Many of us complain of being overworked. But most of us, if we are honest, prefer working alone, doing things our way, rather than going through the stress and frustration of including others.

“One stick does not make a strong fire,“ says Syngman Rhee, the Korean-born former moderator of the Presbyterian Church USA. “If we are going to carry on a vision for justice and peace we must learn to be a team. However brave and talented I may be, without a container or framework, compassion and commitment can become wrongly directed.”

Many people attempt to live individually moral lives and make time for reflection every day. What is often lacking is the daily experience of working alongside people who challenge, who irritate, who demolish our pet theories and prejudices to the point where God is able to completely rearrange our mental furniture. Many of us complain of being overworked. But most of us, if we are honest, prefer working alone, doing things our way, rather than going through the stress and frustration of including others.

Two things that tend to undermine teambuilding are judgment and sympathy.

Judging others allows us to remain secure in our own position without the need for change. When I first arrived in the US I was quick to make value judgments on the materialism, the extremes of wealth and poverty, and the superficiality. I was also judgmental of the conservative business people with whom I found myself surrounded in Richmond, Virginia: people whose politics were the opposite of mine and with whom I felt I had nothing in common. Over time, I saw that it was not my job to judge anyone and that I could learn something from each person. Today some of these people are my closest colleagues and are giving leadership in healing the divisions in our city.

While sympathy can be valuable, it’s also easy to encourage a mentality of victimization and blame which does nothing to empower a person to make real changes. Sympathy with the victim may allow us to feel good and can bolster our own prejudices or self-importance. What do we do when people come to us with their complaints and grievances? Do we merely give them sympathy? Or do we ask tough questions in love?

If we ourselves are holding on to prejudices or are nursing wounds, our tendency may be to sympathize rather than to challenge. A colleague said recently that to be accepting of all participants in a dialogue she needed to heal the hurt she had experienced in relationships with some white males. It was sometimes easier for her to relate to the people in the black community than with people of her own color.

Welcome and expectancy are important keys to building diverse teams. Does everyone feel truly welcome in our midst? As a dialogue designer and facilitator, I need to park my most cherished viewpoints at the door. If I believe that I already know the root of the problem and the way to the solution I will not create an open, inquiring atmosphere. People are complex and we must firmly resist temptations to try to fit them into boxes.

Not knowing can be a strength. It’s remarkable how eager people are to support you when you express a genuine need. In welcoming others I make myself vulnerable and expose my weaknesses and shortcomings. I make space for others who may have more creative ideas, bolder convictions, perhaps may hold views that challenge my comfort level. In welcoming I expect that others will change and grow just as I change and grow and that each person will bring their unique contribution.

Frank Buchman, who began the work of Initiatives of Change, talked of “a prejudice free level of living….a common denominator of immediate constructive action for everyone, above party, race, creed of personal advantage.” My experience of community building has taught me to expect to find allies, sometimes in unexpected places. The question in my mind when meeting anyone, whether it is the editor of the newspaper, or the mayor, or the police chief or a student is: “How can I help the person in front of me make his or her best contribution to the community?”

It may be useful to take an inventory of our personal team building style. Do we welcome new comers? Is leadership shared? Is it paternalistic? Do I make excuses for others or for myself? In what ways does my culture influence my team building style?

An African American friend said to me, “I sometimes feel you withhold your true feelings as a way of maintaining control.” It never occurred to me that what I regarded as normal Scottish reserve was perceived by someone else as a control mechanism. It’s important to remember that we have a responsibility for how we come across to others.

What happens when things go wrong? Do we allow wounds to fester? For eight years I was in conflict with a colleague. He felt I had failed to support and even undermined him; I felt wrongly judged. A wall grew up. It got to the point where we could barely have a conversation.

One morning I thought, “What you are feeling does not matter. What does matter is that this person feels you have wronged him.” That day I wrote a very short letter asking his forgiveness for things I had done that had hurt him or made it hard for him to trust me. Up until that point, he had found it difficult even to enter my house. But a few days later he very graciously and with some courage drove 200 miles to have lunch with me. We restored our relationship. To this day I don’t fully understand all the details of our division, but sometimes it is not necessary to explain or even to understand in order to heal.

In Journey of Hope, John Morrow of the Corrymeela Community, which is dedicated to reconciliation in Northern Ireland, writes, “It is easy to love our dream of community rather than the real brothers and sisters whom God has given us….learn how to call forth each other’s gifts rather than to crush them...and because we continue to hurt one another and often fail to listen, our community life is only possible through forgiveness.”