Maina Mutonya Why the ultimate team is within you. Team work, teams, team players are buzzwords in the world of business and corporate territory. Having heard variations of the essence of team work from various speakers during the Internship Programme, it has dawned unto me that there is more than meets the eye in teamwork. The best examples that crosses one’s mind is the team work spirit in sports; a number of them to be precise. Of course you won’t need team work in weightlifting; it’s you against the 200pound heavy weight and how you do your clean and jerk etc. (this is not my favorite sport anyway!!). Teamwork is necessary in hockey (not so Celeste?); in doubles of lawn tennis or table tennis; in cricket, in soccer, etc. Let’s think of cricket; For a convincing win, a team needs runs and wickets from batsmen and bowlersand immense contribution from the fielders as well as the wicket keeper. But when Gibbs strikes 175 in an ODI, helping Proteas to a victory, and wins man of the series award, what does this tell us? Or Ntini takes 6-22 and sets a personal record! Let’s talk soccer; Barcelona is a great team, but it surely needs the wizardly of the ever-smiling Ronaldinho. Arsenal too, but they lose the spark when Henry is having a bad day! This brings me to the conflict of individual and team when talking teamwork. For one to fit in the team, the individual integrity is crucial. There is an argument that in a team all our capabilities are aggregated for the good of the team. This might not necessarily be true. But when Team SA performs excellently in Melbourne Commonwealth 2006, it is collective glory for the team, but a sense of individual pride to the medalists. All I’m saying is that for teamwork to be effective, individuals have to perform to their best. My view is that for an individual to be a valuable resource in a team, it is crucial to be readily prepared. This is what I am calling individual team spirit. Sounds contradictory, okay, but I mean that the spirit, the mind and the body of the individual in a team have to work in harmony. This for me is the most important example of a ‘team within a team’. My thesis is that the ultimate team is the consolidation of all individual talents into one, for a group to succeed. Is the team in you ‘the team?’