The human race is at a cross roads. We face an increasingly uncertain future. I don’t need to tell you that – it’s everywhere you turn. Politically, economically, socially, at work, at home – no stone has been left unturned by the forces of radical and exponential change. And the pace of this change is only going to get faster and faster.

One thing though remains the same. At a very base level, we as a species work together in order to get things done. Since we first started hunting in packs hundreds of thousands of years ago, teamwork has been an intrinsic part of the human condition and experience. And up to now, we have been generally good at it. We have honed our teamworking skills over millennia of experience, passing them on in our DNA and in our teaching of the generations that come after us.

And it worked.  For 99% of human history, the field of play and the rules which we worked to didn’t change much. What you inherited and were taught by your forefathers was relevant to your world, your experience and your life.

Now, imagine two horizontal lines on a piece of paper. (Forgive the crude graphics!)

Once is the required skills to work in teams, driven by environment, technology, society and the need to succeed. The other is our actual ability to work in teams. Up to now, these lines have been like train tracks across a vast plain. Straight, unchanging, and in parallel proximity to each other since the human race began. They didn’t change much as life was very similar for all that time, and therefore the required team skills remained the same.

Now, the lines are diverging. The line representing what is required of us – the rules and circumstances of how we work together – is changing and moving quickly in one direction. Technologies like the Internet and everything it has spawned (e.g. social media and smartphones), the population explosion, even affordable air travel has made our current existence unrecognizable from what it was 20 or 50 years ago.

At the same time, the other line is dropping away in the opposite direction. The same influences that are changing the human experience are also having a detrimental effect on our actual teamworking capability. Take for example smart phones. On one had a great tool that gives us access to so much information and the ability to connect with more people than ever before. And yet, they tempt us to hide behind them and reduce face to face time.

So we’ve got a hugely different environment, and one where teamwork is even more necessary and relevant, at a time where we are getting worse at it. Something needs to be done.

Pretty much all of us exist in one some form of team or another. By definition, a team is two or more people pulling together towards a goal or achievement. A family. A work team. Sports clubs. Schools. Very few people can truly say they aren’t on a team. And I believe it is all of our responsibility to learn how to be a better team player or leader. Why? Selfishly, it’ll help you get what you want. But together, it’ll help all of us succeed and survive in the crazy and ever changing world in which we live.