To err is human; to forgive, divine

Alexander Pope, 17^th century English Poet.

Good teams

In some workplaces teams are established groups who work together in a symbiotic relationship. Together they get the job done. Other teams are amalgamated from various departments in a company in order to work together on a project that will last for a period of time after which the team is disbanded.  Whenever you bring a group of people together in any context, it is inevitable that personalities will clash. 

In an ideal world, team members come together with trust and respect. They listen to understand, they talk to explain, they judge not by whim but by fact.

The best of all Possible Worlds

But, alas, we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds that Voltaire’s Pangloos talks of. Now sometimes somethings go wrong, someone forgets a task or solves a problem in such a manner that is not quite how it should be done. In our daily dealings with our colleagues at work, we come across errors and mistakes. Some people seem to wait for others to make mistakes in order to pounce on them and bring them to task for having “done wrong”.

What happens often is that a member of the team – or more than one egged on by the ring leader – pounces on the person who made the mistake. The mistake is broadcast for all to see, the consequences of the action are detailed and shouted about. The person who made the mistake is made to feel like a totally incompetent buffoon who is not worthy of their job.

Admit it, you have all been that person. You have all been made to feel less, even belittled by a co-worker or worse yet by a boss. Yes, you made a mistake, but was it your intention to do so? Did you wake up one morning and think to yourself over coffee, “today is the day I am going to do it all wrong just to spite everyone”. Well, no, you didn’t. But nevertheless, the reaction you get reflects the strong belief of your “accuser” that you intentionally made a mistake.

Why?

There are so many reasons for people to point out the mistakes of others and try to “bring them down”. In a work place, a team member may feel insecure about his or her positon and think that if they can draw attention away from themselves, they can somehow survive another day.

Again people with low self-esteem seem to be more concerned with winning, getting it right, being right than seeking to support others who may have a completely different outlook on matters.

Use Empathy

If we are to act with empathy, we first must seek to understand how that person came to make the mistake. This means we would have to stop and think before pointing the figure of blame. It is so easy to fly off the handle and just point without taking time to think, analyse, try to understand, ask the other person what was the rationale behind the action that we have defined as the mistake.

Tis with our judgements as our watches,

none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Act with good intentions and assume every team member does the same. That is the first step to achieving a truly cohesive team who value Trust above all.