The law of limited trust

On June 08, 2010, in Leadership laws, by Neculai Fantanaru

When there is even one dishonest man in the team, you lose all of your confidence in the team.

I've always liked sports. And my favorite sport was, undoubtedly, football. But I also practiced contact sports, six years of wrestling and almost two years of Taekwondo. And like everyone who lives in the mirage of his own desires, I wanted to become a great champion.

At the beginning of the 10th grade, I attended the National Taekwondo Championship in Bucharest. I was very ambitious and confident in myself, but I must confess that I had no experience in terms of martial arts competitions. I would have certainly done well at any wrestling contest, but that was it, I was practicing martial arts at the time and I had to prove what I was capable of.

The product of a failed collaboration

I remember very well that I won the first fight, but lost the second. Therefore, I can say I didn't perform very well, but I indulged myself with the fact that, for an average martial practitioner, I did pretty well.

But the thing that I would never forget is what happened at the end of the championship. I must say that I forgot my kimono at home, and the coach was nice and gave me his in order to get into the competition. Well, after my last fight, that in which I was defeated, I asked the coach to let me take his kimono at home, to wash it and bring it clean to him at the first training. He agreed.

But when I got home, to my amazement, the kimono was no longer in the sports bag. It was only then that I realized it was stolen. Buy by whom? Well, I don't know, but definitely one of my colleagues from the club was responsible, because only they had access to my bag from the stand assigned to our team at the competition. Full of regret, my mind was consuming with black thoughts and my conscience was seized by a deep sense of dissatisfaction because I had too much confidence in my colleagues, and one or maybe more of them have cheated it.

When you are part of a team, you believe in it. But up to a limit.

I didn't try to discover the truth at that time, to ring the changes, to ask questions and try to find answers, the fact was consumed. So at the first training of the week that followed, I paid the equivalent of the kimono to the coach, because it was my responsibility to take care of it. But then, after a brief conversation with the coach, when I explained him how it all happened (but he did not want to believe in any way that one of his older students was guilty), we agreed that I should move to another club. My place was not there.

This incident was the turning point of my life and taught me one thing: nothing can please me when, joining a team from which I expect to be effective, united, organized, competitive, I discover that, in fact, I can't count on anyone. Because it always happens for a man who steals once and is not caught, to steal the second time around. So rather than begin and suspect everybody, I would better look for another team, a team based on principles of collegiality, unity and dignity.

Who doesn't have great confidence in his own team cannot “work” at full capacity. It I'd stayed at that club, I should have always been wide-awake, always looking out for an unseen enemy.

Just like a spectator who witnesses the presentation of a trick, knowing from the beginning that he will be fooled, he creates some psychic protection devices, trying to observe the moment when the illusionist cheats him - I should have created a psychological shield to protect me from the unforeseen moment when I should be cheated. And that would have been stressful and tiring. Or I should have taken an attitude of polite neutrality, which is to quietly come and leave the training, without having too many relationships with anyone, thing that would have created other problems, because nobody tolerates eccentric people. And if I had left time to pass, hoping things would improve, I would have been terribly wrong.

Later, after about a year, at another competition, I learned how everything happened. One of my colleagues took my kimono and sold it for a golden ring to another martial artist from another club in the country. Therefore, it was proved that my suspicions were founded. So I took the right decisions when moving to another club.

The failure of a team is due to the lack of respect and trust between teammates

A lasting, united and ambitious team is born out of comradeship and friendship and is carefully preserved. If even one of your colleagues is unfair, and especially if you don't know which is that one, you eventually arrive to consider everyone else guilty, which lowers your confidence in yourself, because you get to feel alone, surrounded only by false people. A team comprising only one dishonest man is a team the standard of which is not common sense, so which is not based on integrity and respect.

And the leader of such a team, where there is at least one black sheep, and who doesn't take action, means that he doesn't know well enough the people in his team or that he accepts them with all their flaws - and, in this case, he is likely to be manipulated and even compromised on their account.

Conclusion: A team is strong when it relies on collaborative relationships, honesty, fairness and fair-play. The leader is the one responsible for cultivating these relationships, both by his personal example and by the measures he takes to keep them.

A leader who accepts ethical violations and doesn't promptly punish them is actually the accomplice to the one who violates the ethical principles, which should govern a team. This negative element in the team, unauthorized at the right time, will continue to “sabotage” the team.