We Don't Fail Alone...

We have all heard the saying, “Success is a team sport.” This is very true, no matter what sport you are playing, you need a team. Some people might think that certain sports are individual games, like tennis, running tracks, swimming, boxing, and many more where an individual player is performing on the court. Yet, there is always a whole team behind that person: coaching staff, physicians, and other team members including family and friends who support that athlete throughout the process.??

As we succeed with the team we also fail as a team. We cannot point fingers of failure to one person or persons. We are all part of the team, and we must take responsibility for every failure. A good leader who leads from the front always takes ownership and responsibility for any failures. In my leadership discussions, I often use two nursery poems. The first one is “Ring around the Rosie, A pocket full of?posies. Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!”?

It just means that we all rise together, and we all fall together. When we work as a team, we hold hands, and we rise or fall together. It is the project that we are all reporting to and working to achieve. The leaders should never blame team members for failure. We all own success or failure equally, no matter what role you are playing.??

The second poem I would like to discuss is “Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after.”??

The first lesson we learn is that once Jack fell, Jill could not control and came tumbling right behind him. It is very important to have a team mindset and when one fails to deliver on the promise the whole team fails, and the project fails. In the case of Jack and Jill, the fetching of the bucket of water (project) failed as soon as one team member failed to deliver on promise. When we read the full poem, Jack took ownership, supported Jill, and motivated her to move along and redo the task at hand. That is true leadership. What is lost is lost, we must move on and look ahead to achieve the task at hand and do not put blame on others. We should put the past behind us and look forward to the opportunities and outcomes.??