From Every Angle: It takes all types to make the best teams work. This headline on the cover of (my husband’s) Mechanical Engineering magazine caught my attention. The article detailed the evolution of successful design teams at Stanford University, summarizing that:
“Each team member is chosen to bring a specific range of skills and experience to bear on the mission, and each contributor is essential to a successful outcome. But it is not only different types of expertise that people bring to the task. They also have distinct personalities, and different ways of approaching and solving problems. The proper application of those traits can be as important as combined technical knowledge to a team’s success . . . all of these personality traits are indeed very relevant to a team’s success.”
We all are part of various teams as we journey through life. One of the most important teams is family and the core of that team, marriage. Husband and wife are not carbon copies of each other physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. It rings true to me that the differences both cement and strengthen a marriage IF the partners see marriage as a team working towards a common goal AND, according to the article “Before diverse team members can be integrated into a cooperative unite they must . . . recognize the value of exploring a problem from various angles.” In other words, each partner must value the contribution of the other.
I have heard a plethora of marriage advice over the years. One common bit of counsel is to focus on making the other person happy, subjugating your own needs and desires to those of your spouse. While there is a point to be made for that approach, I submit that it is inferior to the “team method.” In fact, I suggest that approach undermines the team mentality, shifting ones intent to doing things FOR the spouse instead of WITH the spouse. Working TOGETHER rather than FOR creates EQUALS UNITED in a cause. In my mind, it fundamentally changes the relationship. Early in our marriage, my husband and I worked together to build a home from the foundation up and then landscape our backyard to fit the needs of our young family; and finally, to build and upholster furniture. He was heavily involved in church work at the time and gone much of the time but working together and with the children while he was home bonded us and contributed to our individual happiness. I was the weaker of the team as far as building skills and physical strength but it took two to hold and nail sheetrock. He needed my help and being needed is essential to joy in marriage.
Nothing requires more teamwork than rearing children in the admonition of the Lord. I assert that a marriage conceived as a team wherein each partner recognizes, values and allows the other to contribute according to individual differences not only will be more successful but each individual will be happier. Problem-solving power will be magnified beyond the sum of two; more goals will be achieved; and the satisfaction of knowing my spouse NEEDS and VALUES what I bring to the team bonds me to him. It behooves me then to be more careful to be open to his opposing ideas and approaches and allow him the freedom to contribute freely just as I would have him do unto me.
I‘ve quoted Antoine de Saint Exupéry before: "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward in the same direction." In other words, a team working TOGETHER towards a shared purpose bonds the companions together in love.
