Teamwork. The concept of ‘teams’ has been around since the advent of team sports; there is painted evidence of teamwork in the cave of Lascaux in France dating back seventeen thousand years. Well, probably not so much a sport here as an exercise in survival: teams of sprinters are shown running after wild animals (and on some occasions, away from wild animals. Survival of the fittest wasn’t always just a cliché.) Organised athletics, with teams, dates back traditionally to 776 BCE, the first Olympic Games in Greece. Warfare, both ancient and modern, is a very much a team effort, and it is likely that the advent of team sports grew from the need to coordinate disparate groups of individuals and get them to work together to achieve a common goal.
That is probably the simplest definition of a team too: a group of individuals working together to achieve a common goal. Without a goal or a set of goals, a team is simply that – a group. A bunch, an uncoordinated crowd of individually skilled people. If you investigate ‘teams’, you’ll find that sociologists (the people who know you better than you know yourself) have decided that there are many different forms of team; from Action and Advisory teams to Project, Work, Sports, Executive and even, in this day and age of information and communication technology, Virtual teams. But there is a single, uniting aspect to all these like-minded groups: goals. It doesn’t end there, though – teams can be ‘interdependent’ or ‘independent’. Examples of these are easiest given through sport: a rugby team is interdependent – each player’s contribution to the game is vital during the match; a golf team is independent – each player’s contribution is vital to the final goal.
Anybody who has been in any corporate position over the past century or so will know that ‘teamwork’ became the watchword of success. From multinational companies to small neighbourhood start-ups, the concept of the effectiveness of teamwork became a driver of success. The “there is no ‘I’ in team” platitude is dealt out by every motivational speaker on the planet, and probably with good reason. When individual skillsets are coordinated and channelled, success is much easier to achieve.
At Waterfront Charters we are an interdependent team: the range of skills needed to provide a thrilling, safe, well run and accountable range of cruises is large. Steven Sondheim, the famed composer, once said that “Musicals are plays, but the last collaborator is your audience.” This is equally valid in the world of ocean cruises: without our guests, we would just be a group of vessels and individuals crewing them occasionally for no real purpose. The guests that board our catamarans, our speedboats, our twin-masted schooner and our sturdy double-decked Southern Cross become members of our team whilst they are with us. They participate in each experience, and we know that we have to provide nothing but the best to ensure that these adventures are thrilling, safe and memorable.
We thrive on teamwork and get behind each member of our staff – our team. Our team members are all skilled in their particular fields; from experienced and highly-trained skippers and their equally trained and enthusiastic crew to our land-based squad of administrators and frontline staff. Engineers and marketers; computer boffins and devoted management. We provide training and incentives; we celebrate the successes of our team members; we stand beside them when times are tough.
Take a cruise with Waterfront Charters, the top V&A Waterfront Cruise Company: feel what it is like to be in the safe hands of a team of dedicated professionals as you thrill to your choice of adventure – and remember, when you are aboard you are part of our team!
