Part of a Team

Today, my kids were part of an amateur short musical. They've been rehearsing for weeks, but I have heard little at home and seen little when I picked them up from rehearsals. The performance was as new to me as it was to the rest of the crowd there.
 
Now, it is natural to be happy about and proud of whatever your kids do, and I was. But what particularly struck me about this performance was that kids ranging in age from 6 to almost 16 collaborated to make something that came together remarkably well. As I watched the older kids with the younger ones, I appreciated not just the musical they were performing, but the camaraderie they had developed while making it.
 
As grownups, we rarely think about the age range on our teams, at work or elsewhere. Instead, we appreciate what the team members each bring to the table. When it is about the work, it doesn't matter how old the players are. It only matters that they are committed to the project. Today, these kids were. The project was great, and now, a group of kids who otherwise might have minimal contact with each other will have a group of younger or older kids in their lives--kids with a shared experience to unite them. 

And that's what being part of a team is about.