The All or Nothing Principle
True teamwork in a work environment is difficult to achieve. However, when it is achieved the dividends that it reaps leads to a phenomenal achievement that cannot be viewed lightly. Working together as a team means that each individual is intricately related to the whole. True teamwork is not just a collection of people in close proximity apparently working together in some desultory manner. Yet, many individuals, including those in long-term health care, have heard about the benefits of teamwork and think that putting a collection of individuals together creates a team.
Furthermore, another common error that many make is assuming that 75% or 80 or even 95% of the team members can work together, creating a true teamwork experience. However, this is false. The true team fires like neurons in the brain: on an all or nothing principle. All individuals need to fire in harmony for true teamwork to exist and a productive solidarity to be achieved. This paper will explain the need to view teamwork on the basis of the "all or nothing principle," and how accepting anything less will only lead to the illusion of true teamwork.
A Few Examples
A good way to start this paper out would be to provide a few examples. I am a football coach and my football team has 10 of 11 players on the offense that work quite well together. That is 91% of my offensive team members working well together! However, my quarterback, a very athletically talented individual really does not want to be on my team and really does not care about working together with the other team members.
He is only concerned about his self-performance. He throws, runs, and carries out plays that only lead to attention given to him. The other players, although thinking and feeling in harmony, never know what to expect with their quarterback. Do you think this is a problem? It differently is and although the team is very talented and 10 of the 11 players are in sync, they continue to only have marginal success because of this one player being a team outsider.
Moving away from the sport example, let us say I have put together a group of the brightest scientists to help me in my research endeavor toward finding an important drug that will cure a particular form of cancer. I have a collection of 20 of the brightest minds in oncology that our country has to offer. However, there is one individual, quite an individualist, who does not like to take direction and often likes to only do something that will bring light onto them.
They will report to the lab in an untimely manner, often not finish their analyses, and when they do, frequently not contribute their findings in a timely manner to assist the other team members. Moreover, they are also working on a number of research papers in which they are the lead author and have given this work priority. Does a problem exist here? Yes it does and although we can say that 95% of the team works well together, this individual is very important for doing the statistical analysis and without their diligence in this area, this one person is always causing stress for the other 19 team members, never being able as a team to fully realize their goals.
The All-or-Nothing Principle
This is the essence of the all-or-nothing principle. Like a group of individual spark plugs, any bad plug (or individual) will lead to problems in the car (or team) running appropriately. Yet, many long-term care settings think that their team can work to its optimal efficiency with one bad plug. True teamwork does not work this way. When individuals are firing in unison they come to think, feel and understand each other. They can anticipate other team individuals and their behavior. They can further augment other areas where other team members may not be as strong because they know in advance, through an anticipatory understanding, what they need to do for the team's success.
True teamwork does not mean that the team is absent of any conflict. Productive conflict is often beneficial to the group. It helps to generate a level of tension that can often heighten an understanding of the team members, clarify viewpoints, as well as also lead to an environment that does not become complacent. This is important for working well together and generating ideas. However, true teamwork often understands how to accentuate productive conflict and reduce or eliminate destructive conflict that leads to team division.
True teamwork also does not mean that team members should always acquiesce or engage in a level of groupthink because they feel intimated to state their opinion or feel that the other team members will not consider their opinion important. In true teamwork, the members feel comfortable expressing their opinion. They may not always agree with each other, but that is not the definition of solid teamwork. Yet team members who engage in true teamwork feel comfortable to express their dissenting opinions and also, even during times of disagreement, subordinate their own individual interests at the expense of placing the team and its goals first.
This is what strong teams that have a sense of true teamwork do; they move outside of their own individuality and conflate toward the common goal of the team. Individuals in this type of team situation are able to view the team as a common point of extension of themselves. They can finish the sentence that is started by other team members by knowing their team members and being able to anticipate their behaviors and thoughts. They can throw the football in an area where they cannot even see their receiver, because they know and trust their team member. They can also anticipate the feelings, beliefs, and values of other team members because they are intimately linked to each other.
Excising a Problem
Just as in other industries that rely on teams, long-term care facilities have to guard themselves against the all-to-common divisive team members. This should start at the time of hire, to make sure you are hiring a person that appears to be a good fit. However, if a divisive team member does exist, there really is no place for this person on the team. In this case a divisive team member is only a "team member" by the chair he takes up in the meeting room. They are not a true contributor to the overall team effort.
When a person(s) on this level exists, a decision has to be made quickly on how this individual should be addressed. The longer a divisive individual continues to exist on the team, the greater will be the disruption to the other team members and the larger overall goal that they look to achieve. Furthermore, the greater time a divisive person exists on the team, the more time that person has to further divide and fragment the team process.
This will ultimately lead to many good team members leaving your team. When a problem such as this exists, it can act like a malignancy for solid and productive teamwork. Therefore, if the individual fails to be able to integrate themselves into the team and provide a level of stability and productivity, removing the problem individual needs to be considered. If a divisive individual is allowed to continue their malignant efforts and behavior, the malignancy, similar to a cancer in a living organism that is not addressed, will metastize. In this case the organic team environment dies due to the inability to isolate and excise the problem.
Conclusion
Long-term care situations need true teams to achieve the ultimate goal of providing the best care that is possible in serving their clientele. Long-term care is not short on teams for quality assurance, wounds, infection control, or safety, but how true is the teamwork that goes on in these "teams."
True teamwork is composed of a number of players sharing a similar mindset and goals. They subordinate their own self-interests and place the goals and needs of the team above their own individual wants and needs. Furthermore, true teams cannot tolerate individuals that attempt to circumvent the efforts of the larger totality-the team. It is imperative that long-term care professionals understand the importance of what a "team" is versus a "true team."
Furthermore, they must also understand the benefits that a "true team" holds versus just having a desultory collection of individuals that are called a team. Finally, they need to understand that a true team works on the "all-or-nothing principle." Tolerating anything less is a failure to understand what a team effort is truly about. Therefore, remembering that the true team is an all-or-nothing phenomenon will lead to a more productive and efficient long-term care environment.
References
Hirschfeld, R.R., Jordan, M.H., Felid, H.S., Giles W.F., & Armenakis, A.A. (2006). Becoming team players: Team members' mastery of teamwork knowledge as a predictor of team task proficiency and observed teamwork performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 467-474.
Price, K. H., Harrison, D. A., & Gavin, J. H. (2006). "Withholding input in team contexts: Member composition, interaction processes, evaluation structure and social loafing." Journal of Applied Psychology, 91: 1375-1384
Salas, E., Edens, E. & Nowers, C.A. (2000). Improving teamwork in organizations. Mahwah, NJ. Lawrence Erlbaum.