The Magic of Teamwork

Sam Pitroda

Answers for all the questions from the lesson ‘The Magic of Teamwork’ included in the CHSE +2 book ‘Invitation to English – 1’.

Think it out – 1

1. What is the key problem affecting India‘s progress – lack of policies or lack of implementation or lack of teamwork?
Answer – In India policies are good, but implementation is poor. This is compounded by lack of teamwork.

2. What is the joke about the Indian and Japanese workers at the Maruti Suzuki Company?
Answer – It is said jokingly that one Indian was equal to 10 Japanese, because the Indians were smarter, more capable and dedicated. On the other hand, one Japanese was equal to ten Indians because the latter lacked team spirit and cooperation.

3. What is the ‘crab mentality‘?
Answer – It is the tendency among individuals to be intolerant and jealous about a co-worker’s success in work. So, the peers join hands to hinder the successful man’s rise by creating all types of obstacles.

4. Where does the root of the ‘crab mentality‘ lie?
Answer – It’s entrenched in our culture which is feudal and hierarchical. We tend to assume that a senior person knows the best.

5. What is the demerit of a hierarchical social system?
Answer – The premise that a person older in age knows more and is wiser is fallacious. In present day’s merit based society, age and seniority have lost their traditional relevance.

6. How can the right kind of teams be created?
Answer – The answer lies in making the right use of the diversity of the training, background, and age of different members, so that they all align to give their best towards accomplishing the assigned task.

Think it out – 2

1. “if this were happening in India” – what does the author mean by ‘this’?
Answer – Here, the writer is assuming a situation where in a team in India, a senior person is allotted a less glamorous work. The man would certainly demur.

2. How does hierarchy come in the way of doing a task together in India?
Answer – Hierarchy becomes an impediment for homogeneity and cohesion in a team. It creates needless hard feelings.

3. What should the members of a team learn for effective teamwork?
Answer – The idea that no work is inferior, and everyone has equal responsibility to ensure the team achieves its task should run in everyone’s mind.

4. Should the members of a team exercise leadership only or accept the lead of others only in ‘true teamwork‘?
Answer – Everyone should learn to lead, or be led when necessary.

5. Who is a good team player?
Answer – A good team player respects others, tolerates differing opinions, and comes forward to give when the need arises.

6. Is total agreement on a conflicting issue possible?
Answer – Total agreement is seldom possible in a team.

7. Which is important for beginning a piece of work – to begin work on the agreed-upon aspects or to wait for total agreement?
Answer – Without waiting for total agreement on all issues, the team must get moving with the issues that everyone has similar views.

8. What are the qualities of a good team player?
Answer – A good team player respects others, tolerates differing opinions, and comes forward to give when the need arises.

9. What does the author mean by ‘a hidden agenda‘? How does it affect teamwork?
Answer – Some people say one thing, but think in a totally different way. They conceal their true view point. This is ‘hidden agenda’.

10. What does ‘a good work ethic‘ imply?
Answer – A person should express what he truly feels. Such honesty is ‘good work ethic.’

Think it out – 3

1. How did the author handle inefficient employees in C-DOT?
Answer – The author minced no words in describing the way a certain team member had failed to come up to the expectations. Through such open criticism, he made others aware that they too would be held to account for their shortcomings.

2. How did the errant employees react to his open criticism?
Answer – Criticism of one team member made the others aware that they too could be pulled up if they didn’t perform. This awareness made the team efficient.

3. What was the author‘s intention behind open criticism?
Answer – The author wanted to drive home the point that criticism is a way of teamwork. He could convince that criticism doesn’t mean pulling down a team member personally, but finding inadequacies in his ideas.

4. What did he learn about Indian attitude to criticism?
Answer – He realized that Indians are unduly sensitive to criticism, and they take it as an affront to them at personal level.

5. Does criticizing an idea mean criticizing an individual?
Answer – Criticising an idea can’t be taken as criticising the person. No one’s ideas can be perfect all the time.

6. Can an employee afford to criticize the boss in India?
Answer – Unfortunately, criticising the boss is often taken as a sign of insubordination, and defiance of authority. This is typical of the Indian environment.

7. What are the key elements of a team‘s success?
Answer – The team members must feel stable, secure, confident and comfortable.

8. What affects ‘team performance‘ in India?
Answer – In India, those who do physical work (blue-coloured workers) are generally treated inferiorly by those doing mental work (white-coloured workers). This dichotomy creates a wedge in the team and impacts overall efficiency.

9. What was the job of the author‘s driver?
Answer – When he was not driving, he did miscellaneous office work like answering calls, sending faxes, filing papers etc.

10. How did he react when the author asked him not to open the door of the car for him?
Answer – The driver, Ram by name, was aghast and utterly embarrassed.

11. How did the author like to use the driver?
Answer – The author wanted his driver not to waste his time idling inside the car during the time he was not driving. He wanted the driver to come in and do his bit inside the office.

12. How did the author motivate the driver to be a team player?
Answer – The author instilled self esteem in the driver’s mind and made him feel equal to other members of the team.

Think it out – 4

1. How do diversifying tasks help workers?
Answer – When a task is broken up and its parts are delegated to team members, the latter feel a sense of involvement and responsibility. Being assigned a task helps to bolster their self esteem. His willingness to walk the extra mile in bringing the collective tax to fruition improves too as he realizes that the boss values his contribution.

2. Why is it difficult to build teams in India?
Answer – In India, employees come to the work place with bloated egos. No one likes to be seen as inferior to another colleague in any way. Such sense of misplaced self pride makes team building not an easy task in India.

3. How can working with diversity happen?
Answer – India is a country of myriad cultures and ethnicities. Workers drawn from the length and breadth of the country struggle to gel well in the workplace. These people fall prey to the disharmony and can’t give their best to the work. The team leader must never get worked up with such hitches, and move on with the task ignoring the laggard or unresponsive employee.

4. Does age matter for holding positions?
Answer – Age does matter in the Indian workplace. No matter what’s the qualification and experience, an older employee feels uneasy working under a younger one despite the latter’s high caliber.

5. What matters much for a senior position – age or capability?
Answer – Obviously, capability trumps over age for senior positions.

6. How should the seniors treat employees with lower self-esteem?
Answer – Tact and empathy on the part of the senior bosses towards the ruffled juniors helps to assuage the latter’s hurt feelings.

7. What are the fundamental ideals in corporate environment?
Answer – Certain practices such as openness, communication, honesty, willingness to accept disagreement, conflict resolution etc. are the fundamental ideas of corporate environment.