“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Michael Jordan – Teamwork
Do you need to work with other people to be successful?
The ability to work in a team is touted by teachers, employers, and coaches as an indispensable skill. Alone, people can accomplish great things, but when people work as a team the potential for success skyrockets. Students know this in theory, but when it comes to accepting the reality of working with others who have different styles and motivations, all of a sudden teamwork feels like a heavy burden.
Join Steve and Dan Fouts for an unforgettable conversation about teamwork sing the Teach Different 3-Step Method.
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Image source: Wikimedia | Bryan Horowitz
Transcript
Steve Fouts: 0:05
Hey everybody, Steve and Dan Fouts here. We are teaching different with basketball star Michael Jordan with a quote about teamwork. “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” There are a couple of concepts in this quote, but it’s really dealing with teamwork. When you work with other people to get things accomplished, it can be challenging sometimes. Teamwork is something that students have to learn when they are on a team, whether it’s sports teams, or groups at school. A family can be thought of as a team, where everybody plays a role. Students will have some experience with teamwork, and it’s a really good concept for them to understand. Sacrifices on an individual level need to be made in order to make a team work. Different people have different opinions about whether or not that’s going to improve your chances for success. Dan, what would you say is the claim Jordan is making with this quote?
Dan Fouts: 1:19 – Claim
Well, you got into it a little bit. I see the individual versus the team in the quote, individual talent might win a game, but working as a team will ultimately win a championship. It’s this idea that if you rely solely on yourself, you might have successes in life, but they’re going to be limited. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You have to learn to work with other people, and be smart about it, in order to achieve greater things in your life. In order to get there, you have to learn teamwork. I would push this conversation by having the students talk about a time when they were working with other people to achieve something significant that they could have never achieved alone. That might be something they did in their family or with a community service organization.
Steve Fouts: 2:26
Where they had to rely on other people. It’s that idea of relying on people. I think that’s the frustration that some people have in working with groups and teams, they can’t always control the outcome with their own behaviors. You have to rely on and work with others, and have faith.
Dan Fouts: 2:51
I think kids would have some interesting examples of this.
Steve Fouts: 2:58
Let’s get a counterclaim against it. There are different ways to look at success. Teams are beneficial in some contexts, but not all. What would you say a good counterclaim to this is?
Dan Fouts: 3:13 – Counterclaim
There are certain situations in life when you have to rely on yourself in order to be successful. Other people aren’t to be trusted to come through. It sounds negative to say that, but there are situations where you can’t trust other people to do what you’re about to do. It will be better if you rely only on yourself.
Steve Fouts: 3:46
People can be unreliable. That is something students can relate to. That’s a great example.
Dan Fouts: 3:59
Students will complain that one person is doing everything for the group. What I have found is that high achieving students have a harder time trusting others to work with them, so they end up doing all of the work and get stressed out. When you sit down to talk with them, they look you dead in the eye and say, this is a great product because I did it.
Steve Fouts: 4:30
Yeah, it’s a legitimate way of looking at how to achieve success. As far as storytelling, you’ve already touched on a couple examples. You can ask students to be intentional when they describe why working with other people is difficult. What are the challenges in working in a group? I think that will bring out how the students value communication, and how it can be difficult to get on the same page when people have different belief systems, values, desires and goals.
Dan Fouts: 5:07
Oh, yeah. Trying to get on the same page with the mission or vision of a project that you’re working on can be challenging. There is so much opportunity for disagreement, dissension and conflict. You have to have leaders who step up to the plate to make teamwork happen. That doesn’t always happen naturally.
Steve Fouts: 5:32 – Essential Question
No, it doesn’t. That’s another dynamic, the leadership dynamic with teamwork. That could be an interesting place to take the conversation. Here’s an essential question that could really sum this conversation up and get the kids to reflect. Do you need to work with other people to be successful? I think the answer to that one is going to be revealing. After a conversation like this, the kids are going to have some time to think about it. They’ll have a higher consciousness of the skills they bring to a group, and if they feel like working in a group is worth the effort, or if being self-reliant is better. It’s a great question.
That’s Michael Jordan for this week. Make sure you visit our Conversation Library where we have many conversations like this, each with a different quote, a sample claim, counterclaim, and an essential question to get you started.
Take care everybody. We will see you soon.
Dan Fouts: 6:48
All right. Take care.
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