Winning the Game of Life through Teamwork

Chess involves a variety of characters who represent specific skill sets — some move diagonally, others move vertically and or horizontally; all of them attempt to move forward.

Within a deck of playing cards, deeper meaning exists. Elite families used cards to teach their children how to advance in society. The 52 cards symbolize the amount of weeks in a year. The 13 cards in each suit symbolize the amount of weeks in a season. The four suits not only symbolize the amount of seasons in a calendar year, they also portray the different talents required to advance in life:

• Clubs represent ideation. Those who dream, imagine, and visualize novelty are more likely to turn clouds of ideas into strategies of wealth. Setting goals is the first step to achieving them.

• Diamonds represent refinement. Those who utilize data, feedback, and systems tend to optimize what’s good into what’s great. Insights provide foresight for the future.

• Hearts represent relationships. Those who communicate effectively, bond genuinely, and connect with others reciprocally attract abundance and open doors to more opportunities.

• Spades represent hard work. Those who sacrifice short-term satisfactions for long-term gratifications are more likely receive awards and rewards due to their industriousness.

Jacks are traders. Queens are beautiful, virtuous institutions. Kings are dominant forces like government and military. Aces are the ones (bottom) of society who become revolutionary elevens (overthrowing royalty) when extremely oppressed. The rest of the numbers in a deck of cards make up the hierarchy of authority, competence, and power. Status, movement up and down, as well as choices are deeply embedded within the structure of cards. All the cards, plus one joker, add up to 365, the number of days in a year. Who advances and wins versus who comes up short and loses depends on how the game is played.

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also considers the four suits explained above. When building high-performance teams, the CIA calls these suits, “the four temperaments:”

• Foxes who naturally come up with creative ideas, novel strategies, and useful approaches

• Lions who innately prefer to set up systems by understanding data, insights, and quantifiable observations

• Bears who remain genetically predisposed to build relationships, cultivate rapport, and develop trust with others

• Cheetahs, who crave taking action, execute any given mission and complete tasks regardless of risks associated

As human beings, our strengths and our weaknesses are the same.

We have proclivities toward one-to-two of these temperaments. At least one of them is an unnatural, ongoing area of improvement. Which ones seem automatic to us and which ones seem like writing cursive with our off-hand: generating new ideas, setting up systems, building strong relationships, or working really hard?

What’s familiar tends to be easy.

What’s easy tends to be familiar.

What’s uneasy and unfamiliar tends to be untrained.

People who seem to have great ideas like Clubs & Foxes may struggle to care about objective measurements, which seem like candy and desserts to Diamonds & Lions. Spades & Cheetahs may work incessantly at the cost of zooming out to see the bigger picture like Clubs & Foxes or at the expense of losing important relationships, which remain prized possessions to Bears & Hearts. Our vision narrows in on our innate values.

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Different situations require different skill sets.

Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

Different courses for different horses, as we see.

When we are curious about the games we play and the people we meet, we give ourselves the best chance at connecting and winning; when we are furious about the games we play and the people we meet, we shun teamwork and we end up losing.

Call to action: Next time you are at a dinner table, inside a locker room, or on a Zoom meeting with family, teammates, or coworkers… strive to see their strengths, to call forth their best characteristics, and to applaud their abilities and talents. Provide words of encouragement and let them know that each individual Fox, Lion, Bear, & Cheetah matters.

We are not hermit crabs made to survive on our own, hidden inside shells of loneliness.

We are human beings made in the image of Christ, designed for connection and love.

Our high-performing teams have a high variety of temperaments; teamwork is how we win the game of life!