It’s a lot of fun watching toddlers use their innate ability to cooperate and complete a task in now time. What happens to such know-how in the grown-up political arena? What’s missing?

Toddlers nail teamwork 101 – can politicians?

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision, the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives.

Andrew Carnegie

Why can toddlers achieve a challenging task with excellent teamwork in a flash? Observing our young experts, teamwork isn’t rocket science. How does this compare with our expectations of politicians?

How do bad habits happen? What type of examples and experiences are involved?

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

Winston Churchill

Toddler Teamwork required

We give our UK political leaders immense power – even those who supplant the ones we elected and who change direction without consultation. We may stare, amazed, at our politicians’ petty conflicts, absence of teamwork and even deceit. Yet, the video shows two toddlers confronting and solving a tricky problem. Way to go!

It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

Charles Darwin

Toddler know-how

These wee folk demonstrate the basics of effective teamwork. They have…

• a shared goal
• clear communication
• prompt feedback
• encouraging onlookers
• positive reinforcement
• enthusiastic appreciation for excellent performance

Political challenge

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. Ambrose Bierce

Teamwork gets results. How will you make useful things happen if you don’t or can’t cooperate? I remember a Japanese professor explaining how we tend to over-value the boss’s brain in the UK culture, while in their (Quality Circle) culture, they valued all the brains. Thinking of the recent screw-ups, what goes wrong? Perhaps …

• They neither understood nor had the expertise to do the job.
• They ignored teamwork and the potential contribution from available (if not fired) experts.
• They wouldn’t know a proper plan if they fell over one.
• They naively expected ideological puff to win the markets, convince comrades and almost certainly destroy what’s left of the UK economy.

Meaning?

Our work is the presentation of our capabilities.

Edward Gibbon

• Are soundbites simply noise and nothing more?
• If you don’t understand a challenge, how can you overcome it?
• Ideology won’t solve problems on its own.
• Is expertise from outside the political herd essential for success and respect?
• How well are politicians qualified to lead and manage? Have they skills like diagnosis, planning and performance measuremernt? If not, why give control of the vast machine of government to ineffectual people who tend to dissemble, bully and act in shameful self-interest?

Should be easy as toddlers and bricks

Teamwork is less me and more we.

There’s nothing like a simple quote. Is there a grain of truth in it? Thinking of our political leaders, could it be that ineffectiveness and cupidity deny us the benefit of our national assets? Team-working toddlers show us the way forward.

© Mac Logan