TEAM BUILDING - The Turtle and the Rabbit

A team is a group of people with a full set of complementary skills required to complete a task, job, or project.

Team members have the following obligations:

1. They operate with a high degree of interdependence.

2. They share authority and responsibility for self-management.

3. They are accountable for the collective performance.

4. They work toward a common goal and shared rewards(s).

 A team becomes more than just a collection of people when a strong sense of mutual commitment creates synergy, thus generating performance greater than the sum of the performance of its individual members.

In fact, the word "TEAM" is a powerful acronym for business development:

T = Together
E = Everyone
A = Achieves
M= More

You've probably heard of the Aesop's ancient fable of the "Rabbit and the Turtle."

Once upon a time a turtle and a rabbit had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race.

The turtle and the rabbit both agreed on a route and started off the race. The rabbit shot ahead and ran briskly for some time.

Then seeing that he was far ahead of the turtle, he thought he'd rest for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under a tree and soon fell asleep.

The turtle plodding on, overtook him and soon finished the race.  Emerging as the undisputed champion.

The rabbit woke up and realised he'd lost the race.

*The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race.

This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with. But the new version of the story continues...

The rabbit was disappointed at losing the race and he did some thinking.

He realised that he'd lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax.
If he had not taken things for
granted, there's no way the turtle would have beaten him.

So he challenged the turtle to another race. The turtle agreed!

This time, the rabbit went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won the race by several miles.

*The moral of the story is the fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It's good to be slow and steady but it's better to be fast and reliable.
The story didn't end there...

The turtle did some thinking this time, and realised there's no way he can beat the rabbit in a race that the way is currently formatted.

He thought for a while, and then challenged the rabbit to another race, but on a slightly different route. The rabbit agreed!

The turtle and the rabbit started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment, to be consistently fast, the rabbit took off and rand at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometers on the other side of the broad river.

The rabbit sat there wondering on what to do. In the meantime the turtle trundled along, got into the river, swam to the other side, continued walking steadily and finished the race.

The moral of the story?
First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.

The story hasn't still ended...

The turtle and the rabbit, by this time, had become pretty good friends and the did some thinking together. Both realised that the last race could have been run much better.

So the turtle and the rabbit decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, but this time, the rabbit carried the turtle till the riverbank. There, the turtle took over and swam across with the rabbit on his back.

On the opposite, the rabbit again carried the turtle and they reached the finishing line together.

Both the turtle and the rabbit felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they'd felt earlier.

*The moral of the story?
It's good to be individually brilliant, and to have core competencies but unless you're able to work in a team and harness each other's competencies, you'll always perform below par because there'll always be situations at which you'll do poorly and someone else does the well.

Teamwork is about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.

THE END