We try and take the ‘us and the them’ out of the only One but the truth is we can’t, we can only think that we have but we haven’t, the one interconnected mass of God can’t be separated or segregated, not ever.
I hate the fact that we have made life about security and money that money buys security. When this is used as a model to drive a sales force then life does become dog eat dog to win the most sales to obtain the greatest wealth and be championed as the top dog. But what does being the ‘top dog’ mean? That something was sold that wasn’t needed, that other people were trampled on and over including the customer to get to that top spot. Is that really how we want to treat each other ? When I feel this in my body I feel disgusted that we can allow financial gain to squash all levels of decency and respect for each other. And yet we have allowed this to become a ‘normal’ part of our life.
True relationships offer us so much and when we add a new born into this relationship we get a deeper reflection that allows us to feel what we all can bring.
As everything matters even what we are watching on the screens we have available these days are we open to feel what is being presented? Even a new born gets effected by what is on a screen / TV and lets us know by the way it cries incessantly. Have we ever considered this as an ongoing effect on our relationships, and also as what takes a baby out from being naturally connected, and is this also having the same effect on us, and is it simply played down by us so we can get on with what we are calling so called normal as we are being distracted from our Essences, Inner-most / Souls.
Having this inbuilt radar born into the family do we take advantage of this and learn from what these babies react to or do we use our so called intelligence and over-ride what the baby is sharing and not feeling into the energy it is reacting to and calling it for what it is?
When we simply do what is needed and think not of the me factor, then we are being part of the team. Like ants hard at work that do not stop to ask their brothers if they are doing a good job, because they do not need to as they know they are doing an amazing job. We have much to learn from the reflections in nature.
One person can speak and when they speak they can be the voice for many. This is a blessing when we allow an expression to come from our hearts and don’t hold back on what we know to be true for one and all.
It takes a community to raise a child, to look after an elderly parent, to support a marital relationship to stay harmonious etc etc. We cannot underestimate the power of a truly loving community.
With true teamwork and from my observations of doing workshops in school with classes of young people I think we could strip it right back to when one person is talking to just listen to them as it seems that many find even this really hard to do.
Iceland has the oldest surviving parliament in the world, called the Althing. Their foundation was that no man was greater than another and was chaired by elders to fairly support everyone. This was brotherhood that had no need for competition. We have a history of unfettered teamwork that works and then we try and improve it.
And we also have a modern day society that held together by brotherhood and was studied for over fifty (50) years and that is know as the Roseto Effect, and as you have shared Steve we have much to re-learn about how to live a True evolutionary existence.
For more on the Roseto Effect go to;
https://www.unimedliving.com/living-medicine/illness-and-disease/the-roseto-effect-a-lesson-on-the-true-cause-of-heart-disease.html
The world of politics is a clear example of where the individualism of ‘teams’ causes conflict and disharmony instead of working together for the benefit of all.
Great example Mary and sadly this same scenario often plays out in our own homes. And so it is that how we are each of us in our relationships is what then feeds or does not feed the disharmony around. What is so beautiful though is, as you have said, when everyone comes to work together, then mountains can be moved with ease.
Absoulutely Mary, and we need look no further than Robin Hood (2018), produced by Otto Bathurst to understand the corruption that our political leaders will go to for the feathering of there own nest.
Asking ourselves honest questions can help us work out where we stand. Do we listen to another until we calculate what we are going to say, then wait patiently for a gap to then speak, ignoring the other until such time? Or do we listen to what they have to share in full? the words and the energy behind it? This is but one example of, are our intentions to work with another, or to get our part heard?
We have been conditioned, that no one ever remembers who came in second, so, not winning is a fail. True teamwork could be a skyscraper or a few people shovelling snow from a driveway. Both are something that required an outcome and a purpose that was not based on individuality.
Agreed Steve, and if we look at nature, Ants work together with great outcome and a purpose that requires everyone working together, so maybe we could learn from what is working in nature?
Is it possible that the set up for individuality was when the etheric spirit made a shell/body that it could then incarnate into and have control of? Just suppose for a moment that we are being controlled by an etheric spirit that wants to keep us as individuals and therefore in constant separation to each other because should we get together and support each other we would work out a way to get out of this mess we call creation and evolve back beyond our entry point and go back to where we all originally come from. In a way we have been kept dumb so that we have forgotten on one level the truth of who we are and where we come from. To the point that if someone says this is a possibility they are ridiculed as being off their heads.
Great to re-read your blog Coleen. “….. our teams are based on competition and winning and the teamwork and cooperation that occurs does so only in the context of one’s own team. In other words, our teams are actually highly exclusive.” So true – the us or them mentality. When we learn to cooperate rather than compete, the world will change to one of equality and brotherhood.
Thank you Colleen, you shared so much, and feeling into teams with there inner workings they have become all about comparison and when we live with a ‘profound levels of mutuality and Brotherhood’ we can appreciate our essences the ensuing intimacy along with the evolution that this of level of divine connection brings.
Making it truly about people and working together that needs to be the common denominator or foundation for us all. I might have said in a comment here before but the competition that we currently have is both ludicrous and ridiculous to the point that I have seen the main health service within the UK where one area did not let another area of the service use rooms in their building because they won the tender over them!!!! It is the exactly the same organisation/national service that is supposedly there for the health and wellbeing of people yet one team stopped or did not aid another team from setting up what they needed to. Crazy!!!!
When in true teamwork we bring in the multidimensionality that the world so desperately needs – true team work is other worldly.
As more and more corruption is being unearthed and publicised ” the honest admission that long ago we ditched this true model and way of being for a series of increasingly corrupt and dehumanising alternatives in order to entrench the reality of individualism”. Now to return to the true model – as shown by the ethics of the Ageless Wisdom and Universal Medicine.
There’s also multiple truckloads of comparison in the competition version of teamwork. It further cements a separation between us. But if I don’t compare myself to others there’s no need to beat them or place myself as less than them. No need to compete or separate from them.
There is something very simple, sweet and strong about realising that we are all in the same team; that humanity is a team and that everything we do supports or undermines this team. Understanding this brings great purpose and responsibility to life… I love that.
I love this Matilda – we are one big team, one big family – so why then do we keep denying it? I feel it is because of the level of love that it asks is to bring when we consider the grandness of the team/family and how we lose our individuality in it…
When four people carry someone on a stretcher, is that working for the great good where self never enters the task of the team effort?
When all of humanity works together for the mutual benefit of all there will be true teamwork.
I so agree, this is borne out after tragedies, such as earthquakes, fires etc when people pull together. The sad part is that when the imminent dangers are over people return to their original separate lives and the ‘teamwork’ they built often dies away.
“ Is there a deeper truth on offer within the phrase – ‘there is no i in team’?” The very concept of a team is that you all play – or work – together to support the whole. Sadly this isn’t always the case. Much depends on the team leader to reflect the all for one and one for all philosophy.
It is brilliant how you have described and exposed our current interpretation of ‘team’ as a larger form of self. And because ‘teamwork’ is such a buzz word it is important that we have this wake up call and offer of awareness. Thank you. The thing is we can all feel it and probably collude simply because of the power of numbers; a sort of unconscious acceptance because ‘everyone else is doing it and it must therefore be normal’.
Yes teams are encouraged to compete against each other – as in sports, started in the school atmosphere and continues in the workplace. And even teams members are encouraged to compete against each other – as in bonuses for sales etc., even when working for the good of the same company. Hardly true teamwork!
‘even when the brands are produced by different arms of the one same parent company!’ This is so true. I know this is even happening in our health service where an area has won the tender over a previous area, and even though they are under the same umbrella the area that lost the tender would not allow the other a place to be in their building to stay. It is exactly the same service just different areas. Are they working together … it appears not!!! How can we ever truly move forward when we are continually competing with each other?
Thank you Colleen, adding to what you have presented, when we start with living to bring decency and respect to our own lives we can take the same considerations to another, but we have to feather our own nest first. Then when we are able to share a loving relationship with another we can then build a team that works together in harmony, this harmonious way of living comes from relinquishing our own inner conflict first and then also with building that relationship with another. Mastering life takes place in the body first and foremost, then we understand healing and how this can take place so that when the feathers are ruffled we understand the process and heal. Then we can leave the nest, sharing with the most Loving responsibility what it is like to fly and belong to a True-flock!
‘Then what is required is to move in a loving and caring manner, knowing that our every movement reflects this quality to everyone else, giving them permission to do and be likewise.’ This makes so much sense, bringing true teamwork to our walk down the street, to how we are at work and at home.
Yes, true teamwork affects every aspect of our lives. There is no off switch to responsibility.
Climbing to the top of any mountain can be done for the recognition but living with the ALL as our way, then allows life to be about sharing and serving for the greater good of humanity, which takes us all to new heights.
Individualism doesn’t work, as is shown in so many societies – the corruption is becoming more apparent. And the so-called team work equally so. True teamwork calls for the discarding of self and working for the all.
Beautiful Coleen. So succinct and inspirational. To know that we are all parenting a child inspires us all to do so from the heart and with integrity.
We are all missing our true call to be part of team humanity.
We will one day all get it until then we have to accept there are many fake versions to the real thing.
Fake versions of everything abound everywhere. We are living a counterfeit version of a life very far removed from this one. A life of truth and beauty, a life that exists still and one that we will all eventually return to.
We have cloaked the ugliness of the corrupted version of teamwork under the title of “good” so we don’t question it. We have made the team the priority and self sacrifice for the team is seen as good, as is winning. Ultimately we are sacrificing much more, such as love (including self love), harmony, and brotherhood.
True teamwork is always inclusive and brings joy to those involved in its purpose
To express ourselves honestly without making another feel less, is true team work.
To hold ourselves as equal, without judgement or comparison, is true teamwork.
The belief in ‘us and them’ and ‘good and bad’ kills any likelihood of true team work. When we enter any situation, for example, a family member is admitted into a care home or hospital and we immediately find fault in the way things are done, we’ve placed ourselves above and outside the team. Carers, nurses and doctors will feel judged. True teamwork offers an opportunity to respond lovingly and work with people and systems however we find them.
So true Kehinde. Any form of judgement inhibits the teamwork that is necessary when someone enters any form of institution. Bringing understanding and cooperation supports everyone to offer the care and support needed.
“Now it falls to us all to reclaim these true ways of being from the corrupted versions we have all complicitly created.” Absolutely – the way forward.
I hate what is asked for when one is told to, ‘take one for the team.’ One person is asked to accept less, sacrifice some kind of standard, is abused in some way in order for the team to ‘win’ in some way. If all people, both inside and outside of the ‘team’, aren’t treated with equal respect then how could this possibly be considered a win?
Yes. Our interpretation of what constitutes a ‘win’ would be another great thing to study.
I’m struck by a family considering itself a team. Indeed I’ve seen this in films where a parent will say so to rally the family against a formidable opponent (alien or robot) and even the teenager, who’s usually wayward and wants to get rid of their family connection, rallies forth.
I wonder if most families do consider themselves a team of sorts, like there are differences but the blood bond ties them together stronger than water – the water being everyone else on the planet. If we all got that we’re here to work together, to support one another there’d be no need for this miniscule effort of a few versus I don’t know how many billion inhabitants on the planet earth. It really is a fooled system!
The consciousness within families that blood is more important keeps us loyal only to ‘our own’ (and not even then when we consider it). Understanding that we are all family keeps us open and less defensive and protective around anyone without the same surname!
If what we all got was that we are actually all the same united consciousness and that any separation that we perceive is part of the illusion of creation then this would go a really long way to bringing a one unified approach to life.
A ‘team’ implies there must be another team to compete against – a no win situation for everyone. I just bought a cooperative board game for my grandchildren and they love it. No tears cos no-one can lose!
Over the past few years participating in group work stripped away my previous understanding of teamwork and offered me its true meaning. Whereas before there was a tension to group work (which I brought) one- upmanship, drive, challenge, confrontation and wanting to be right. This gave way to a willingness to work with each group, for the All and not myself. It has been a beautiful unfolding and to reflect on how far I’ve come a blessing.
After years of facilitated team development and team conflict events, it is only now I fully understand the subject. And this is the problem: until we connect to the true meaning of words and the energy of each, we will never support people to elevate themselves beyond what is commonly accepted as the norm. For example most team development events focus on relationships within the team, rarely the ‘inner’ relationship each team member has with themselves and what they bring to the mix. This limits the depth of the conversation and intimacy within the group. And for this reason lasting change after these team events remains elusive.
I’m curious to explore this some more. If we’re all part of one team, then everyone we meet is on our team, on our side even if they don’t know it, may not want to be, resist or challenge the idea. What’s important is recognising this truth and knowing the quality of response to another even those who oppose or resist us is part of our own evolution.
Love this wisdom Kehinde. Everyone is on my team – even if they aren’t aware of it! Love it.
Years ago I was in a book shop and was amazed at how big the section of self-help books about how to get ahead was! One title caught my attention; “Just Say No”. I skimmed the book and if you followed its advice you could confidently become a self-centred jerk that used others as stepping stones to your evolution. Group work was something you controlled. Today we have steering committees and action teams. We have not changed our group work over time, just re-branded it.
Don’t hold back how you feel! 😂😂 yep it is sad when people only see the way to getting ‘ahead’ (which is complete illusion anyway) is manipulating, walking over, competing and controlling others …..yuk!
When I was applying to the LEA for my son’s first place at school I could feel the intensity coming from parents who felt they were all in competition with each other to win those places. This element of competition is rife throughout all sectors of society and it is ugly.
Yes and it starts really young when mothers get together and talk about how their baby is sitting unaided now/ walking/ talking etc. We learn it at our mothers knee – so unsurprisingly after centuries of competition it takes time to unlearn. When talking to my own mother about introducing cooperative games to my sons rather than competitive ones, she felt it was ‘good’ for them to experience competing and winning and losing as ‘that is the way the world works’. Maybe so for now – but not for ever…..
It feels to me that true teamwork is at the very heart of life. A process that continually keeps yolking us all together, drawing groups into nucleus’s that then draw other groups in towards them and so it goes until we are all back to being just the One collective group again.
When one claims to be working as a team member yet doing so for personal gain, then this is not true team work. The consequence of this is plainly seen in the state of British politics over Brexit.
Yes Jonathon fascinating and shocking to watch this play out. We can feel the force of energy behind politicians who cannot see beyond themselves and personal ambitions, regardless of cost to the nation.
And also the hypocrisy in saying it is for the benefit of the nation when all the while what they are choosing is their ‘tribe’.
So true Jonathan. Yes it is so obvious currently in the UK. People lining their own pockets and pretending it is for the good of all. Pure hypocrisy.
If there is any need for self gain while within a team then it is not a team. True team work is seeing and living every part as no greater or lesser but together as one unified collaboration.
The value of surrendering self to the All yet to be fully understood. And Instead of losing, when we do, we find the gains are infinite and magnificent.
What you say Caroline exposes all the many versions of ‘team’ we see in the world. Self gain and recognition very much at the heart of most activities, not evolution of ourselves, humanity and planet.
I am working as part of a new team and even though I have only been part of the team for 6 weeks or so, I am feeling so enmeshed within the team. Enmeshed in a positive way. Included, welcomed, respected and valued. It is proving to be a very enriching and evolutionary experience, I am absolutely loving it and can feel how the experience is enlivening and enriching all other areas of my life.
True teamwork is never about who receives the credit for the outcome it produces.
Growing up I observed how I sought out ‘like minded people’ because I felt safe, well tentatively so as people could change their minds. I also observed how, when these people weren’t in line with my viewpoint, I felt devastated. I realised I was seeking connection and confirmation of who I was, that I had a place and belonged. I wondered if other people were craving connection and intimacy too. It was so sad to feel how desperate people were and how their attempts to belong ended up excluding people until there was no-one left and we were all individual islands. This was the devastation.
‘It was so sad to feel how desperate people were and how their attempts to belong ended up excluding people until there was no-one left and we were all individual islands. This was the devastation.’ I can certainly relate to this and this is certainly how I felt as a school girl with all the closed cliques that formed at school and how everyone was looking out wanting to be with the ‘cool’ kids and yet these kids were always fighting amongst themselves and never seemed particularly happy. When we judge ourselves and others, keep those others out to preserve a picture of how we want to be seen we are living on the foundation of a lie.
Having just joined a new team and feeling the team starting to pull together and step up, it really is a fantastic feeling. It feels like a ‘knitting together’, like we’re drawing each other closer and supporting each other more and all this is happening without a single word. It makes me realise how much is being lost when we are part of a team that is not yolking itself together towards Oneness.
Beautiful to feel and be part of teams that know from within, their true purpose.
When we perceive being in or supporting a team as taking sides we see others as either friend or foe.
There is the analogy of the microcosm and the macrocosm. When we are truly in harmony within ourselves on an microcosmic level, then we are more likely to be able to work harmoniously in a group too. However, if that is not the case, then we get to have exposed those areas that we or the other or perhaps both need to work on in order to return to harmony in the group. So either way it is a win win situation so long as everyone is open to learning.
Very true, Henrietta, when we are not in harmony with our self then we bring that dis-harmony to the group and consequently it is no wonder that true team work is at present rare.
True and very real team work can be hard to find these days, but it does exist – and when you get to see it unfold or even experience it yourself, you know for sure that it can be done. We need to know this in a world where chaos seems to be the ruling order.
Yes, having experienced true and very real team work. it’s something that I carry with me into every situation. The greater awareness I have of this the greater the offer is there for it to be put into motion. It doesn’t matter the world around us is in chaos.
Reading this I realise practices and attitudes at work which just aren’t supportive to anyone involved. There is such competition to get all the targets met, relief when a teams not coming in bottom. It’s like we’re still at school and still being told off. In all departments there’s a pressure to perform no matter what. The reasons why aren’t managing isn’t being explored because no-one really seems open to seeing what’s going on. This creates such a toxic environment where people are called to ignore their well being for the sake of the team. The sad truth is working this way is not only counter productive but keeps the cycle of abuse going.
I have a responsibility to keep being aware and no longer indulge and perpetuate this corruption of how we work together and work in a different way in systems that aren’t working and haven’t been working for a long, long time.
Holding ourselves in the truth of who we are is a counterpoint to all the chaos around us: in other words we can be in it, but not of it.
Beautifully said and a great reminder to read.
Awesome that you see this so clearly and express it as such here Karin. Yes – the toxicity we have normalised is devastating and whilst we are in the denial of it, perhaps in the protection of not wanting to see and feel how we perpetuate it, we doggedly carry on on the same path blaming the system and our colleagues.
Many teams are a breeding ground for exactly the behaviours needed to ensure that there is not a hope in Hell’s chance of any true team work taking place. In exactly the same way that most forms of love are actually corrupted versions that ensure that true love never gets a look in.
Alexis I totally agree with you, that there is not a hope in hell’s chance of any true team work taking place as individualism and self-gain are encouraged under the disguise of team work. And I didn’t realise just how much I hate the lie and deception this brings and how gullible some people seem to be, or they just cannot be bothered to question the status quo. So that anyone who does ask questions is seen as a disturber of the so called ‘team’.
Excellent point Mary. The person who is asking for true teamwork and highlighting the rot within a team, to be criticised for not being a team player or a disrupter of the ‘team’ is something which needs to be seen for what it is when it is this: a resistance to true teamwork and evading ones responsibility to drop individual gain and to actually work as a team for the benefit of all. Because if we do not see this for what it is, people will continue to believe the corrupted version and what could be delivered for everyone is lost.
Yesterday I was volunteering in a primary school and many in the class were playing hockey in the hall. I was truly shocked to learn they had played in their four different houses and when the winning teams were announced there was uproar, The winners were exulted and the losers downcast. Do we really need to be teaching this divisiveness in primary education? (UK)
A really great blog Coleen. “This awareness of our true ‘team’ – humanity – then invites a true and purposeful way of interacting in our more localised and personal smaller teams: it is no longer just about ‘me and mine’ but about the relationship of ‘me and mine’ to our global family” Until we defeat individuality ‘me first’ rules.
Yes, the ‘me first’ rules create a very ugly situation. When we really realise this and there’s no need for it at all, then we’ll embrace humanity as our true team with no-one left out or excluded. This maybe tricky but we’re here to inspire each other.
What Coleen has laid down here feels to be nothing short of a ground-breaking exposure of all the beliefs and ideals society has held onto in regards to what it does and does not mean to be working as a true team. I especially liked how simple and yet very impactful it was to read that you can never be a true team member if there is any aspect of better or worse or any classification system at all, really. Alternatively, when we hold everyone in true equality and make choices based on the benefit of all and everyone who may be affected by our choice, there can be a unity that can be felt by all, because no one person is considered more important than another.
Those times where I have felt communities coming together and those times when they have come to together in equality and in purpose are those times where I feel enriched and joyful. We were meant to work together as equals, not in isolation or in superiority or subjugation. We know this to be true because of how it makes us feel when we do so or do not do so.
I don’t believe we join the dots as you are doing Coleen, and because you are joining the dots it is asking us all to stop and take a moment to consider our part in the wider scheme of life. That what we say and do does matter that we all have a part to play and this is true teamwork.
Inspired to know that everyone we meet is on my team, the One universal family team. This awareness offers me the opportunity me to deepen my connection with each person I meet. Failure to do so, pits one against another and weakens us all
Not only that but each person is giving us a reflection of something we need in order to grow and expand our awareness and so we all need each other to move forward, we cannot do this on our own.
Gorgeous Mary. This is exactly how I feel when I meet someone new; I feel enriched and expanded – all the more for having had that encounter.
I’m only now beginning to understand true value and extent of teams. For example, as a carer we’re not only part of an agency team alongside administrators and managers, but also a family team which includes client, family members, myself, various medical and health practitioners and pharmacist. And it extends further into the elders community I live in: housekeepers, maintenance, gardeners, administrators, caterers, managers, liaison personnel, physiotherapists and other residents. Teams are everywhere, we just have to be aware of them and be an active and equal contributor.
The ‘being an active and equal contributor’ is key to the team working in a true way, no one person taking over, and no-one sitting back either.
‘no one person taking over and no-one sitting back either’ both sides of the equation equally important. And our responsibility to be aware of these positions, whether within ourselves or others and be prepared to call it out or gently support so we all participate as equals.
Successful group work is spherical. The outcome can only be completed by the differences that individuals bring that complete the whole. On a broader scope; the individual in relationship to the universe is minuscule, but is not complete without them and us.
‘…our teams are actually highly exclusive’. It’s good to be honest about this because only then can we become inclusive.
Simply expressed Karin. The ultimate and One team is inclusive.
Yes Karin. At the moment we are very much in denial of the exclusivity of our teams on all levels – from families, people within families, sporting teams, religions, schools, businesses, neighbourhoods, regions, countries etc. When we can see this in all the ugliness it presents then we might be open to admitting how much this hurts and how unnecessary it all is.
We are often told that competition is healthy and the motivation to build a team often comes from a desire to win or ‘beat another’. Where have all these perverted notions come from when they are in total disregard of our soul and the magic of God where we can openly come together in love knowing that we can bring all of our unique essence to any situation and live in a way that allows harmony to blossom.
We can honour everyone in a team, so everyone feels equal, and feels equally valid. In a team like that, everyone has an equal say, and not one person takes over with their agenda, and the end result is accumulative conclusion for everyone.
Very true Gill and each person will reflect something different and add to the whole.
Exposing the insidious corruption of true teamwork is fundamental to bringing about a shift in how we approach working in any team and becoming aware of the responsibility we have to all whatever size of team we are presently working in.
It’s crucial for us to keep working on unity. Unity within teams, unity of teams within the broader community and unity of individuals towards others, teams and anyone and everyone else. A continual re-bonding of us All until we return to being One.
Agreed. Without the reflection that there is another way we will keep choosing the corruption,
“Hence, our teams are based on competition and winning and the teamwork and cooperation that occurs does so only in the context of one’s own team. In other words, our teams are actually highly exclusive”. So true Coleen, it feels to me that rather than teams having tendrils that extend out to all those and everything around them, that they operate like a ‘closed shop’. True teamwork is for the benefit of the All not for the exclusivity of the few.
Well said. The competition that strives to improve skills is based on an underlying cooperation — to play by the rules and, even beyond that, to compete fairly. If we forget that, we are truly lost as shown in this essay. https://petersironwood.com/2019/03/21/newsflash-winning-by-cheating-is-losing-it-is-not-winning/
I’ve worked in a team that has no adversary borders only support for each member and the purpose of comig together for everyone’s benefit, both inside and outside of the group. Such team work has supported me to appreciate everyone’s contribution is a platform for the end result where nobody is left behind.
I used to study drama at university and the joy in productions for me wasn’t in the performance and being seen but that everyone was working together with a common purpose. The relationships and trust that we built were gorgeous as we all depended on each other to do our jobs. With everyone pulling their weight and appreciating the contribution everyone else made, we created a foundation of team work that has stayed with me.
Our desire to be seen as the best at something actually blocks good team work because when we strive to be “the best” we are in constant comparison with those around us and are therefore unable to see their potential and what they bring to the picture.
Absolutely making it about us and how we ‘look’ or are perceived blocks true teamwork and seeing and truly supporting the bigger picture.
One of the most joyful things for me is to appreciate what others bring, but this wouldn’t be possible unless I were secure in myself and appreciated what I bring also. With a foundation of self worth, there is no need to go into comparison and competition, there is simply appreciation. If anyone these days does trigger something in me where I may feel less, then to me that is a signpost that I need to work on whatever that something is.
Very spot on Michelle – I like what you say about the joy of seeing what other people bring. When we are stuck in our drive, need or whatever you want to call it – to be the best, we ignore the gold from others, we cannot see their essence and truly connect with who they are.
To me it is this appreciation of others that keeps the joy alive. There is nothing I love more than to meet new people and form connections simply because what they bring is so unique and special. The enrichment that is possible from this is gold.
Group energy is a powerful force which can be used for great purpose and good or can be used for destruction and great harm.
I love what you have shared here Coleen ‘This awareness of our true ‘team’ – humanity – then invites a true and purposeful way of interacting in our more localised and personal smaller teams: it is no longer just about ‘me and mine’ but about the relationship of ‘me and mine’ to our global family.’ What if every single one of us saw the team as being not just in a friendship, relationship, family or office but as you say globally and we worked in harmony all 7 billion of us. We have a long way to go for this to happen and it starts with ourselves first .. how are we living and how are we truly with others in each and every interaction.
I love the idea of families working as teams. So often they are consumed with rivalry, quarrel, resentments and upsets. One family I know supports children from a young age to take responsibility for carrying out certain household tasks suited to their age. Increased awareness shows us that true families work purposefully as teams not for themselves alone, but for the One family we’re all part of.
I love this Kehinde. There is a real joy in the pulling together for a common purpose that we can all relate to. When we see this in action we can’t be helped but be touched by it, but more enriching to be a part of it.
I have been in so many well meaning teams where someone sabotages the meetings with their own agenda, I understand exactly what is happening here and how it all falls apart. It feels very different when people come together with true teamwork.
Yes I’ve witnessed this too. We’ve been brought up to be competitive and vie for recognition; team work is an anathema to individual rule especially when it’s realised how much quality can come through a team that’s working in unison. That’s quite a bitter pill considering all the effort an individual puts into being an individual, so sabotage is a way of resisting this and refusing to accept the beauty of teamwork.
We only have to look at the chaos in the UK government right now to see that personal agenda brings nothing to a situation but discord. Is it possible that in the halls of power everyone is beginning to feel this acutely? I know that I am. Whilst many may not be ready to ditch their personal investments in favour of something we can collectively work towards, they may be forced to observe the difference when we finally have to come together to resolve a very tricky situation.
I used to prefer team sports when I was growing up to individual ones because of that working together element but honestly as much as I was good at it, I never liked the competitive side of things and that all that effort and working together was still to beat or defeat another group or team.
In our hearts we all love it when we pull together, but we have come to accept an off track version of team work when we split into teams and compete against one another.
Yes and I reckon sometimes we get a bit swayed by the ‘pulling together’ thing and perhaps see it through rose tinted glasses without always checking what it is we are ‘pulling together’ for or getting behind?
Super point. I feel that in the need to belong we stop discerning what it is we have chosen to belong to as the need comes ahead of truth.
Yep when we come together as a community no matter how big or small it really makes a difference to our wellbeing. A member of my family has recently just started going to a weekly club in the local community and loves it, I have really noticed how much this has lifted her its lovely to see.
Remember, corruption is not something ‘out there’ but equally within all of us, if we so choose. How many of us are aware of the many and insidious ways we make ourselves less, indulge in comfort, while others face abuse, torture, threats? To take care of our individual self and immediate family and remain detached from the community of brothers we’re all equally part of is a loss of essence and truth. When we clean up our own act all of humanity benefits.
We have all contributed to this corruption and any change starts with us being willing to examine this and make different choices in how we behave. This is then reflected to others and they are faced with a choice of how to respond.
We’ve attempted to corrupt everything of true beauty and truth, we really have. The only saving grace is that the origin of everything that is borne from true beauty and truth can’t be altered in any way, we can’t even put the tiniest blemish on the outer layer.
Connected to multi-dimensionality, we feel the beauty and glory that is our origins despite the corrupted nature of the world we live in.
Well said Kehinde.
Working together with a group of people who are focused on the purpose of what everyone brings together is a delight for us all when there are no self agendas, simply true teamwork.
We are clearly never really alone and everything we do contributes and affects another.
I hadn’t considered teamwork on this level before but actually we are constantly contributing to something and knowing this brings more responsibility and accountability which is perhaps why we choose not to be aware of it.
I’m realising I’m very aware of ‘teams’ after reading this – so which ‘teams’ I feel more at ease with and which ones I don’t because I’m not welcomed because I don’t have the status to be a part of particular teams. This could be social class, regions etc. It feels such a reduction of the support we can offer one another. It seems like only in extreme difficulties are we ready to come together.
In truth, we are stronger together, but that means all of us not just a segregated few, or a selected few. Together means together, every single one. If it’s not this, then we are just fooling ourselves where team work is concerned.
We all live on the same planet and on a natural level have to breathe the same air and drink the same water. We also catch the same communicable disease and get affected by loss, grief and so on. On an economic level we have to deal with the markets in Asia as they deal with ours, we depend on the oil found in oil fields in the Middle East or in America as they need our products and services. When something happens over there, we feel the consequences over here. We are all connected – perhaps it is time to accept this.
The scale of societal corruption is vast, with every public and private institution polluted. To stand apart from the rot, with clarity, observing yet not be affected by it and modelling truth not lies, is vital if we are to offer an alternative way.
True teamwork is about building a wider relationship rather than trying to outdo others whether they are on your ‘team’ or part of another group.
“Hence, our teams are based on competition and winning and the teamwork and cooperation that occurs does so only in the context of one’s own team. In other words, our teams are actually highly exclusive”. The truth of the matter is that we are one swirling mass of particles. In truth there is no such thing as individuality or ‘others’, therefore any notion of ‘beating another’ can’t by it’s very nature be true because there are no ‘others’, there is only the One Us. Which also indicates that each and every time we perceive that we have ‘beaten another, be that a team or an individual, we have in fact acted in a way that has gone against our very nature.
Important to start deconstructing the current societal models we have, as you have done so here Colleen. We are very comfortable with where we are, but we know that it isn’t working. If we can begin to break through as to why it is not working with a willingness to be honest, we can start to construct the truer model based on love for all, working for all, living for all and not from behind one’s castle walls with the drawbridge up blaming everyone else for the mess, excusing, justifying and pardoning ourselves as innocents caught up in the firing line of everyone else’s making.
So true, how willing are we to be honest and admit that the way we have been living and viewing life has not been working. The moment we do that we can see the value in considering this truer model based on Love for all and working for all.
This is so true how people are not working together in true team work. We only have to look at the politics going on in UK at the moment to see how the disunity, self gain and recognition causes turmoil.
Yet it only needs just one person, a true leader to unify and make sense of it all. Jacinda Ardern in NZ is currently making waves. A woman, a natural leader, a heart, an authenticity, a genuine desire to lead for the people – not from self interest but from a social conscience that doesn’t tolerate abuse. She is carving her way through with these qualities and she is building unity and trust. What she is doing sends a message that it can be done. It won’t take much, just a call from the people to say enough is enough and leaders such as this will start to emerge. Supply and demand. If we want true team work we will build it. If we want to self gain at the expense of others, allow it to happen or dismiss it when it does we will continue in the turmoil.
Where in any professional sport today can a team come together with the knowledge of what the others are being paid to do the same job? Which in most sports today, are obscene amounts.
I was absolutely appalled recently to hear that a goalkeeper of a football team that is high up in The Premier League received a barrage of hate mail, including death threats because of a mistake that he made that cost his team an important game. There can be absolutely no sense of any real teamwork to begin with if we are able to threaten those within our own team with violence.
Does this expose how thin the veil of illusion supporting teamwork has become?
Oh, my Alexis, that’s intense, but it does expose the fact that the way we have set ‘teams’ up to be is a complete lie.
Sadly I think it is very common for people in the public domain to be receiving death threats and this is not out of the ordinary, although it should be. We really need to be asking ourselves how we have sunk so low as to this kind of behaviour being so common (but was there ever a time on the planet where we were collectively living higher?). Zooming out to the whole of humanity – as one team on planet earth, we don’t just threaten each other with violence constantly, we act out this violence too. It has never made sense to me that we see ourselves as separate and yet we champion it, glorifying the so called different teams we have categorised ourselves in without ever once considering that as one race we would flourish so much better if we simply recognised that we are all equal and are of one humanity, supporting, appreciating, sharing and loving all as we go.
It is not only threats, in 1994 a player in a South American footballer scored an own goal in a tournament and was assassinated a few days after.
A true team never pitches against another, but always just grows the team and holds an openness and a humbleness of its own magnitude and magnificence.
This is a great blog to consider all the areas that we might be a part of teams and to explore how we are in them – do we give ourselves up to be a part of the ‘team’ or do we hold what we know to be true and bring that to the benefit of the whole team? Family, work, community groups, council, support groups, schools, sports teams etc etc. the list goes on…
The craving to be part of something conflicts with our need to hang onto our individuality unless we connect to the wider purpose of working together.
Sometimes being part of a ‘team’ offers a feeling of ‘belonging’ and not being alone. But it is wise to ask what you are actually wanting to feel ‘belonged’ to – for whilst we know that everything is energy, though something may portray itself as being a particular way, energetically it may be a part of something that we do not and did not ever energetically belong to. If we are here to return to a source that lies deep within, then that is the only ‘team’ we really belong to and hence that will in time reflect itself on the outside. But when we seek to belong from the outside first, then this is not what brings us back to our true team or back home, but is instead a distraction to the very thing we seek.
We are a member of many teams as we move through life but it is only when we acknowledge the greater team that we are all part of and feel the responsibility to act in ways that are for the benefit of all rather than the narrow self interest that we have so often restricted ourselves to that we can start to expose the corruption of true teamwork and how it has affected us all.
« There is no ‘i’ in team » this could almost let us believe that there is no self in team work when in fact it is the exact opposite should we consider the real purpose of that specific teamwork, the true outcome. Are we getting together for self or are we working for an outcome which is going to support us all’ including other teams?
We think that because we are in a team it is social, connecting, more rewarding and better however if we are there for self gain and feel the need to win then how can this be true team work? Where there are losers it begs to question the true purpose of what team work actually is.
Most versions of team work have an inward focus and are not all encompassing: This version is no different to our attachment to ‘self ‘or ‘individual’ Not until teams form to advance humanity, will we fully understand their true purpose.
To call out the corrupt nature of every aspect of societal life means we’re no longer controlled by it. To express our knowing openly where-ever we are, raises the consciousness for all.
Coleen your great blog is really an eye opener about true teamwork and how we as a society has bastardies it. Now it is on each of us how we want to go on from here – oneness could be now one option again.
Thank you Coleen for so lucidly exposing the falseness of what is commonly known as ‘teamwork’.
Agreed there is much corruption in this world. From reading this I reflected on, do we really understand what teamwork means? My understanding of teamwork now is truly working together as one where there is a flow, harmony and unity and from being a student of the Way of the Livingness I deeply appreciate the moments in my life where I have this.
So much more is achieved when ‘all’ move with loving care as ‘one’ where everyone in that ‘one’ is held in the movement itself.
If teams actually worked ‘as teams should’ then there would be so many benefits to being part of a team. We would learn about true brotherhood, about how to support one another in order to lift the entire team up so that the team could then support those outside of the team. We would learn about the dynamics of working within a group and strive to constantly improve those dynamics. Ultimately we can’t evolve alone and so it doesn’t really matter how we quantify the ‘team’ that we belong to, we are all none the less part of a team or perhaps it’s more accurate to say ‘teams within teams’.
We’ve actually corrupted most things, teamwork is just one of them. We’ve corrupted the meaning of love, the meaning of family, the true meaning of purpose. We’ve corrupted the true meaning of education, of art and of service. In fact to list any more things would imply that the list is exhaustive when really it’s not. So it’s more accurate to simply say that we’ve corrupted the meaning of life. And we have.
I have noticed this common competition thing in education and schools – it is promoted as a healthy thing and a healthy way to get kids to achieve but I have experienced it myself in my own schooling and I remember the reality was a lot of pressure, stress and anxiousness and also separation between me and my class mates due to the competition thing. It really was awful. And the kids who could not keep up with it all or who opted to not join in with the competition thing were branded as stupid, lazy or drop outs when really they were the smart ones!
When I’ve been part of ‘teams’ in my life it’s been unavoidable and completely in my face just how much the team members (including myself) could not collaborate. We were just a bunch of individuals looking after ourselves. This blog is a great reminder that we need to look at these constructs we use in life and check whether they match up with what is actually lived.
It is very obvious when people sometimes bring their own agenda to a team meeting, with a need to get that across rather than for the best outcome for the team. It is great to expose this, and bring back the understanding of true team work.
Thank you Colleen. To expand our understanding of true team work from the multiplicity of teams that exist now, to one team, humanity, is inspired and offers a purposeful way to live.
This is brilliant. So many great points being raised here. It is so true that we seem to often come together to separate from the rest to create an us-them divide, and we often operate under the perceived ideology of what is deemed as right, while in fact no one actually really wants to do that. It’s like when a group gets formed, regardless of its size, it could even be a couple, some kind of group consciousness, like a pack energy, gets birthed to take over and override what each of us has been holding as true, and what is unresolved in us on an individual basis gets magnified. There seems to be a massive lie about so-called teamwork that we champion. We might like to think that it’s a betterment on selfishness, but this sense of being part of a team feeds just as much identification and individuality, and actually even a bigger doses of righteousness.
Yes a group or team might be working together but do we check what the group consciousness or intention of the team is and whether it is actually healthy?
Great point that we carry our unresolved hurts into teamwork and this then gets in the way of true teamwork because we are not open to feeling what is needed when we are busy protecting ourselves from further hurts.
Our unresolved hurts get in the way of everything, they sit like permanent blights on the landscape.
A masterful expose of teamwork.
Spot on Coleen, whenever or wherever there is competition and/or individualism within teamwork then it is no longer teamwork.
Great to read this and reflect on the teams I’m involved with – is there corruption and where? Where is the true team work. Often we’re asked to work as a team but there is great resistance from the ‘self’ what’s in it for me, and only when it sees the benefits to itself or a select few, will it engage.
That’s so true Karin, so often we see being part of a team as an opportunity to stand out from the team, which of course is the opposite to true teamwork.
Yep it is about getting ourselves and wants and needs out of the way and doing what is needed … something I am still learning.
You only have to observe small children playing together to see what true team work is, but sadly it doesn’t take too long for this harmonious scenario to be tainted as they become influenced by the individualistic and often competitive behaviours of those around them. Children are the most astute observers of the adults in their lives, often adopting the behaviours they witness so they fit in or maybe get recognition and approval. And so the corruption begins.
I love the analogy you have given here Ingrid. Young children offer much for us to learn from in terms of true team work – they do not take sides, they say things as they are, they hold an honesty that is refreshing and they do not take things personally. All ways that we can learn to take on board in our lives as adults.
Yes, even if we are working as part of a team towards a common goal, if the goal is to better another group or better a part of the whole bigger ‘team’ of the human race is it not still destructive?
Great article here Coleen that really examines everything we believe about teams and teamwork. I agree that teams can bring exclusivity and therefore separation between us as human beings.
Where there is individualism and self gain there is no true team work; where there is a development of the relationship to self and a commitment to this relationship of letting go of individualism and self gain can we come together as one unified team that serves the all. It simply comes down to healing all that need for self gain and recognition in everything that we do.
In true team work, there is no self or separatism, only Oneness..
In true life there is no self or separation, only Oneness. Teamwork is the micro cosmic version of the macro cosmic totality of Life.