Because when people lose sight of the big picture, when the natural gravitational pull towards self-interest takes over, the team will lose focus, momentum and eventually it will lose out on whatever goal you are chasing.<\/strong><\/p>\n The importance of the big picture was vividly demonstrated a few years ago in the locker room of a pro hockey team. It was late in the season and the team was battling for a playoff spot. At the same time, several players were closing in on individual point totals that would qualify them for performance bonuses.<\/p>\n After practice the coach gathered the team around and said to one of the players, \u201cHow many points do you need for your bonus?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c7, coach,\u201d came the reply.<\/p>\n The coach looked at another player. \u201cAnd you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c9 points, coach,\u201d he responded immediately.<\/p>\n The coach nodded and silently walked around the room. After a few minutes he looked back at the team and said quietly, \u201cWe are fighting for our playoff lives. Who can tell me how many wins we need to secure a playoff spot?\u201d<\/p>\n Each player slowly cast his eyes to the floor. No one would look up. No one knew the answer.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026and that, team,\u201d the coach quietly concluded, \u201cIs our biggest problem.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing wrong with individual performance goals. In fact, they\u2019re very important. But the job of the leader is to help each person understand how their individual accomplishments fit in to the bigger picture.<\/p>\n Here are three of the biggest indicators that individual goals have replaced team goals.<\/p>\n Not all competition is unhealthy in your culture. But when it trumps collaboration and team work, it\u2019s a sure sign the big picture needs to be reinforced.<\/p>\n Watch the energy when the accomplishment of a team goal is being celebrated. Low energy tells you the big picture isn\u2019t being embraced.<\/p>\n Again, individual accomplishments\u00a0should<\/em>\u00a0be recognized. But if that\u2019s\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0people are talking about you need to polish up the big picture for your team.<\/p>\n So keep the big picture front and center for your team.<\/p>\n That might be the most important picture you\u2019ll ever paint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Individual goals matter, but if they cause you to lose sight of the big picture, you have a big problem. Because when people lose sight of the big picture, when the natural gravitational pull towards self-interest takes over, the team will lose focus, momentum and eventually it will lose out on whatever goal you are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1017,769,5,478,7,582],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action","category-communication","category-culture-2","category-discipline2","category-featured","category-leadership","category-sports-analogies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6407"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6412,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6407\/revisions\/6412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Your culture replaces collaboration with competition<\/strong><\/h2>\n
2. The team has little interest in celebrating group accomplishments<\/strong><\/h2>\n
3. Water cooler talk centers on individual accomplishments.<\/strong><\/h2>\n