In the December 2, 2013 edition of Forbes, Rich Karlgaard’s editorial comments about team include the following . . .
“When you look deeper into teams within companies, one factor stands out as a predictor of success: size. There’s a right size for every team, and it’s almost always smaller than you think. Jeff Bezos of Amazon likes to use the “two-pizza rule” for strategy and development teams. If it takes more than two pizzas to feed the team, the team is likely too big. Bezos didn’t invent team . . .
The surface reason most often cited for using the two-pizza rule is that it keeps teams agile and fast – and it does. But there’s a deeper reason it works. When teams consist of a dozen people or fewer, each team member is more likely to care about the others, and members are far more likely to share information. They are also far more likely to come to the aid of another team member. If the mission is important enough, they’ll even sacrifice themselves.”
While the article centered around the concept of keeping teams small and agile, an underlying theme – for me – is personal sacrifice.
If the mission is important enough, they’ll even sacrifice themselves. Sacrifice themselves?
In our society of rugged individualism and self-promotion, this concept seems foreign . . . except on rare occasions. We hear about members of our military throwing themselves on a grenade to protect their fellow soldiers and of a few ‘great’ leaders who are more concerned about their organization’s success and the success of others than for their own personal success.
Altruism . . . Why is this attribute so rare amongst those we call ‘leaders?’
Is the mission for which we are working of such importance that we are willing to sacrifice ourselves to fulfill that mission? Are we willing to step away, set aside the notion of self-preservation for the sake of the mission and of others?