Team Work

The Organization that I use to work with, and that picked for my case study is on the United States Marine Corps. While serving in the corps we had an arrival of a new infantry Sergeant, Staff Sergeant Jordan. In my platoon we had people of all different cultures and ethnicity. Staff Sergeant Jordan was brought to our platoon because we had a hard timework together. All the Hispanics hung out with the Hispanics, African Americans hung out with the African Americans and all the Caucasians hung with each other. The problem he faced was getting these groups of people to melt together into a team.

He called all 40 Marines in the same room together. Then everyone was asked to sit next to a person that they never spoke to before. I remember looking at the body language, nervous smiles, and superficial conversations made it clear that most of us never interacted with others outside our social circles.

SSGT. Jordan first goal was to get everyone on the same page of music. We all needed a common goals and vision. He told us that with a vision we could start to mix to form the glue that binds a team together.

We then all split into group of fours. I told them that they had to pick 4 people that they do not know that well. I also told them that needed at least 2 different ethnic groups present in each group. I then explained to the groups that this would be their new patrol squad. I had many unhappy marines that day. I explained to them that we have to become one big team if we were going to survive as an infantry unit.

We all then brainstormed on a common goal and vision for our platoon. We came up with 2 of them. Our first was simple, to become one. We then defined what that ment. One meant that when one guy gets hurt everyone picks up the slack. What ever one person is going through we all are going through it. The next vision was no Marine left behind. No matter what alive or dead