Temwork multiplies your talent

By Dr John C Maxwell

Teamwork Truth

The Law of Significance, which says, “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.” If you want to do anything of value, teamwork is required. Teamwork not only allows a person to do what he couldn’t otherwise do; it also has a compounding effect on all he possesses—including talent. If you believe one person is a work of God (which I do), then a group of talented people committed to working together is a work of art. Whatever your vision or desire, teamwork makes the dream work.

1. Teamwork Divides the Effort and Multiplies the Effect

Would you like to get better results from less work? I think everyone would. That’s what teamwork provides. In his book Jesus on Leadership, C. Gene Wilkes describes why teamwork is superior to individual effort:

a) Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas, and energy than an individual possesses.
b) Teams maximize a leader’s potential and minimize her weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are more exposed in individuals.
c) Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal, thus devising several alternatives for each situation. Individual insight is seldom as broad and deep as a group’s when it takes on a problem.
d) Teams share the credit for victories and the blame for losses. This fosters genuine humility and authentic community. Individuals take credit and blame alone. This fosters pride and sometimes a sense of failure.
e) Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals connected to no one can change the goal without accountability.
f) Teams can simply do more than an individual.

It’s common sense that people working together can do more than an individual working alone. So why are some people reluctant to engage in teamwork? It can be difficult in the beginning. Teams don’t usually come together and develop on their own. They require leadership and cooperation. While that may be more work on the front end, the dividends it pays on the back end are tremendous and well worth the effort.

2. Talent Wins Games, but Teamwork Wins Championships

A sign in the New England Patriots’ locker room states, “Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.” Obviously the Patriot players understand this. Over a four-year period, they won the Super Bowl three times.

Teams that repeatedly win championships are models of teamwork. For more than two decades, the Boston Celtics dominated the NBA. Their team has won more championships than any other in NBA history, and at one point during the fifties and sixties, the Celtics won eight championships in a row. During their run, the Celtics never had a player lead the league in scoring. Red Auerbach, who coached the Celtics and then later moved to their front office, always emphasized teamwork. He asserted, “One person seeking glory doesn’t accomplish much; everything we’ve done has been the result of people working together to meet our common goals.”

It’s easy to see the fruit of teamwork in sports. But it is at least as important in business. Harold S. Geneen, who was director, president, and CEO of ITT for twenty years, observed, “The essence of leadership is the ability to inspire others to work together as a team—to stretch for a common objective.” If you want to perform at the highest possible level, you need to be part of a team.

3. Teamwork Is Not About You

The Harvard Business School recognizes a team as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. Getting those people to work together is sometimes a challenge. It requires good leadership. And the more talented the team members, the better the leadership that is needed. The true measure of team leadership is not getting people to work. Neither is it getting people to work hard. The true measure of a leader is getting people to work hard together!
I’ve studied exceptional team leaders and coaches. Here are what just a few say about getting people to work together:

PAUL “BEAR” BRYANT, legendary Alabama football coach: “In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity. Every player must put the team first ahead of personal glory.”

BUD WlLKINSON, author of The Book of Football Wisdom: “If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.”

Lou HOLTZ, coach of college football national championship teams: “The freedom to do your own thing ends when you have obligations and responsibilities. If you want to fail yourself—you can—but you cannot do your own thing if you have responsibilities to team members.”

MICHAEL JORDAN, most talented basketball player of all time and six-time world champion: “There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren’t willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”

All great teams are the result of their players making decisions based on what’s best for the rest. That’s true in sports, business, the military, and volunteer organizations. And it’s true at every level, from the part-time support person to the coach or CEO. The best leaders also put their team first. C. Gene Wilkes observes,

Team leaders genuinely believe that they do not have all the answers— so they do not insist on providing them. They believe they do not need to make all key decisions—so they do not do so. They believe they cannot succeed without the combined contributions of all the other members of the team to a common end—so they avoid any action that might constrain inputs or intimidate anyone on the team. Ego is not their predominant concern.

Highly talented teams possess players with strong egos. One secret of successful teamwork is converting individual ego into team confidence, individual sacrifice, and synergy. Pat Riley, NBA champion coach, says, “Teamwork requires that everyone’s efforts flow in a single direction. Feelings of significance happen when a team’s energy takes on a life of its own.”

4. Great Teams Create Community

All effective teams create an environment where relationships grow and teammates become connected to one another. To use a term that is currently popular, they create a sense of community. That environment of community is based on trust. Little can be accomplished without it.

On good teams, trust is a nonnegotiable. On winning teams, players extend trust to one another. Initially that is a risk because their trust can be violated and they can be hurt. At the same time that they are giving trust freely, they conduct themselves in such a way to earn trust from others. They hold themselves to a high standard. When everyone gives freely and bonds of trust develop and are tested over time, players begin to have faith in one another. They believe that the person next to them will act with consistency, keep commitments, maintain confidences, and support others. The stronger the sense of community becomes, the greater their potential to work together.

Developing a sense of community in a team does not mean there is no conflict. All teams experience disagreements. All relationships have tension. But you can work them out. My friend Bill Hybels, who leads a congregation of more than twenty thousand people, acknowledges this:

The popular concept of unity is a fantasy land where disagreements never surface and contrary opinions are never stated with force. Instead of unity, we use the word community. We say, “Let’s not pretend we never disagree. We’re dealing with the lives of 16,000 people [at the time]. The stakes are high. Let’s not have people hiding their concerns to protect a false notion of unity. Let’s face the disagreement and deal with it in a good way.”

The mark of community… is not the absence of conflict. It’s the presence of a reconciling spirit. I can have a rough-and-tumble leadership meeting with someone, but because we’re committed to the community, we can still leave, slapping each other on the back, saying, “I’m glad we’re still on the same team.” We know no one’s bailing out just because of a conflicting position.

When a team shares a strong sense of community, team members can resolve conflicts without dissolving relationships.

5. Adding Value to Others Adds Value to You

“My husband and I have a very happy marriage,” a woman bragged. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for me. And that’s the way we go through life—doing nothing for each other!” That kind of attitude is a certain road to disaster for any team—including a married couple.

Too often people join a team for their personal benefit. They want a supporting cast so that they can be the star. But that attitude hurts the team. When even the most talented person has a mind to serve, special things can happen. Former NBA great Magic Johnson paraphrased John E Kennedy when he stated, “Ask not what your teammates can do for you. Ask what you can do for your teammates.” That wasn’t just talk for Johnson. Over the course of his career with the Los Angeles Lakers, he started in every position during championship games to help his team.

U.S. president Woodrow Wilson asserted, “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and to impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” People who take advantage of others inevitably fail in business and relationships. If you desire to succeed, then live by these four simple words: add value to others. That philosophy will take you far.

TALENT + TEAMWORK = A TALENT-PLUS PERSON PUTTING THE TALENT-PLUS FORMULA INTO ACTION