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Team Thinking

It’s hard to imagine the School of Business without Stacey. Since before I arrived, she’s been working to make everything work. She and Barbara met me with carts to unload my car upon my arrival before my official first day. I still have the slight yellow marks on my bumper as a reminder (watch out for those pylons if you use the VIP space!). I know many of us have benefited from her efforts that have enabled us to do our work. She makes the team better.

We are thankful that Erin Blevins, currently in the Provost’s Office, is willing to join our team in this important role. She brings a slightly different skill set, but a similar mindset of enabling the team to be successful. We are looking forward to her joining our team.

This has me thinking, “when we say team, what do we mean?” How we think of team is critical to our success. Is it just our discipline-related colleagues? Department? School? College? I think Stacey thinks about team very broadly. That’s why she will continue to be successful in her new role. She will continue to make us all better.

With what we do we can look for win-wins. We’ve even seen some win-win-wins in my short time here. When we focus too narrowly on how we think about team, we can unintentionally create a loss someplace else. Any loss at the College is not good for the College, which means it’s not good for us.

Can I take it one step further? As I interact with the business community, I see this same broad team thinking. Many think “team Charleston” and are looking for ways that make us all better. That’s huge and creates even more possibilities.

So, will you join me in using a broad definition of “team.” We will all be better because of it.

YOU make a difference!

Ponder this with me …