Teamwork Archives - Page 3 of 32

Goldwater–Nichols

In 1983 the United States invaded Grenada. Army units found that their radios could not talk to Navy ships offshore. Colin Powell later said the invasion “succeeded, but it was a sloppy success.”

Grenada was one of the reasons for a new law, the Goldwater–Nichols Act. President Ronald Reagan signed it on October 1, 1986. Its purpose was to fix problems caused by rivalry between the armed services. One rule shapes the path to the top. An officer who wants to become a general or an admiral must first serve at least one tour of joint duty with another branch.

The Eagles and the Rattlers

In the summer of 1954, the psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues took 22 boys to a camp at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma. The boys were 11 and 12 years old and did not know each other. They were split into two groups. The groups called themselves the Eagles and the Rattlers.

The staff then set up a tournament. The winning group would get a trophy, and each winner a medal and a pocket knife. The losers got nothing. The Eagles burned the Rattlers’ flag. Later the staff created problems that neither group could solve alone, such as a blocked water supply and a stuck food truck.

The study has critics. In her 2018 book The Lost Boys, Gina Perry argues that the staff shaped events more than the published account admits.

Work Friend

American English has a set of words for friendships that belong to the job.

Work friend. This is a friend at work, and not necessarily anywhere else.

Work wife and work husband. This is a close partner at the office, with no romance.

Work bestie. This is a best friend at work.

Former coworker. This is often said of someone who was once a daily contact.

First Day on the Team

A new member of an American team hears the same phrases in the first hour.

Welcome aboard!

Great to have you on the team.

Nice to meet you.

Call me Mike. A Michael says this right after he is introduced.

Hey guys. This is the usual opening of a team email or meeting.

How’s it going?

When the project ends, the phrases change.

Let’s keep in touch.

Don’t be a stranger.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn.

The Glad Hand

In 1950 David Riesman, Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney published The Lonely Crowd. It described a new American character that they called other-directed. “The other-directed person wants to be loved rather than esteemed.” One of the book’s headings reads “From the Invisible Hand to the Glad Hand.”

Nearly fifty years later the writer Wilfred McClay looked back at the book. In the world it described, “popularity and ‘social skills’ were more important than the pursuit of excellence or fidelity to inner standards of behavior.” The book has sold “many hundreds of thousands of copies.”

Very Normal to Fade

Alison Green writes the workplace advice column Ask a Manager. In November 2025 a reader wrote about a close friendship with a former coworker. “I can let the friendship naturally fade, but I feel guilty,” the reader wrote.

Green answered: “It’s actually very normal for work friendships to fade once you’re no longer colleagues.” She gave the reason. When you no longer have work in common, “there often isn’t enough of a connection to keep the relationship going.”

My Name Is Kim

“Good Morning. My name is Kim, and I’ll be serving you this morning.” K. Garrity and D. Degelman tested this greeting at a Charlie Brown’s restaurant in Southern California. Their study appeared in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology in 1990. Introducing herself by name brought the server much higher tips.

The study was small. It used one server and 42 dining parties over two days. A study published in 2016 went further. The servers “introduced themselves by name and then invited customers to do likewise.” Then they used the customers’ names. Their tips rose by 6 percent.

Two Truths and a Lie

In Two Truths and a Lie, each player makes three statements about himself or herself. Two are true and one is false. The others guess which one is the lie. A guide for teachers calls it “a guessing game to loosen up middle and high school students at the start of school.” Players form groups, “preferably with people they do not know well.”

The origin of the game is unclear. A statistics blog at Columbia University looked into the question. Google’s Ngram Viewer “puts its first recorded use of the term in 1981.”

Making It Up as We Go

Wing it. To wing it is to do something without preparing first.

Fly by the seat of your pants. The person decides as things happen, without a plan.

We’ll figure it out as we go. The start comes first, and the details come later.

Make it up as you go along. The plan is created while the work is done.

Course-correct. To course-correct is to change direction during a project, not after it.

Call an audible. To call an audible is to change the plan at the last moment. The phrase comes from football. There the quarterback changes the play at the line.

Throw it at the wall and see what sticks. The team tries many things and keeps what works.

Ship it. The work is released now, as it is.