Comments on: A Smart Lemming Tale: Teams vs. Individual Sports and the Differences in Management and Leadership

By: Talent and Speed Kills | The SmarterGroup Blog

Talent and Speed Kills | The SmarterGroup Blog — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:05:53 +0000

[...] A Smart Lemming Tale: Teams vs. Individual Sports and the … [...]

By: Lori Grant

Lori Grant — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:26:20 +0000

Thanks for the comment. While non-athletic people don’t understand sports references, I’m hoping they can understand some of the life lessons or draw parallels from an athlete’s perspective.

By: JasonWilton

JasonWilton — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 03:39:37 +0000

I’m with the other commentators re: sports analogies. Those who never played don’t “get it” and those who did never fully agree with the analogy…

But the underlying principle is interesting. And I do think that situations can get tricky when it’s the individual vs. the team player.

Thought-provoking post.

By: Lori Grant

Lori Grant — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:39:41 +0000

Its seems like you have the understanding from an individual sports perspective to manage your team as you would like be managed, but understand the bigger picture. I imagine you’ll be very successful. Besides, people tend to not like sport analogies, so it’s very insightful of you to find other ways ton manage the team.

For some reason, I’m picturing the TV show, “Better Off Ted,” where Ted is managing all the genius scientists! Or perhaps “Fringe” where Olivia’s the lead for Peter and Walter. Then there’s Cam, who’s in charge on “Bones,” leading Bones, Hodgins, and Angela.

By: James

James — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:23:10 +0000

I was a trackster. I’ve had to learn how to function in a team environment which has been easy on some projects and hard on others. I feel lucky that sports have helped me learn time management, discipline, and stress management.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:44:12 +0000

Timely topic, I’ve been thinking along these lines myself lately. Recently promoted from individual-contributor to lead a team I worked with for a couple of years.

As a youngster, I was always into individual sports as a competitor: tennis and track. But I was a manager for the basketball & volleyball teams.

My current team is not at all sports oriented. And they are very smart individuals. I know there are things I learned that can be applied, I just need to figure out how to share/emphasize those things without a sports analogy.