Guest Column

Some may ask, how can an organization function without command, without “unity”? I answer, an organization may control itself through “team work.” We can compare this with a football team. There are different kinds of cleverness or talent for each member on a team. Some may be experts in defence, some may specialize in the corner-ball aspects of the game, and some have “goal luck.” Team members have a mutual understanding and can play well in a give-and-take fashion. Responsibility to make a goal is not that of the whole team only, or that of a single individual, but arises from the commitment of each member. The talent and ability of each member is significant, and is respected by each and all.

Understanding each other is essential for team work. The critical point is understanding the weaknesses and strengths of each member. The issue is how to reveal the potential abilities of members, how to actualize their power, and how to use these to add to team strengths and compensate for team weaknesses. When team members compete with each other, disclosing weaknesses and nulling strengths in the process, team work ends and the cause is ruined.

The most important factor in team work is the mutual respect of others’ values and standards. Everyone holds distinct values and standards. Books have value for the person who is interested in reading, and experience has value for the person who is practical. The standard of a soldier is patience and gentleness. These standards and values are not ways of criticizing others, or to pidgeon-hole them. All values and standards are useful in a colourful and dynamic society. Team work always elevates members, enhancing and complementing their personalities and their abilities.

Certainly, if we can implement teamwork well, we have no need to call for unity, and there is no need for individuals to jocky for position. Indeed, persons or groups that want to influence members of an organization in this fashion are used to using the words “unity” and “stability of organization” to their own advantage. Team work, on the other hand, is a collective leadership system. The aims or goals of an organization are undertaken by all members and do not depend upon a single person or group.

The distinction between human beings and the rest of the animal world lies in our capacity for consideration and reasoning. These distinctions have lead human beings to produce more civil societies. Obedience to despotic orders and rules, and being blindly humble before command, should be relegated to a much more conservative past. Enforcement and threats of an autocratic nature are the relics of this same past.

Those who hang on to these outmoded leadership styles, using them to coerce and control others, and obstructing the opinions and abilities of members in the process, are rapidly becoming extinct. Those who remain, their days are numbered.

This commentary is contributed by Thar Nyunt Oo. He is a prominent student activist in 1996 "December students protest" in Rangoon. He fled to Thailand in 1997.

“Amazing Lambi ”

Lambi marine park and other ecological tourism projects are touted as sound development by the Burmese government.