Teamwork story: Why is there a difference when everything is the same?

Many years ago there was a group of brilliant young men at a prestigious university.  The group of men seemed to have an amazing creative literary talent and were extraordinary in their ability to put their literary skills to its best use. These promising young men met regularly to read and critique each other’s literary works. These men were merciless while they criticized one another. They dissected the most minute of the expressions and offered tough and even mean criticism to each other’s work. Their meeting sessions became arenas of literary criticism. The members of this exclusive club became known as the “Critics”.

Not to be excluded from the opportunity to level up their literacy skills, the women of literary interest in the same university started a club of their own comparable to the “Critics”. The members called themselves the “Mentors.” The members of the club too presented their literary pieces in front of each other. But the feedback from the members was much softer, more positive and more encouraging. Every effort from a member, even the most feeble one, was encouraged by all. After twenty years, a university alumnus was doing a study of his classmates’ career when he noticed a huge difference in the literary accomplishments of the “Critics” and the “Mentors”.

Among all the brilliant young men in the “Critics” club, none had made any significant literary achievement. But the “Mentors” club had several successful writers and some renowned national literary talents.

The talent and the education between the two groups were almost the same. There were not much difference. The “Critics” strangled each other while the “Mentors” gave each other a lift. The “Critics” created an atmosphere of contention and self-doubt while the “Mentors” brought out the best in each other and shared their knowledge and experience.