teamwork, 1. a process whereby higher-paid employees destroy morale and create mediocre results by forcing creative, forward-thinking subordinates to submit to a group’s need for consensus. 2. a corporate culture whereby workers are discouraged from drawing attention to and/or correcting the mistakes of favoured co-workers no matter how obvious those mistakes may be. 3. Euphemism for mediocrity. (see also, team-player)
team-player, 1. an employee, generally of lower rank or popularity who, despite their ability to produce superior results, reluctantly allows others to degrade their ideas in order to avoid employment-threatening conflict. 2. an employee who, having taken on an excessive work burden in order to compensate for lazy, incompetent and disinterested project co-workers, is forced to share credit for the project’s results with those same employees. (see also, teamwork)
=======================
Origins: I have mixed feelings about these definitions. Too often - in my life, at least - the word, ‘teamwork,’ represented frustration and mediocrity. Yet, one of the great successes in my life resulted from assembling a volunteer team of the best real estate experts I could find in order to create a step-by-step, quality assurance system for first time home buyers. I am now turning this ‘unique process’ into a program that I can sell to other real estate pros. Teamwork is the foundation of that program.
