The surveys have shown a dangerous phenomenon in relation to the victories of Arabs in the Olympic Games. With the exception of the bronze medal won by the Saudi team in equestrian showjumping, in the London Olympics in 2012, the approximate percentage of medals which were won by Arab countries did not include any that were won collectively by athletic teams.   Among the most famous Arab individual medal winners was the Algerian runner Toufik Makhloufi, the gold medal winner in the 1500m in 2012, and the Syrian heptathlete Ghada Shouaa, who was a gold medalist at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, in the United States in 1996. The Moroccan runner, Hicham El Guerrouj also won two gold medals in the 1500m and 5000m races at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Yet, an Arab team could not get beyond the second round in World Cup soccer.   Obtaining an individual medal requires a great deal of effort, dedication and creativity, but a winning sports team requires more cooperation, sacrifice and selflessness.   Our failure to work successfully as a team is not limited only to sport. While we excel in family economic projects, our production is weak in the collective business world. Family enterprises were responsible for more than 85% of the GDP in the non-oil Arab world, according to the news bulletin Emirates 24/7. Some of our successful companies are doing well simply because of the presence of a particular person at their helm or controlling the family.   This failure affects inter-Arab trade, as our countries prefer to deal with non-Arab countries, and in many cases, economist journalists have monitored that Arab manufactured goods are purchased through a third party of European traders.   Shifting to election laws, we find aversion on the part of the trade unions and student unions to the idea of proportional representation, and they give priority to the winner whether 51% of the seats vote or the entire union votes. Our university students are unable to resolve their differences through dialogue and discussion, and they absurdly resort to the use of violence on campus to solve more problems.   This case is not the best policy if whenever general elections are held there is support for the individual candidates but not for the party, which strengthens the tribal system. People vote according to the one-vote election system. When the electoral laws allow for a system of parties and lists of options, there are a countless number of lists making the process of winning for a small and effective group of parties nearly impossible. As a result, parliamentary governments (such as that of Iraq and Libya) have failed in the Arab world, while monarchies (such as Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia) are relatively stable and successful.   Following the results of the recent British elections, three of the unsuccessful party leaders resigned, paving the way for for people with new ideas to take their places and be successful in the next elections. In contrast, the leaders of our parties would rather die than resign or give opportunities to youthful leaders.   This is true, of course, for a number of Arab leaders: Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria since 1999, was re-elected in spite of the fact that the constitution had to be amended to allow him to serve another term, and the Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Saleh returned after submitting his resignation, using his loyalist military commanders to attempt to overthrow the regime. Then there is Mahmoud Abbas who has served as head of the Palestinian Authority for more than ten years, and, of course, the kings are leaders for life.   We have been blessed as Arab peoples with a common language and a socially coherent culture, to the envy of other regional groupings, and most Arab countries achieved independence at roughly the same time. A strong sense of nationalism emerged clearly during the “Arab Spring,” and we all watched the same television stations which helped to unify the differences in dialect and create a new, clear tone that everyone could understand.   If we have both language and culture as unifying factors, why are we still so very weak when it comes to joint work? What can be done, most effectively, to replace this individualism with the spirt of a single team?   There is no magic solution! We need to work at all levels to emphasize the importance of teamwork. We should celebrate the success of the team more than individual achievements, and create a culture in which team work is supported and encouraged. This effort is required of all levels, from top to bottom and vice versa, to accomplish a full societal change, if we truly want to build healthy communities based on integrative thinking and cooperation rather than a system based wholly on individual competitiveness.   Daoud Kuttab is the Director General of the Community Media Network and the founder of a number of television and radio stations in Palestine, Jordan and the Arab world.   *The Arabic  of this op-ed article appeared on May 23, 2015. The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily representative of AmmanNet.   Translated by Julia Norris