Look at the output of the team like a math problem. The goal is to get the best result out of the work of the team, which we could say would be the highest possible score. Each individual member of the team had different abilities that can contribute to that total score. In order for the whole team to achieve the highest possible score, each member of the team must be allowed to make their individual greatest potential contribution, based on their skill levels and the skill levels of other members. In every team, you will have stronger and weaker contributors, but the key is in finding the maximum potential total team score based on each individual’s ability to contribute to the score. As an example, if my skill 1 score is a 8 and my skill 2 score is a 7 and Joe has a skill 1 score of 6 and a skill 2 score of 4, the maximum score we can get together if we each only have time to do one of these things is 13 (Joe doing skill 1 work for 6 points and me doing the skill 2 stuff for 7 points). Where teams lose effectiveness is in two areas that tie directly back to humility. If I insist that I am going to do the skill 1 stuff because I like it better and after all, it is my highest score, the maximum score we can achieve is a 12 (8 from me doing skill 1 and 4 from Joe doing skill 2). If I insist that I do it all because I have higher scores in both areas, the best we can get is a 7.5 (half of my score on each since there the assumption at the beginning was that each person only had time for 1 task, so I could only get half of each done if I try to do both). You can play with these numbers a lot of different ways, and depending on the skill mix and strength of each person, at times I might get to do the skill I like best or that I have my personal highest score in because that is how the greatest total benefit happens to add up in that case. Humility, however, comes in when each team member is willing to forego what they desire personally and go with what is best for the team as a whole. If I have skills as a greeter, musician, and Kids World teacher, I need to do what I can that contributes most to the score of the team as a whole, no matter how much I might want to be the musician.

What is interesting about this model as you think through it is that if tends to contradict a general principle that I believed before you asked this question and I thought through this. That principle is that you allow each person simply do what they are best at. While that may improve your overall score to some degree, it will not necessarily achieve your maximum potential score. That can only be realized by each of us deferring to others in a way that sometimes has us working on our second or third best skill because that is what the team needs.

My daughter’s fiance says this to her all the time…
(We’re on the)”Same team Bethany, in it to win it.”
Such a powerful reminder to pause and remember the end goal.

important element a team needs… know the ‘vision’ – share the vision.

However in church, we’re dealing with people. We need to respond and NOT react. When we respond, we enter the spirit of charity — graciousness and understanding in why he said or did that. By responding there must be some form of action taken thereafter — gratitude or change of attitude.