Peer pressure and team work

PEER PRESSURE AND TEAMWORK

Mario D’Couto

            I could probably have written pretty extensively on either ‘peer pressure’ or ‘teamwork’ separately, as there is a lot that can be said about each of them but I decided to combine the two topics and merge them into one as both the topics share one common theme – the need to belong. Yes, it’s true! No man is an island and yet because of this need to feel accepted, we are ready to compromise. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that we should do away with it or treat it like as though it did not matter but while the need to associate, build friendships and develop relationships are important, we should not lose sight of who we are, what is our purpose and where we are going.

            Sometimes we could fall into the temptation of living up to other people’s expectations. Expectations are nothing but other’s ideals of what you can do and who you can be usually from people who have no idea of what they really want and you can be certain to meet many expectations in your daily life that it may seem like an endless circle of failure. Trying to live up to the expectations of others is like trying to cup the ocean in your hands. When you don’t reach the expectations of people, you may tend to feel bad. It delinks you from your desires. It leaves you unmotivated, exhausted and resentful because your sole effort is to gain the approval of others.

            Instead of striving to meet other’s expectations, it is better to set your expectations of yourself. Decide about what you want to accomplish. At the end of the day, it is your own expectations of yourself that matters! Don’t let other people’s standards and expectations get in the way of what you want to achieve or what you stand for.

            It would be worth asking though why are we always looking for the approval from others? To answer this question, we have to go to back to the past in order to understand this as it proved to a be a good survival strategy. Imagine 50,000 years ago, you were travelling with your hunter – gatherer friends and suddenly they are bolted. What would you have done? Would you have stayed put, scratching your head and weighing up whether what you were looking at was a lion or something that just looked like a lion but was in fact a harmless animal that could serve as a great protein source? No, you would have sprinted after your friends. Later on, when you were safe, you could have reflected on what the ‘lion’ had actually been. Those who acted differently from the group exited the gene pool. We are the direct descendants of those who copied others’ behaviour. This pattern is so deeply rooted in us that we still use it today, even when it offers no survival advantage, which is most of the time.

            It is also interesting to note how comedy and talk shows use these strategy, this ‘herd’ mentality so to speak, to insert canned laughter at strategic spots, inciting the audience to laugh along. This is how the media and the advertising industry play on the emotions of people, creating a need in the people when there is actually no need. It is therefore important to be sceptical whenever a company claims its product is better because it is the ‘most’ popular. Just because a product has been sold many times does not mean it is the most desirable thing on the planet. We ought to lean to think for ourselves and choose wisely, which also means going against the crowd and standing by our convictions if need be.

            With that being said, even when it comes to living a moral life, it takes a lot of guts and grit. Let’s look at the virtue of chastity. Because chastity is so challenging and demanding, when it confronts a person of low character, it only reflects his or her own moral laziness. The reminder to live chaste should inspire us to give more of ourselves in the pursuit of virtue and live more like Christ (since I am writing as a Christian), rather than living life enslaved by our passions.

            What is worse about the whole thing is that not only those who resent chastity not want to live a life of purity but they even tear down the moral standards of others and try to drag it down to their level. In other words, they minimize the significance of the virtues in order to spare themselves the effort and to excuse their own moral failures (I am sure this is something you can relate to if not, then I guess the message is obvious).

            Allow me to further illustrate this with two examples. Imagine at your workplace or in your group, there’s a lot of gossip that goes around behind other people’s back. Due to your moral convictions, because you know it is not right, you choose not to participate in the gossip. Instead of being inspired by your example, on the contrary, they ridicule you and think of you as someone who is ‘too good for the rest of us’. Rather than praise your virtue, they only want to tear it down and resent it. This can be tough, believe me, and I have been through it. It’s not easy! Yet we can take refuge in the, words of Our Blessed Lord who said, “If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18).

            Consider another example. Imagine a college student who studies diligently, always does his assignments and doesn’t go to parties with the other men on his dorm floor. Instead of praising his virtue, his peers ostracize him and view him as a boring nerd who never has any fun. By him not going along with what everyone else is doing, he stands as a reminder of their own laziness and immoral behaviour. And so they resent his virtue. The price can be costly but it’s worth it. Would it not be better to stand for what you believe in than fall with the crowd into a ditch? (for further reflection, do check out my other blogpost/articles, “It is better to be alone” and “Genuine friendships”). Not conforming to the wrong things is not a sign of weakness; it is a sign of strength. The strong can be lonely at times.

            Going a little more deeper into the issue on how to handle it if faced with such a situation, it would seem as though niceness is the psychological armour of the people pleaser. In a deeper part of your personality, you believe that by being nice, you will gain love and affection and that you will be protected by meanness, rejection, anger, conflict, criticism and disapproval. But when you are exposed to a negative experience with another person, your thinking pattern will leave you holding the blame bag. This is because in the people – pleasing mindset, if you are rejected or hurt, you believe it is because you weren’t nice enough. It is just a short hop from this kind of thinking to self – sabotaging depression.

            Because of the fear of being isolated or rejected, we are ready to compromise, that is to say, we give in when actually we don’t want to, what most people call, ‘getting along’. In any relationship, if your niceness prevents you from telling others what is making you unhappy, angry, upset or disappointed – or from hearing their complaints – there is little chance of fixing what has gone wrong. Conflict avoidance is not an ingredient of successful relationships. In fact, it is quite the opposite. And this is not just for a relationship between a boy and a girl or a husband and wife but it could also be between friends. It is a serious symptom of a dysfunctional relationship. It is better to recognize that negative emotions between people are inevitable and you must learn to deal with them effectively.

            When conflict is handled constructively and anger is expressed appropriately, they can be powerful communication tools for dealing with people in the real world. Handled responsibly, these emotions enable you to maintain your relationships in good working condition with problems minimized and pleasures optimized. In fact, we could ignore these negative feelings at our own peril. How many of us have found ourselves in situations where automatically we deny our anger and resentment toward another, while on the inside, we find ourselves feeling anxious, panicked and depressed?

            While there is a lot more that can be said, I shall restrict myself. To put it in a nutshell, here is a quote from Fritz Perls who said, “I’m not in this world to live up to other’s expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.”

            This may seem to put the whole aspect of human interaction in a rather negative spotlight. But there is also a positive side to it that is, we have the potential to develop strong moral convictions that not only will help us professionally but also in our personal lives. However for this to happen, it is important to choose wisely with whom we associate with, which brings me to the second part of this article – TEAMWORK.

            Henry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” One of the harmful tendencies found in many aspiring achievers is ‘the one man show’ syndrome. You may be tempted to think that you can do everything yourself. In reality, the journey to ultimate success and big rewards begins with a systematic teamwork. Teamwork or working as a team has a higher chance for a successful outcome. If you have failed while attempting a particular task, keep in mind that two or more heads are better than one.

            When you work as a team, you meet with people with different temperaments and different experiences and thus you are exposed to a large volume of ideas. A team brings together people with complementary skills, so your area of weakness might be offset by another person’s strength. When working with others in or as a team, everyone shares the successes and failures of each other. You also feel more accountable in carrying out your role which in turn produces better performance and results.

            Another good thing about working in as a team or in a group is about getting feedback. Just as a company has a board of directors where issues are discussed and feedback is given, this is an invaluable tool in both professional and personal growth. Meeting and discussing in a group helps a lot as each person in the group gets an opportunity to hear one another’s perception or how effectively that person is handling particular situations. Hearing one another’s thoughts helps them all see situations more clearly and reminds them that they are not alone in the challenges they face. It also challenges assumptions they are making or gives them feedback on how to improve themselves. It provides a more realistic viewpoint of their abilities, as well as a plan to improve. Group members find their confidence level increase following these meetings and this results in greater likelihood of taking action and for our purpose, helps them handle pressure more effectively.

            Charles Duhigg in his book, “The Power of Habit”, speaks about the importance of being in a group that fosters and facilitates growth where he quotes the words of Lee Ann Kaskutos, a senior scientist at the Alcohol Research Group who said, “At some point, people in Alcoholic Anonymous look around the room and think, ‘if it worked for that guy, I guess it can work for me.’ There’s something really powerful about groups and shared experiences. People might be sceptical about their ability to change if they’re by themselves but a group will convince them to suspend their disbelief. A community creates belief.”

            Companionship is important and precisely because we are all social beings. Even introverts, although not talkative like the extrovert, need the support of other people. No person is an island. We can co – relate this idea with St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians when he writes, “You and I, are particular parts of that body. Some are the hands, others the feet. Some are the eyes and other the ears. We all need each other to function properly and together we are all dependent on Christ, the head of the body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ nor can the head say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)

            In the Gospel of St. Mark, we see the story of five friends where one of them was completely broken and hopeless. He was an outcast and useless in the eyes of the world. However, the friends looked beyond his weaknesses and saw his potential. They knew of one Person alone who could help him live up to his potential and they did whatever it took to carry him there. They made their way through the crowds and did not stop when the door to Jesus was seemingly closed. They climbed onto the rooftop, carrying the full weight of their friend to the feet and healing hands of God. That’s how good friends are and should be. How right was our Lord when He said, “No greater love has a man than to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Here we see four other guys who see the potential in their friend and believed what he was truly capable. A good friend is one who brings out the best in the other.

            This is also what a support structure does. For instance, in a group, when we see others do well or improving or are changing for the better, that becomes a motivation for us to work well, be well and do well. And when we are in the company of enlightened individuals who genuinely want to help, it’s such a blessing.

            In all this, a key important thing to keep in mind is whom we associate with ourselves that also maters because that would make a difference and it is a proven fact of life. We become in some way like the people or are shaped to some extent by the kind of friendships or relationships that we keep.

            Here’s where it boils down to the million-dollar question, “Where does one find such friends?” The answer? It’s a mystery. As Gabriel Marcel once said, “A mystery is a problem that encroaches upon itself because the questioner becomes the object of the question. Getting to Mars is a problem. Falling in love is a mystery”, there is actually no specific place where one finds safe people for as it is written in scripture, “God allows His light on the good and the bad.” (Matthew 5:45), the good and the bad exist side by side in this world.

            There’s probably a lot more that be written in this regard and maybe I will save it for another article/blogpost but for now, I would just like to sum this up in one phrase, in whatever friendships or relationships you keep, make sure it’s helping you become, the best version of yourself. Plant this one idea at the centre of your life. Base every decision upon your essential purpose, and mind you it’s not about making more money, becoming popular and so on but it’s about becoming a good human being, to become that person God created you to be. Sanctity builds itself on humanity.

            Place this one idea at the centre of your inner dialogue and you will quickly understand why ideas change the world. Everything makes sense in relation to our essential purpose, especially in the context of relationships and friendships as Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend in their book, “Safe people” write, “Good and safe people give us what we need in the areas of acceptance, support, discipline and a host of other relationship ingredients that produce change.” However, this is something that does not happen out of thin air. We have got to work at it by finding them. The key things to keep in mind are discernment, wisdom, information and past experiences (if any). We need to be careful and make informed choices rather than become pessimistic and sceptical and learn to recognize the goodness that abounds within God’s family.

            To conclude, don’t be afraid to not conform to the things that are not right. Stand by your convictions (the right ones obviously) and don’t be afraid to associate, make friends and develop relationships that would help you become the best version of yourself (even if it means challenging you in certain areas and demanding you to come out of your comfort zone). Also don’t be afraid to cut off certain friendships that are leading you on the wrong path and are not good for you (if you have). Don’t be afraid to say “NO!” I do hope what I have written would help provide food for thought in your discernment process in developing strong, genuine and meaningful friendships or relationships. In as much as I write these words, it is also an inward journey and a soul – searching for me. Imagine the amount of good that can be accomplished if two or more people, driven in their pursuit of becoming the best version of themselves come together. It’s magical! After all, is not two or more heads better than one? God love you! Stay blessed!