Stephen Friedman wrote an article in the February 27, 2008 National Post (I’m cleaning my bag and finding some old clippings) called A good team player needs to be selfish. This seems to fly in the face of the standard ‘there is no i in team’ convention. Here is the final paragraph:

At the heart of this issue is this: Selfishness has become an insult, a dirty word, in organizational life. But it is only really bad when the goals are solely power, control, greed or harming others. When we make righteous choices, odds are they are the right ones, even if they may look selfish to others. Teamwork is a great idea, but it should not be the be all and end all of organizational life and productivity. Just like using the oxygen mask in an airplane, sometimes you have to take care of yourself to be able to take care of others.

Job satisfaction and work-life balance are cited as places where it is okay to be selfish. Perceptions of selfishness are also present when acting as the bringer of change as QA people are often there to do. The message here is that it is okay to be perceived as such as long as your motives are not individual in nature.