Teamwork =)

This week we focused on TEAMWORK and how together we can do more than we can alone, and how we need certain elements to create a functional team.  I absolutely LOVE the concept of synergy.  I love it so much I'm copying the definition right here and now: synergy is the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.  When we work together optimally as a team, the outcome and each member's personal growth is much greater than it would have been had we all worked it out on our own.


Immediately relevant personal example—this past weekend my friends and I set up camp in front of the apartment complex we want to live in next year.  (Right upfront let me spoil the end and tell you that freak yes we got an apartment there after camping for 3 nights.)  It was a pretty serious undertaking.  We had 13 girls on board with the plan and everyone's strengths played into making it a success.  We had our organizational guru set up a schedule and keep track of everyone's progress with getting paperwork ready; we had our hardcore tent sleepers hold the fort through the snow; we had our cheerleaders who didn't want to sleep in the cold bring hot cocoa to the tent-dwellers.  We all chipped in what we could and got the job done better and had waaaaay more fun than we would have had each of tried to do it alone.  There's no way I would have even tried to do that alone.

Every group that works together is a team.  Group interaction and teamwork are at the core of being human and therefore incredibly important.  Applying teamwork to my leadership role is the easiest application yet—the RS presidency is, quite simply, a team within a larger team.  Our objective is to reach all our girls and help them feel our Savior's love and draw closer to Him.  Our means are each other; we need each member of the team to pull together and be willing to give their all if we really want to build Zion.  In my mind, the very definition of Zion is something closely akin to "ultra awesome, highly functional, completely invested and self-sacrificial team."  Who wouldn't want to be on that team?  Joining a team is, in a way, giving up custody of yourself and trusting other people to look out for you while you promise to look out for them.  It's a win-win.  

The RS presidency is a team within the larger Relief Society team.  Our job is to help direct and organize and see that everyone is looked after.  And when our little team of 3-4 (I'm still not sure if I really count as part of the "presidency" specifically, but for the sake of this application, let's say I am.) does what we do, then we enable the rest of the team to step in and take care of each other.  Within the presidency we each have different personalities and different strengths.  We have different ways of reaching out to people and sharing the Savior's love with our girls.  The Lord needs all of our different angles combined to reach all His precious daughters.  Maybe my way of reaching out doesn't really jive with some of the girls, but they will respond really well to Natalie, Karee, or SaraH.  (Yup, the H is capitalized on purpose. It's how she writes it.)  And maybe, just one of us isn't enough to convince some of our girls how treasured they are.  We need the synergistic "full-court press" so to speak to help them feel that they are valued and needed.  Individual efforts are nice and necessary, but not enough.  The Lord Himself endorses teamwork when He gives the law of witnesses in D&C 6:28, " in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established."  Teams of witnesses are mandatory for moving the Lord's work forward.  Everything we do in the Church is done in teams.  I would venture to say that everything truly meaningful we do in life we do on a team.  Even and especially when the team consists of just you and the Lord.  That's the most important team to be on.

We NEED each other.  We really can't do it alone.  Like, we really can't.  I've tried; it doesn't work.

I've learned in a very poignant way since coming out here to college and living "on my own" that we all seriously need each other.  I put "on my own" in quotes because people say that, but it's not really true.   We aren't living with our families anymore, but I've never been left entirely on my own.  I have incredible friends on my team who take care of me just like my family would if they were here.  Life is a team effort.  In my psychology class senior year we talked about individualist and collectivist societies.  If it isn't super obvious, I'm a hardcore collectivist.  I think the Church is a big part of my thinking there.  And my family.  It doesn't matter how high you can get on your own because it won't be worth being all the way up there if you're up there alone.

 Our presenter on Monday talked about the 0-100 principle of relationships.  The relationship always needs to add up to 100.  Sometimes it's 50-50, sometimes it's 90-10.  It was a nice analogy, I suppose, and I can see a lot of good ideas there.  Sometimes we end up on the taking side of the relationship, other times we end up giving more than we get, and hopefully it balances in the end.  But what my dad always told me about making a relationship work, about being a stable asset to a team, was that both or all parties need to bring 100 all the time.  Fifty-fifty won't cut it sometimes because you have to be invested with everything you have to make it work.  That's my rant on extremist collectivism.  I have a serious conviction about that, just fyi.

 Back to my leadership role: I'm part of a team! A team I love, doing the work I thrive on.  I bring certain assets and ideas to the table, my teammates bring others and together, especially with the Lord's aid, we have a synergistic outcome.  My goal is to bring 100 all the time because that's what it takes.  I'll do my part of the work to the best of my ability to enable the rest of the team to do their thing.  And together, we accomplish what we could not have done alone.


And the quote of the day is actually more than a quote:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

John Donne

I thought it rather apt.  =)  Go, team, GO!