Knowing the Team You Serve With

There is a quote from Babe Ruth I love. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play well together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

How well do you know your team? How well do you play together?

You might be surprised that the one problem area that constantly comes up at radio stations is culture – how we work together as a team. We all have our individual tasks and some people wear many hats. If the station culture adopts the culture of other businesses, it could become very “me” focused.

When the deadlines stack up, how does your team respond? Part of station culture is determining how your team will work through those deadlines together. And when there is conflict, how will your team handle that?

You might think, “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” But, it’s better to be prepared knowing that at some point you will get there? If the team already knows how to handle conflict, they’ll be able to get through times of tension easier and continue “playing” well together.

There are several reasons why individuals never gel as a team, but they can all be traced back to the fact that at some point, somebody assumed that everyone in the clubhouse was pulling on the same end of the rope.

That’s generally NOT true, even when you work for a Christian ministry.

— Jon Hull and Larry Castro, KSBJ Mentoring Team