question 3: synergy and wholeness

An interesting part in this chapter is wholeness and synergy.  From my other blogs, you can tell how much I really love basketball, and this topic has a lot to do with it.  Wholeness is the result of a group working together rather than a group of individuals in the same group working as individuals.  It’s a great team building concept.  No matter where you go in life, whether you play a sport or you join the work force, you will always be a part of a group, even if your job requires you to work in a cubicle.  Let’s take for instance rowing.  4 people are on a boat trying to paddle to win a race.  Without having team chemistry or having togetherness, a team would fail in rowing.  There’s a certain rhythm and cohesiveness that the team must have.  If one person is pulling their weigh, the team knows it effects the team as a whole.  Another example would be at work.  If your boss is asking your department to put together a marketing strategy, the group has to work as a team in order to fulfill the task.  But, if one person tries to do everything, that person might cause some members of the group to feel left out.  Or, some people might take it as stepping on each others toes.  Eventually, the synergy of the team will be lowered because not everyone would feel important to the group, causing team chemistry to be lowered and people to be unhappy.  I’ve been on a basketball team where the bench players never got a lot of playing time.  But, the flip side to that was we were winning.  The moment a player voiced out his frustration of playing time to the other players and coaches, the vibe of the team had lowered.  Others felt bad, teammates started to not get along, and pretty soon practices weren’t as intense because the other players who didn’t play much wouldn’t push the starters to get better.  Eventually, what started as a great season, ended up being something mediocre.