A famous African writer once said: “c’est la
diversité des fils qui forment la beauté du pagne”
(The beauty of a clothe is due to the diversity of its
threads). That quote from Amadou Hampaté Bah, symbolizes
already what is in my mind, otherwise, it will be more clear
after reading this. The experience, to me has every time
shown that working in Team is a good way to improve our
knowledge of the world through different people with whom we
are working. But let us understand each other on a basic
before moving forward: at the contrary of a Group where
members have no common goal, and which is formed by people
just sharing same age, same passion, or the neighborhood and
rather looks like a gang, a Team is more a pool of people
gathered around a goal to achieve, thanks to clear tasks
each one has to perform with interpersonal relations, and as
a puzzle, assemble the task to get an expected result in a
very various frame of time. A team, to me once again, does
not matter background, nationality, religion or whatever
else. It is seeking one’s willing to reach a common goal
with each member of the group, availability to perform a
needed task in order to achieve that objective under the
directions of a leader. I am fan of team because nobody can
pretend to know everything and can develop himself without
others, sooner or later. And what a nice way to bring each
member, his talent, ability, difference, to reach what the
team seeks, to improve and promote mutual understanding and
way to do things and at the end this feeling that cannot be
purchased : the joy to have each one worked hard to win.
That is the feeling of winning football team, or successful
corporate sale and so…
And what is interesting is that a team can move on to become
a group but not vice-versa. There is an obligation to meet
some requirements in order to complete that: FORMATION
(when people meet to set up), OPPOSITION (when small tension
raises while they are getting to know each other),
NORMALIZATION (when everybody is aware of his role),
ACHIEVMENT of the goal and then the END of the Team until
another need. And the former members become just a group
with each one with his own issue or goal to manage. So, for
all of these, there is nothing better than working in team
when it one is committed. Like said Michael Jordan “Talent
wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins
championships.”
*The Malian Amadou Hampaté Bah was a writer and
ethnologist born in Bandiagara on 1900(Mali) and died in
Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) on 1991.He is well known
for his numerous and famous novels like
“l’Etrange destin de Wangrin”,
“Amkoulel ,l’enfant Peulh”. He left a
huge legacy about diversity that guides the Francophone
countries Organization . Goldenapon.wordpress.com @IssaNapon
3 Comments on “Team work: the clothe of Amadou Hampaté Ba*”
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I like the quotation, and I agree with your observation on what are the requirements that team members must met in order to preform good team work.
Learned about teamwork and Amadou Hampaté Ba. Than you!
I love the first quote you wrote, I talked about the same ideas in my post. Teams are like puzzles, each person fits differently, but in the end we achieve success!