What is worth more – a team trophy or an individual trophy? After reading Goal.com’s article, “Trophies More Exciting than Individual Prizes,” I started thinking about just what 
those individual awards and medals mean to the people, and the families of the people, who receive them. Do you feel a greater sense of accomplishment from winning a trophy with your team or from a trophy presented to you as an individual? I’m not sure that I can agree with this article although I do understand that it was from a personal point of view.
Yes, it comes with a huge sense of accomplishment to win that big shiny trophy as a team, but shouldn’t there be an even bigger sense of accomplishment in knowing that you stand out from the crowd as an individual, and won these awards and medals on your own? Apparently it depends on the individual and whether or not you are truly a team player. For Argentine soccer star, Lionel Messi, winning individual awards simply doesn’t bring him the same kind of satisfaction as does winning team trophies alongside his peers.
Either trophy will look great in a trophy case or in a frame on your wall at home. But if you are totally honest with yourself, which ones do you find yourself looking at most often, the trophy you share with your teammates or the award you can say that you won all on your own for being the best that you could be?
The importance of working as a team can never be overemphasized in a bid to win achievement awards. To cite an example, recently, Maestro, a company that specializes in designing business technology tools such as mobile apps, desktop and online applications,won two silver awards. The awards were for the Best Advance in Unique Sales and Marketing Technology and the Best Advance in Performance Support Technology categories from the 2012 Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Awards.
A deeper understanding of the culture at Maestro shows that they work together as a team. Jen Randall, the President and Cofounder of Maestro, attributes their success to teamwork and says this made each of their projects possible.
We can all learn something from the culture at Maestro as we strive to attain individual and collective excellence in our field of endeavor. It makes no difference that you want to win achievement awards and medals in a professional capacity, whether it is do with your career, sports, or car shows or animal shows, just to name a few.
The main lesson here is that we need the assistance of others in order to attain excellence in our pursuits. Hence, coach and players need to work as teams, parents and their kids need to work as teams, and spouses need to work as teams, and even communities must work as teams in order to ensure that they achieve the type of success that is only attainable through teamwork.
Award, medals, trophies and anything that gives you a fine sense of accomplishment should be celebrated equally. All three of these signify a job well done. How can anyone choose which one makes them happier?