Welcome to the Youth Empowerment System (YES).

The Power of Teams

Teams have become most associated with athletic teams. The military uses teams (units) as the core of fighting forces. Business and industry has been moving strongly into the use of teams in the workplace. Power Habits are easier to acquire if you use teams. People can and do develop, grow, learn, work, play, suffer, succeed and have failures as individuals, as members of teams and as members of large group such as a school, a city or a nation. The problem in many of our communities is that many persons develop within no configuration. They don’t develop as individuals or belong to a development team or feel any connection to their neighborhood, city or nation. They are unconnected and unanchored moving with any dominant force blowing through. Often these forces are negative such as substance abuse, non-learning, crime, teen pregnancy, non-work, parental irresponsibility and shifting blame to others.

If communities are to be transformed, people must feel a sense of connectivity, a sense of belonging, a feeling that their actions affect the group, neighborhood, school and city. Communities cannot be transformed unless individuals decide that they must adopt habits that facilitate effective learning, work productivity and responsible citizenship. Individuals must “choose” to apply discipline and concentration to the arduous task associated with becoming an effective and competitive learning. They must choose to make learning and hard work “fun”. The must adopt the dominant values and principles that will guide their choices. They can do this best as members of teams even though there are many things that they must do as individuals to back up their actions as team members.

To transform communities, a wide range of people must be brought together. Only by organizing and utilizing the talent and “genius” of the many can cities hope to solve the many-faceted problems, plan detailed strategies, create the critical mass necessary for change and implement action plans with force and conviction. Teams are required because as groups they can outperform individuals working singly on similar issues. Teams are required when the tasks are difficult, when the action paths are unclear, when expeditious learning is necessary, when creativity is useful, when the process cut across agencies/programs, and when the implementation of the action strategies requires the cooperation of others.

Teams, Values and Principles

The transformation of communities will require the promotion and adoption of values and principles that will guide people as they choose their attitudes, behaviors and lifestyle. If communities are operating at minimal levels of efficiency, it is partly because the dominant values and principles of many individuals are counter-productive to optimal development of human potential. Changing from negative values/principles to positive ones is a very difficult process as the habits that people have adopted continue to drive them in the same paths. To change communities, a change in the dominant operable value system has to occur. A critical mass of people in the community has to come to consensus as to what the positive values should be and then help others in the community to adopt similar values. This is most effectively accomplished in teams that have undergone value clarification processes themselves.

Teams of Leaders

In the proposed concept, the focus is on organizing “leaders” into teams. The approach is taken that almost every person has leadership ability, although some have more obvious talents in this area than others. All people must see that they have a responsibility for helping to lead, for helping to bring about the transformational changes required in the targeted communities. This concept builds upon the view that the team is a circular structure with any team member in the circle having the lead of a particular tactic at a given time. Any strategy for transformation will have hundreds of tactical assignments with the lead on the diverse tactics being shared among the team members. Therefore everyone equally shares the responsibility of leadership. It is though the performance of leadership that leadership skills are honed and refined.

In the transformational communities, one of the principles that will be promoted is that all people are leaders and have a responsibility in the changing of the environment. If nothing else, all people must assume leadership within their family. Part of the reason for the fragile structure of many families in communities today is related to the fact that many parents have abdicated their responsibility to be positive parents and establish empowering home environments (home cultures) that predispose positive choices on the part of family members. In creating environments (cultures) of excellence and exceptional development of skills and talents, the concept that all people have a leadership role to play in their development. However, a critical mass of leaders will be especially trained to function as teams.

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