Communication Within a Team

I just got home from a paintball tournament, and found it to be a good example of the importance of communication within a team. Through the first half of the tournament, our team was doing very well. We were playing against teams that weren't really much of a challenge, so we could just rely on individual ability to win. The second half of the tournament however, we were transferred to another division with better players. After a few games in the new division, it became clear that our team was missing something important. We weren't communicating very well. As a result, our actions were not well coordinated, and we performed poorly. The other teams all had predetermined ways of telling the other teams position to each other. This gave them much better awareness of what was going on all over the field and allowed them to coordinate plays. In the end we placed 5th, but I believe we could have done much better if we had used better communication. Hopefully this lesson will help us to play more like a real team next time.

David Hoff