The Magic Of Ubuntu

Written by Admin | March 5, 2024

African word meaning :- WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER .

Ubuntu is a very well written fable on teamwork by Stephen Lundin and Bob Nelson .

Every successful organization has two common traits in the teams working in those companies.

1) Positive Attitude.

2) Great team work

The book takes you through an engrossing journey that all of us can identify with and has many scenarios that make you feel part of the overall story. In big corporates there are different sets of people who work for different goals. And the success of different departments depend on how efficiently they manage their work and team.

Source: Pixabay
If there is unproductive conflict between the Leader and the team members, one sure consequence is disquiet in the team and failure to achieve common goals. Ubuntu shares the example of the BULLS EYE COMPANY which is into the Banking sector. John Peterson is a hardworking and productive employee in this company and seeing his abilities the company promotes him as a manager. Now his actual problem starts. His department is not able to deliver on its goals – often their work is incomplete or they are unable to meet deadlines. John starts taking more and more of the team’s load onto himself and starts putting in more hours including weekends to complete the pending work. Soon his personal life also starts suffering due to this.

Predictably, John looks to lay blame on his team for not completing the tasks assigned and for having a lot of negativity about their work. One day his employee Simon introduces him to the book UBUNTU. After getting through the book John starts implementing and believing the philosophy of UBUNTU. He now believes that the blame lay not on his team but his own ability to manage them – He had never interacted with his team and tried to find out why they were unable to do their job.

Afterwards he changes his attitude, and tries to look out for ways to motivate and communicate with his team. Slowly he comes to know various issues with in the working of his department. Now he is very connected to his team and able to overcome and solve lots of problems and barriers. And amazingly this starts showing on the team performance as well – he is able to manage his team very well, they are able to overcome their issues of achieving targets and meeting deadlines. Now there is positivity, harmony and motivation within the department. James now has started believing in his team, showing trust which was earlier missing. Now they work together as an actual team to achieve the common goal.

Source: Pixabay
One of the well-known examples in this context is the Indian cricket team. At the time when team’s coach was GREG CHAPPELL, there were lots of controversies about team members’ relationship with the coach and even veteran players like Rahul Dravid & Saurav Ganguly were in the news in the same context. Under the coaching of Chappell, India lost a lot of matches before Gary Kirsten took over as the new coach of the team. The main difference between the two eras was the kind of unity between players and every single player giving his 100%. Clearly one was able to see a different kind of energy on the field, and went on to become World Champions.

To sum up, the main PHILOSPHY of UBUNTU is:-

a) Motivate your team regularly.

b) Always interact with your team.

c) Communicate with your team.

d) Show trust in your team.

e) Have faith on their capabilities.

f) Celebrate successes.

They might sound simplistic, but adopting them is no easy task. If your team manages to do so, the rewards are great, and surely you will say UBUNTU!

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