Which is more important to an effective strategy, a good offense or a good defense?
Share why if you wish.
Category: Sports
What Makes A Good Team?
A good team, whether in sports, business, or family, can be almost magical. What are the properties that make a team great?
When you have a group of people working together to achieve a common goal — in other words, a team — finding the right mix can be tricky.
One thing to consider is to select people with the right skill set. For example, an ideal baseball team would have a shortstop and a third baseman, rather than two third basemen or two shortstops.
Finding a good person to lead and/or motivate the team is very important. The leader sets the tone for the entire group, and needs to have the respect of the individual members.
Related: Listen to an episode of the Intellectual Roundtable Podcast, where Lee and Michael discuss this question: ‘Where does authority come from?’ We also discuss another question as well, ‘What does your favorite music say about you?’
One aspect that is often overlooked is you need to have the right project for the team to work on. A group that would be good at, say, writing a software program probably will not be so good at marketing or selling a product. Or, to use a sports example, a great basketball team won’t be very good playing hockey.
Can you think of instances in your life when you have been a part of a group that was really in sync and excelled? What were the factors that made your team successful, and can you reproduce them?
Related questions: How can we encourage collaboration? What role do sports play in our society? Solo or team? What makes a community?
How Do You Maintain Cultural Literacy?
In our fractured, constantly updating society, trends and fashions change at a mind-boggling rate. How do you maintain cultural literacy, and stay on top of it all?
Hundreds of years ago, very little would change from one generation to the next. Your life was probably very similar to the life lived by your parents, and their life was largely the same as their parents. And your children’s lives would look much the same as yours.
Now, however, that is not the case. Someone born in 1900, if they lived long enough, would have been alive for the first airplane flight and also the first trip to the moon.
Fifty years ago, there was no Internet, no cell phones, the number of television stations could be counted on one hand, and so on. As technology changes, our lives change as well. And the rate of change is accelerating.
Listen to a podcast where Michael and Lee discuss a related question: ‘Are we too busy?’ We also discuss a bonus question: ‘What are our responsibilities to others?’
In concrete terms, this means that there is an ever-increasing amount of cultural information to track. Older generations had to keep track of actors, known from theater, TV and movies. But now, there are also people famous just for being famous. In addition, there are celebrities that are “Internet famous” — that is, they have popular YouTube channels, are Instagram influencers, or are known for their Tik Tok dances.
The same thing is true all throughout culture. In addition to traditional authors and reporters, there are now bloggers and cable news pundits. More traditional sports figures have been joined by video gamers and esoteric competitions like marble racing. Whatever niche interest you have almost certainly has a website or wiki page with details and further information.
There are not enough hours in the day to keep up with it all.
So how, then, can you learn enough about these things that you can have a reasonable conversation about them should the need arise? Or be able to recognize the benefits that might be available to you, or understand the potential risks or challenges they might pose to society in general? In short, how do you maintain cultural literacy?
Related questions: Are we too busy? How can we maintain wonder? How do you adopt new ideas? What social media platforms do you use?
World Cup Or Olympics?
Both the World Cup and the Olympics happen every four years, involve countries from around the world, and inspire great passion. Do you prefer one over the other?
Share why if you wish.
World Cup Or Olympics?
In What Ways Do You Defy Gender Stereotypes?
Society has some pretty well-established gender stereotypes. In what ways do you not match up with those stereotypes?
Gender stereotypes are pervasive, starting with people’s behavior towards infants. Boys are given blue blankets; girls pink. Young boys play with action figures, while girls play with dolls.
These assumptions continue to adulthood. Men like cars and sports, and are emotionally distant. Women, on the other hand, wear dresses and makeup, and tend to be flighty.
Listen to a podcast where Michael and Lee discuss a related question: ‘What gives a person value?’ We also discuss a bonus question: ‘What makes you you?’
Of course, in reality, each and every one of us is an individual, and so we may find ourselves in agreement with all, some, or none of these commonly-held gender expectations.
Are there any ways in which you feel you don’t fit in with conventional gender roles? How so? And what does that difference mean for how you see yourself, and how others in the community might see you? In what ways do you defy gender stereotypes?
Related questions: How are you a non-conformist? How do you think others see you? Individual or society? What role do sports play in our society?