"Team Player" presumed, assumed & infered. what does it mean to you ?

[RainbowSingularity]

i have read the term many times in many different contexts.
the difference in my question is not the specific interpretation that you may have of the term,
my question is how do you interpret the term to mean different things depending on the situational use of it ?

do you consider yourself part of a team as a default self narrative ? (for more advanced readers)

do you consider yourself to be a team player when in a clearly defined sports natured team ?

being socially aware Vs going along with the group ...
going against the team ...

"i am my own team"

conceptual self definitions...

has the term "team" become to obtuse in its usage toward personal attributes ?

how does the age of individualism interpret the concept of the team spirited individual ?

thoughts and comments welcome

 

[sculptor]

i have read the term many times in many different contexts.
the difference in my question is not the specific interpretation that you may have of the term,
my question is how do you interpret the term to mean different things depending on the situational use of it ?

do you consider yourself part of a team as a default self narrative ? (for more advanced readers)

do you consider yourself to be a team player when in a clearly defined sports natured team ?

being socially aware Vs going along with the group ...
going against the team ...

"i am my own team"

conceptual self definitions...

has the term "team" become to obtuse in its usage toward personal attributes ?

how does the age of individualism interpret the concept of the team spirited individual ?

thoughts and comments welcome

to me it means Gung Ho(taught to me by a green beret), which means Work Together-Work in Harmony.
(if we work together, we just might come out of this alive---and, we did)
I do not play team sports---I have, however worked with many helpers,colleagues, co-workers over the years, and I've found that working well together outweighed skill level.

To some it means follow authority
To somes it means embrace the paradigm du jour.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

to me

thanks

have you noticed when people use the expresion to refer to a specific personal atribute ?

"i want someone who is a team player"
"you should/need to be a team player"

as opposed to
"you need to be a team player on this" (group alignment adherence/control)

does the expression hold any meaning as a personal quality ?
and/or when used in context to self expression is it simply a way of saying you will make sure you dont stand out from the crowd ?

The meaning seems to be soo convoluted in its application with opposite meanings used in common place.

however...
as a self descriptor
or an attribute sought of a personas personal character...
does it hold a separate meaning ?

"i only want team players on this one"

... meaning ? they only want people who will do what they are told and not display initiative ingenuity or oppose the group doctrine ?

in this aspect of descriptor... looking at the sociological component of collective psychology of generational trends in thought behavior and self ideation (how people define themselves and how they express that as a group behavior of a cultural narrative)

here we come to the cutting edge(which i would ideally not wish to discuss so openly among certain groups of people).
however
does the modern millennial have no associative psychological paradigm that defines "team player" by certain generation groups definition of the term ?

noting that what seems very apparent is there are no psychologists on this message board.
i can understand why professors of psychology and psychologists would not wish to spend time in places that may display overt heavy political right wing normalizations as they tend to be quite antagonistic offensive and derogatory toward intellectual development.
quite aside from wishing NOT to give any tools to abusers by discussing things in public access.

science of the mind seems to be large part missing on this science board which i find a bit sad.
however i can completely understand.

 

[Tiassa]

my question is how do you interpret the term to mean different things depending on the situational use of it ?

Convention. What team am I on, in any given moment? I might be a human, American male of various identity assertions, but am I, for instance, a leftist, communist, or Democrat? So if I register to vote as a Democrat, what, really, does that mean? To clarify, imagine that I run for office, win, and am sworn in, declaring by that last my allegiance to the U.S. Constitution?

In any moment when I must truly choose between Party and community, my sworn allegiance in that capacity is to the U.S. Constitution, and therefore the community; being a Democrat is being a Democrat, and if I go to the convention I act as a Democrat; if I agree to serve in public office, my team, ultimately, is the public trust, i.e., The People, per the Constitution.

What does it mean, though, if one agrees to work for a bank? Is the private sector really such a muddled ethic?

Perhaps as a team player, one owes to the company and thus struggles against the law and society. Did one really agree to participate in crimes in order to be hired by a publicly-traded, well-branded conglomerate?

If it comes down to being a team player in tax fraud instead of a team player unto society, then I might otherwise suggest asking a Thelemite, except I cannot, for obvious reasons.

Suffice to say, sometimes people choose the wrong team. What are the agreed conventions describing the team? What it means to be a team player depends thereupon, and all assumption and inference results therefrom.

 

[Jeeves]

I have seen it applied only in business, and then in negative sense:
X (who doesn't toe the line, repeat the buzzwords, stay awake through interminable meetings, or has a radical idea) is not a team player. X, therefore [overt or implied] has no future career at this company.
The 'positive' version of this: "Why can't you be a team player, like Y?"
In my experience, as well as the anecdotes I've heard from friends, when a group functions well together, they don't talk about "the team" or "team spirit" or "team players" - they just get on with the job.
Unless, of course, it's a sports team - I assume. I have no first-hand knowledge of those.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

In the Navy you are part of the team if you're going to be of any use. One person can't operate a squadron of destroyers or F-22s.

 

[wegs]

In some business circles, if you work for a narcissist, it’s basically code for you’ll accept bad treatment because we’re all a team.

*raising cheerleading pom pom’s*

 

[Jeeves]

In the Navy you are part of the team if you're going to be of any use.

Obviously. And that's true of a great many endeavours that require two or more people to co-ordinate their efforts.
But, in the navy, do they talk about the value of being "team players"? Or do they simply assume you already know?

 

[RainbowSingularity]

F-22s

destroyers

One person can't

im not up on these things but aside from the obvious issues around such a large machine like a destroyer,
the F22 is the first combat machine that requires the human to work as a team with the computer brain ?
thus an F22 is a team AI
the computer cant fly it by its self
the person cant fly it without the computer ?
can the person fly it without all the associated radar and operation support(argumentative, to suggest the ground crew and ops people are also part of the same team, equally the people who feeds and house the pilot).

sometimes people choose the wrong team.

"For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."

indeed
i have picked the wrong team before
it was a career crushing event

*raising cheerleading pom pom’s*

been there done that
it sucks your soul out and uses it to white wash the foot path for them to shit all over it for entertainment and self gratification

In some business circles, if you work for a narcissist,

"team player" Vs "Team Survivor"
a "Team Survivor" can be worth a great deal to a real manager
such skills can be like a pillar of strength to a team as long as the narcissist is not to high up on the corporate food chain.
otherwise one must engage a larger predator 1st
law of the corporate jungle operates in most large companys be it enlightened or sadistic/narcissistic

corporate culture in the usa tends to be undermined by corporate narcissism which throws away values to service the Ego of a single person instead of the company morality servicing its people.

that is the main issue behind the failure of business to get onside with regulations to save the planet and stop pollution.
it is particularly socio-centric in the USA because of the both-sides bi-partisan indoctrination pyramid style of raising children.
You can see the UK version of it playing out through BREXIT.

moving back toward the thread subject specifics...
while i agree that context is everything (he said while holding his enormous long club sandwich, so firmly you could start to see his knuckles go slightly white around the edges, as his face started to stiffen from sheer delight)
WHO'S LUNCH IS that ?
someone cried
as molly walked past laughing as she said "i want a lunch as big as that one"
molly thought jr senior junior junior the CEO's son was thinking about his boyfriend, when jr,Sr,Jr,Jr was thinking about he night the had just spent with mollys boyfriend while molly was away on a business trip playing wet-nurse to the marketing team.
everyone agreed that simple conversation had become so boring that no one really pretended any more
they all were desperately hoping to tell storys of their weekend pursuits of love sex and drugs but could not quite free themselves of the feeling their head master would try and spank them all at assembly in the board room.
molly could not wipe the smile off her face
many thought that was probably because she particularity liked spanking good business meetings


...
(advanced class question)
as a personal attribute
if i was asked if i am a team player ...
what would you expect me to show as a sacrifice of personal quality and morality to virtue signal to the inquirer ?
Ego ?
Law ?
Social Decency ?
Political Freedom ?
Freedom of Speech ?
(something else if so what...)

 

[Jeeves]

what would you expect me to show as a sacrifice of personal quality and morality to virtue signal to the inquirer ?

Other: I know one software architect who appealed to the best interest of the project and indirectly the company, but that was the wrong answer. It should have been loyalty to the VP whose idiotic decision he opposed.

I doubt your answer would make any sense to the inquirer. Whether or not the spirit of it fell within the requirements of his notion of team, the delivery would make him so uneasy as to classify you as - check one:

• team player
• rookie
  
• persuadable
• recalcitrant

Alert! Security!

​

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Obviously. And that's true of a great many endeavours that require two or more people to co-ordinate their efforts.
But, in the navy, do they talk about the value of being "team players"? Or do they simply assume you already know?

I never heard that term in use, but the concept was valid. We trained to handle emergencies as part of the whole, our actions all interlocked.

RainbowSingularity: A single F22 requires dozens of people to keep it in action. The pilot gets all the glory, of course.

 

[Jeeves]

I never heard that term in use...

That's what I thought.
Real teams - OR staff, firefighters, search parties, solar plane builders, construction crews - don't hype it up; they just do it.

 

[billvon]

ido you consider yourself to be a team player when in a clearly defined sports natured team ?

Sort of redundant there, no? Like calling yourself an architecturally focused individual when you're an architect. You can just say "I'm a architect" - easier and conveys the same information.

 

[exchemist]

In some business circles, if you work for a narcissist, it’s basically code for you’ll accept bad treatment because we’re all a team.

*raising cheerleading pom pom’s*

Exactly! The only times I have heard the term have been in business, to disparage someone who does not toe the line in some way.

I have myself been accused of not being a team player on occasion - even though, as a rower for over 40 years and a choral singer, I have far more experience of close teamwork than those criticising me. In fact, good managers see value in having someone in the team who has an independent point of view, as it helps avoids the trap of groupthink.

 

[RainbowSingularity]

as it helps avoids the trap of groupthink.

and when those group think penny to a pound sales managers stumble into dumb luck and have a winning team, they allow their group think to nose dive the team into the ground at high speed.
riding it like a suicidal cock-rocket
then they try and side step away as people crash & burn a-long with the sales figures while saying its all wrong because of certain lower down group members personalities, and the lack of people who would just follow orders.

functional corporate narcissist (no loyalty)is a common personality type for sales managers.

my thread is not about this type of animal

 

[Seattle]

...
(advanced class question)
as a personal attribute
if i was asked if i am a team player ...
what would you expect me to show as a sacrifice of personal quality and morality to virtue signal to the inquirer ?
Ego ?
Law ?
Social Decency ?
Political Freedom ?
Freedom of Speech ?
(something else if so what...)

Standard grammar so that the team can be clear regarding your thoughts and input?

 

[iceaura]

It's useful language for warning people like me away from given organizations, projects, jobs, etc.

But sometimes that language is used by the HR department and nobody else in the company, so it's a false signal.

 

[Seattle]

Obviously these days those terms are misused more than anything else. I consider "liberal" and "progressive" to be positive terms but some use them as pejoratives.

"Team building" isn't a problem if you are in the military, involved in sports or perhaps in sales. It's often misused to mean "will you corrupt your moral values for us (the team)" or something similar.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism, corporation, or global but anyone can use them as a label for things that are wrong.