{"id":257,"date":"2009-01-12T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-12T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.wpdude.com\/test\/?p=257"},"modified":"2009-01-12T11:21:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-12T11:21:00","slug":"friendship-and-team-building-michael-cardus-and-aristotle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/01\/friendship-and-team-building-michael-cardus-and-aristotle\/","title":{"rendered":"friendship and Team Building – Michael Cardus and Aristotle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From guest team building blogger Michael Cardus from Western New York<\/span><\/p>\n

…………………<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Team Members should be friends?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Aristotle suggested that friendship, like successful team membership, has three components:<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

They must enjoy one another\u2019s company.
They must be useful to one another.
They must share a common commitment to the good. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Team Members Must Enjoy One Another\u2019s Company<\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

What does it mean to enjoy another team member\u2019s company? What is it that just makes the other members of a work team not just tolerable but enjoyable? A mistake many new (or even existing) team members make is to place their emphasis on being liked by the other team members. They work very hard at appearing likeable, so others will value them as a member of the team. And, at first glance, this seems to work. Gestures of friendship, loyalty and often even rewards go to the team members who have the greatest \u201capparent\u201d value, like a pair of shoes or a new car. But, sadly, this effect is only temporary. Once the team members and organization fail to \u201ccatch the eye\u201d of the purchaser (the powers that be), they \u201ctrade up.\u201d This results in a team that is more like a marketplace, and can lead to a team culture of deceit and high turnover. Team members operating this way fail to see the other members as people of equal value; they see them as objects or goods to be used for their personal advancement. For an effective team to form, the opposite must happen. Team members must look for the valuable skills and work traits in the other team members, and work on building connections across skill talent or trait lines, such as transparency, dependability, accountability and trust. Aristotle taught that by enjoying other team members\u2019 company and concentrating on who they are, we learn what it is that makes a person a trusted member of the group, and ultimately, a friend. And that is when effective teamwork starts to take off. <\/div>\n
Team Members Must be Useful to One Another<\/strong> <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A team, especially at work, is a means to develop a network and system of shared usefulness. Team members who have high job satisfaction within the team\u2019s tasks, and who stay with a team for years typically develop a deep understanding of the reciprocal value of cooperation with other team members. Once team members experience this interdependent value, cooperation usually increases. Why? They begin to see and experience the benefits that accrue from team membership. It moves from being viewed as an obligation to becoming a source of personal value. Developing a culture of goals and metrics that are team-oriented, where team members can act in self-directed ways that multiply the effectiveness of the entire organization, can increase team cohesion and perceived usefulness among team members. Like a symphony orchestra, each team member is treated as a specialist and knows just when he or she is most useful, in resonance with the whole team or even the entire organization.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Team Members Have a Common Commitment to the Good<\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Creating goals, metrics and benchmarks for team success creates a culture in which the team members strive to make their team and organization successful, while remaining accountable for their own actions. The result is a commitment to the common good. A team that is lacking a commitment to the common good is one that will fail. This is the responsibility of all team members, not just management. Once team members make the choice to be \u201cuseful to one another,\u201d as well as \u201cenjoy the other team members\u2019 company,\u201d a unified set of goals can emerge. These unified goals translate into increased productivity, lower turnover, and the development of a team that is high-functioning and effective.So do they need to like-like each other? Do team members need to be friends with one another as opposed to merely tolerating other team members? Yes. This is done with a paradigm shift, \u201cmaking myself an effective team member, one who is dedicated to being a team member as opposed to making myself desirable for membership within the team.\u201d <\/div>\n

\"\"
Michael Cardus is the founder of <\/span><\/em>Create-Learning-Team Building<\/span><\/em><\/a>, an experiential based training and development consulting organization, as well as a blogger for <\/span><\/em>TeamBuilding NY<\/span><\/em><\/a>. Mike specializes in team development and leadership development consulting and training, creating team-building programs that retain talented staff members, increase production and effectiveness of your team. He lives in Buffalo, NY, and travels to you to serve your team-building and leadership training needs, wherever and whenever fits your schedule.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From guest team building blogger Michael Cardus from Western New York ………………… Team Members should be friends? Aristotle suggested that friendship, like successful team membership, has three components: They must enjoy one another\u2019s company.They must be useful to one another.They must share a common commitment to the good. Team Members Must Enjoy One Another\u2019s Company What does it mean to enjoy another team member\u2019s company? What is it that just makes the other members of a work team not just tolerable but enjoyable? A mistake many new (or even existing) team members make is to place their emphasis on being <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xvDN-49","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}