I have the privilege of coaching a small group of 3rd & 4th graders for a robotics competition. Today we had the group go through a team exercise with a very simple goal – “build a robot that moves in 15 minutes”. To set the context, the kids in the group are familiar with each other and very excited to build something fantastic and compete. In fact they already discussed the various design options and started building up a base bot just to get going. But I threw in this wrench today just to see what would happen and was amazed by the outcome. 1 kid cried while the other took apart what he’d just put together, another really disappointed that it didn’t work grabbed it and tried to fix it – this after each haphazardly tried to smash pieces into a frankenbot.
This leads me to think teamwork isn’t as smooth as it might seem on the surface. I reflect on my own team at work, or my group in tennis. Sure, we’re older but with enough frustration I’m sure that friction would jiggle a few tears down a grown man’s face. Back to the kids, where did it all go wrong? Seems each kid thought their idea was the right way and while that may be true, there no was no process to vet with the group and gather support.
Perhaps it comes down to trust. After all, the human species evolved to work as teams way back when in the African plains. It’s not that we can’t do it on our own, but rather we drastically improve the odds when we tribe up!