“Becoming skilled at doing more with others may be the single most important thing you can do to increase your value—regardless of your level of authority.”                      (Christopher Avery)

The primary mission of the school-family system is to train young people to compete against each other for the approval of teachers, parents, and future employers. Good grades and accolades in the classroom lead to approval at home which becomes the measure of how children achieve recognition and earn rewards. The school-family system perpetuates the myth that a successful life is based upon one’s ability to outperform others. 

Systematic competition has created an environment of myopic self-interest. Upon leaving school, students expect to find a good-paying job with benefits and opportunities for advancement. They enter the work force valuing only what they can do for themselves—collaborating holds no importance.

They firmly believe that success is based upon individual effort. They shun collaboration because being part of a team is not a priority. After all, they’ve been taught that sharing information with one’s peers is called cheating. As far back as they can remember, anyone caught collaborating, other than in extracurricular activities, suffered negative consequences both at school and at home.

Employers expect employees to participate collectively in the problem solving and decision-making processes. Sadly, recent graduates don’t know how to work together: it’s something they’ve never been taught.

An American Management Association survey of 800 executives concluded, “The emphasis over the past years has been on STEM skills, but what’s missing is the ability to solve problems collaboratively and make decisions collectively.”

According to The Big Shift, a worldwide study published by Deloitte University Press, “The success of the modern organization will depend upon its ability to create a (collaborative) environment that cultivates learning and accelerated performance improvement.”