So yea, it's a double post, late night on a Saturday. It's true, I live this stuff... and also true... I don't really do much socializing. Frankly that wears me out and wastes a ton of my money.

Anyhow, in 1999 I started playing everquest. looking back it was just about the worse MMO ever created, but at the time it was novel and epic in size, scale, and complexity.

Basically, you got to choose your class and race... troll deathknight, elf paladin, wood elf ranger, halfling rogue.

For the first few levels of advancement you could play by yourself, killing creatures that were equivalent in level to you, but after a while there was no way you could kill creatures fast enough or effectively enough to level or get any decent items and gear without grouping up with a friend or multiple friends.

So I was a wood elf ranger, which was just about the most worthless class in the game, but I did have one asset that I could sell to people for joining their group... Snare. Snare was really a simple concept... you see... every creature when it got low on health would run like hell away from you. If it ran too far away it would find friends and bring them back to you and if you're deep in a dungeon the last thing you want is a whole train of enemies raining in on you so snare was a spell that could slow down how fast creatures could move and therefore mitigate the ability for them to get away and get help.

So I had my place in a group... and i could do a little bit of damage (not as good as a rogue, wizard, mage or warrior, but decent damage with the right buffs equipment).

Anyhow, to round out a group you'd need someone big with a lot of armor and hit points to take the beatings of the creatures. Usually this was your warrior, paladin, or death knight. Then you'd need some crowd control or a monk so that you could fight one monster at a time. Then you might need a rogue to pick locks to get you into certain areas of a dungeon.

Anyhow, long after I had grasped the concept of grouping we found that there were actually places in the game that required 30-100 people all working together to defeat a boss-like creature... like nagafen the dragon or lady vox.

When fighting dragons they would breath an elemental cloud onto the group and so you needed to be able to put protective spells on everyone. Such that druids were capable of casting. Then you'd want to increase everyones hit points and armor using spells that clerics and shamans could cast. Then because the fights lasted so long you'd need more and more magical power to use so you'd have enchanters cast beneficial spells that would enhance the regeneration of your magical energies.

I grew to enjoy this teamwork and the comraderie that we had, but most of all I think that I came to understand the great fundamental thing that all cross functional teams need to understand...

Every member of the team has a specialty, a purpose, and special experience that brings a unique benefit to the team and it's our duty to respect everyone on the team and not only involve them but hear what they have to say (or sometimes even read what they're not saying) so that we can reap the benefits. It's often said that the sum is greater than the whole with the way this happens.

This is no different than sports like football either. Next time you go into work, try to picture your own specialty role and everyone elses specialty role and play to those areas of expertise in your daily work. Let your deep thinkers take on very complex problem solving tasks, let your socially adept take on the tough explanations to troubled business partners, and let your tinkerers and hackers jack around with the build system.