Team work is catching on

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Michael Moore
  • 6th Air Refueling Squadron operations officer
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Having been at several Air Mobility Command bases in my career, I have heard many of the slogans about team work, but it wasn't until I came to Travis that I began to fully appreciate them.

I, like many of you, took it as another Air Force slogan to motivate us to get more done with less. After arriving here three years ago, I began to understand the full potential of team work and "Team Travis."

I've heard that a plow horse can pull 1,000 pounds, but two pulling together can pull 2,500 pounds. This is the simple principle of team work. The wonderful part of team work is that it applies to every level in the Air Force. It doesn't matter whether you are at a shop, flight, squadron or wing, the principals are the same. It applies to each individual or each organization.

So, how does this concept work?
Simply put it is helping out your fellow Airmen any way you can. If you have developed a great new product or technique that helps you in your job, don't hide it or keep it to yourself.

In other wings I've been in, people with great processes would hold onto their information to ensure their unit looks better than others. Sure it may look good for a performance report bullet, but think of the potential if you share your work with other organizations and become the author of a wing-wide process. Once again, the great work of one individual or organization can be multiplied over many organizations to achieve more.

Why stop at the wing level. At Travis, we are privileged to have multiple wings on the base. As I said in the beginning of this article, Travis' embrace on team work is special. I can't count how many times I have given or taken assistance from the 349th Air Mobility Wing, 615th Contingency Response Wing or 15th Expeditionary Mobility Task Force.

They all have special missions and often come up with special programs or abilities that can help each other out. During the recent [2007 AMC Expeditionary] Rodeo competition, our training cargo was unavailable for practice, but the 615th CRW put together multiple pallets of various equipment to help our team. The 615th CRW received additional training on cargo preparation for their ORI, and the 60th AMW won the Best Cargo Load team categories and ultimately the Best AMW trophy. It's that simple, it really is.

You may have heard the acronym of "TEAM" as Together Everyone Achieves More. That is exactly what this concept of team work is about. 

Give it a try. I am sure you will find out how much more we can all achieve when we work together.