Page 159 - The Bible On Leadership

Team Development 145

2,200 square feet of carpeting, and 550 gallons of paint and planted over
1,000 flowers, bushes, and shrubs.
The renovation of the ‘‘Y’’ and the other community service projects
was the turning point in integrating GE Plastics and Borg-Warner. Nei-
ther viewed the other as ‘‘the competition’’ or ‘‘the outsider’’ any
longer. ‘‘We were dirty, tired, grubby and so proud to be part of the
whole project,’’ says one employee. ‘‘As a former Borg-Warner em-
ployee, any questions I had about if this is the kind of company I want
to work for . . . these questions were gone.’’ 22
This project is reminiscent of the team Solomon assembled to build
the temple, although Solomon’s team was a little larger: 30,000 laborers,
70,000 carriers, 80,000 stonecutters, and 3,300 foremen to supervise
this gigantic endeavor. Both Solomon’s team and the GE team were
galvanized by a strong leader and an overriding purpose.
For both teams, celebration of achievement was important. How-
ever, the celebration of the GE team probably did not approach the
scale of Solomon’s team after they completed construction of the tem-
ple: fourteen days of ceremony and feasting. Well, there was less time
urgency in those days, and people had more time to celebrate.

CHALLENGES IN TEAM BUILDING

Building a team can be over-romanticized. It is a challenging, messy,
often-daunting process. Moses was challenged in the wilderness by re-
bellious team members who questioned the wisdom of the journey and
suggested a return to the security (and slavery) of Egypt. And the entire
team deviated from its mission, building a golden calf while Moses was
off on the mountain getting divine guidance from his mentor.
In Galatians 5:13, Paul warned the early Christians that they were at
great risk when they ceased to act as a team: ‘‘If you keep on biting and
devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each
other.’’ And the prophet Nahum warned the king of Assyria that his
doom was sealed because his team was becoming unproductive and
falling apart: ‘‘O king of Assyria, your shepherds slumber, your nobles