Teamwork and interpersonal skills are something that everyone can talk about on a job interview, in a board meeting, on the baseball diamond, or in a classroom, but while the nature of these skills seems simple in concept, they are extraordinarily more difficult in practice. Team skills seem difficult in practice based on the fact that they are overwhelmingly absent from many corporate environments. In fact, without much struggle, it is easy for most people to think of a moment when teamwork was missing from their own workplace.
Imagine you are an advertising account representative for a well known newspaper. Each month, you have an ad sales quota of $10,000. Not only is each sales representative expected to meet the quota each month and there are additional incentives for the top sales representative each month. On the 29th of the month, you have met your quota with sales of $12,500. You are the leading salesperson for the month with the second place salesperson, Bob, trailing with $12,250. At your morning coffee break, you notice an incoming fax addressed to Bob with an ad request from a new client that would put Bob in the lead for ad sales with only one day left in the month. With a $1,000 incentive bonus looming, you decide that you will hold onto the fax until after the first of the month in order to secure the bonus. You win the bonus; three days later you put the fax on Bob’s desk. Excited for the lead, Bob calls the potential client and discovers that due to the delay, they had already placed their new ad with a competing newspaper.
The company loses potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in future business. Who is ultimately at fault? While you have certainly acted unethically, the blame extends further. There are so many reasons why teamwork is missing in the office. One of those reasons relates to the way we are evaluated for compensation or promotions being based on individual accomplishment. Too often today, compensation and evaluation programs discourage the development of highly effective teams in work environments.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/penmachine/1440944894/
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