Relations at the top

As mentioned, for the 1st time in my career I am in the board of a company. And it's been quite a learning experience.

Previously I had spend 8 years in a division of the company where the culture was outstanding. Although I have worked across different countries, the culture was pretty much 'work hard, play hard' but with a great sense of team and huge dynamics and speed.

In my new role in a new division I am appaled at the team spirit.
In the board, at least one of my colleagues is more concerned and focused on doing his internal work. On finding other peoples mistakes and exposing them or making his mistakes look like somebody else's... And he's getting away at doing a poor job at what he should really be doing, which is being the sales director.

I am struggling with this. I have been raised in a culture where the team comes first and you support everyone in the team. Together the team would overcome everything. Deal together with all the problems.
Now, I am finding that to survive in the current job, I need to just focus on doing my job so that it is unattackable and not go out of my way to support anyone, as this could backfire.

I can't expect any support from anyone in the board as we're all suspicious of each other and feel we can get stabbed by a colleague very easily.

I can see that this is the way to operate, if I want to survive. But in my mind, this isn't definitely the way to work, we'll never achieve outstanding results like this. We'll never do grand things like this.

I need to figure out a way to deal with this. I don't want to become a cynic like all the others. I want to believe you can work in a cooperative trusting way.