Works cooperatively with others.

My father taught me that outcome matters most. Why you did something might be interesting to know. But what you did was key. I hope I’ve found a balance to this theory and that I do make choices for reasons that are important to me. But, still, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. (And I’ve always wanted to say that.)

Case in point. Report cards. As you can see from the lovely report card here, this particular student received all A’s and 1′s for effort. Nice outcome. However, see the right hand column. (if you click on the image, it gets bigger!) This same student did not score the highest grades for “working cooperatively with others” or “taking appropriate risks” or “responding appropriately to directions” or being persistent, accurate or legible. Am I the only one who wonders how this kid got all A’s?

Now, let’s think about performance reviews. How are we evaluating others and how are we being evaluated? By our outcomes? By our ability to work cooperatively with others? By our leadership skills? By our risk taking and persistent qualities? I believe that in the workplace, all these things matter. We need to work together to accomplish goals. But we also need to be rebels in our thinking – pushing aside the “old” way to consider new directions. And if we are hard to work with or people just plain don’t like us, but we’re incredibly effective, is that good enough? Or is peace and happiness more important. Does discord feed creativity or kill it?

Well, I don’t know. Do you?