by Steve Adubato, PhD

Great teamwork. Everyone talks about it. We all aspire to it. A team that is cohesive works well together, shares valuable information and has individual members who sacrifice for the greater good of the team. It sounds great in theory, but in practice, it is extremely difficult, particularly in challenging economic times, to have team members communicate in an open, honest and collegial fashion. Consider the following scenario which is all too common in the world of business.

A senior manager in a major sales organization is given a directive from one of the partners who founded the firm. The directive involves getting a certain project done by the end of the week for a longtime client who has brought in big bucks to the organization. The senior manager goes to one of his team members to execute the plan, but is immediately rebuffed when the team member says he’s been given a very different set of priorities by another partner who is insisting that “his project be done immediately.”

So the senior manager then goes to that particular partner and says, “Bob, I’ve asked Jim to work on XYZ project which was given to me by Mike (the company’s founding partner) and I would like you to tell Jim that it’s okay for him to get it done by the end of the week.” No dice. Immediately Bob says; “Who are you to go to Jim and tell him to do that work? He reports to me and I told him that we had to get the ABC project done by the end of this week.” Hmm.

Given his dilemma, the senior manager goes back to founding partner Mike and tells him what has happened. Immediately, Mike bangs his fist on the desk and says; “Bob does it all the time. He acts like his work is more important than anyone else’s. Why can’t Bob just be a team player for once and cooperate for the good of the organization?” Easier said than done. Inevitably, the organization finds someone else to do the work and the problem is swept under the rug once again.

Business is a lot like baseball. Did you ever notice when a player who is competing for a batting championship in the last few days of a season is asked to “lay down a sacrifice bunt” in the 9th inning of a tie game in order to move his teammate from first to second base putting him in scoring position? Could you imagine the potential batting champ deciding that his individual goal of winning the batting title is more important than the team being in a position to win a critical game? What would happen if the batter just hit away and either struck out or popped up and his team wound up losing? Clearly there would be consequences.

In business, way too often, team members are more concerned with their individual “bottom line.” When this happens, they often hoard information as well as people. They refuse to cooperate, share and communicate in a forthright fashion. They thwart the efforts of others in the hopes of propping up their own individual status and that of their more immediate unit or division.

Obviously, any reasonable professional knows such behavior is wrong. But the question becomes is it understandable, particularly if the organizational culture communicates two very conflicting messages—One, the rhetoric of teamwork and cooperation; but another more powerful and persuasive one that says “each man for himself.”

Further, if teamwork and cooperation are not rewarded and recognized, no matter how many teamwork-related slogans or posters hang on the wall or how much a CEO pep talks about the “need to communicate” with each other, in the end, selfishness and pettiness will prevail and the larger team will ultimately suffer.