What does building a clubhouse have to do with teamwork? It has everything to do with teamwork unless you are building it on your own.
Building anything takes a lot of hard work. You have to make the plans, get the materials, find the necessary tools and then spend time putting everything together. Having some help from family and friends can get the project done quickly and easily. However, there is something very important that is needed from start to finish if you are working with other people. Do you have an idea what that very important thing is? If you said TEAMWORK, you are correct! Working together towards a common goal can be fun and rewarding and it makes the job easier.
So let’s take a look at 3 children who discovered the importance of teamwork. Their names are John, Mary and Peter. John lives on a farm with his sister Mary and Peter lives down the road on the edge of town. They spend all summer playing in the woods surrounding the farm and along the creek. They love being outside all day every day but when bad weather comes along, they are stuck inside. This summer they decided to build a clubhouse.
It was exciting to share ideas and make plans. There was lots of old wood and skids in a big barn on the farm and all sorts of tools available. They decided on putting the clubhouse in a small open area with a big tree just behind the barn. The tree would provide shelter and they could put up a tree swing to play on. Everything was perfect!
They spend a whole day gathering wood, nails, screws and tools. There was even an old window and door in the barn they could use. They brought everything to the site where they would build the clubhouse and covered it with a tarp so they could start working the next day.
John, Mary and Peter got up early the next day and went to the work site. They started putting some skids together for the floor and a frame for the sides. Things were going well and then John picked up the window and started to nail it into the frame at the side of the playhouse. Mary yelled for him to stop because she thought the window should be at the back, not the side. Then Peter said he thought the window should be at the front beside the door. John put the window done and all 3 argued about where the window should go. This ended badly and all 3 started back to their homes, leaving the materials in a heap on the ground. The clubhouse didn’t get built that summer.
So what happened? John, Peter and Mary couldn’t agree on where to put the window. Each of them had a different idea and nobody wanted to talk about it or try and work together on a plan.
Teamwork is very important if you want to have a good end result. We all have great ideas and we all should make our opinions heard but if we can’t reach an agreement that works for everyone, nobody wins and we all lose. Sometimes we have to agree to disagree and try new things instead of just doing what we want. If 3 people want the same result but want to do it in 3 ways, it will never work.
When you are working on any type of project, look at all the options and then try something different. All through life, we have to work with other people and we can learn a lot from each other. We really don’t know everything, even if we think we do. We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. Our strengths may be another person’s weakness and we can help them in many ways. Our weaknesses may be another person’s strengths and they can help us learn something.
When people work together as a team, they are strong and have power. When people don’t work together they are weak and have little or no power. Always remember the phrase “United we stand, divided we fall”. Do you believe this is true?
imconfident 