TOTAL INVOLVEMENT IN A TASK

Successful Teamwork

Only when one has come to think of the common good as one’s own good,
of the profit of society as one’s own profit, will one become fully
committed to collective work.

A HIGH degree of motivation is required when people work together as a team. While working individually motivation is inherent as it involves personal profit: it is in one’s own interest to see the work through to the successful end, and one does so. One is moved by a sense of personal responsibility; one realizes that if one does not accomplish the task oneself, there is no one else who would do it.

But with work involving a group of people, one tends to lay the onus on other people. One tends to think that if I do not carry on, there are plenty of others who will continue in my place. Seeing that there is no personal profit to be gained from the work in hand, one tends to see it as a burden best laid on others’ shoulders. Only when one has come to think of the common good as one’s own good, of the profit of society as one’s own profit, will one become fully committed to collective work.

Such commitment requires, above all, a deep sense of social consciousness. It requires one to be oriented towards the needs of the community, as anyone would normally be oriented to cater for their own needs.

People with such a sense of social consciousness will put their heart and soul into collective work whenever such work is required. Then, when totally involved in it, they will see it through to the final stage and successful culmination.