Humanity is built on teams

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that humanity is built on teams. Photos from https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/

If we look around our world, it’s clear that we couldn’t have achieved what we have on this planet by working as individuals. Can you imagine how long it would take one person to build an office block? What about to build something like Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Giza or the Eiffel Tower? To construct an Airbus A380 aircraft, design a smartphone or tunnel from the UK to mainland Europe? Most of those things would be effectively impossible for an individual – either physically (the labour required would require living longer than we do) or intellectually (one person couldn’t know everything that they needed to).

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that humanity is built on teams.

Anthropologists and researchers in different fields have come to this same conclusion – even if the words are slightly different. According to a 2006 paper by Steve Kozlowski and Daniel Ilgen of Michigan State University, ‘human history is largely a story of people working together in groups to explore, achieve, and conquer’. A similar statement that is often attributed to anthropologist, Margaret Mead (but doesn’t seem to appear in any of her published work!) encourages readers to ‘never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has’.

The possibilities that teams allow are incredible. Here are a couple of questions for you to consider this week:

1. Have you underestimated your team's ability to have a positive impact?

2. How could you help to maintain or improve that impact?

Next week, I'll explore this idea from a different angle.