We trained hard. But it seems that every time we were beginning to form into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn, later in life, that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing. And what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
- Petronius Arbiter 210 BC

Michael, if you can't pass, you can't play.
- Coach Dean Smith to Michael Jordan in his freshman year at UNC

Conflict is inevitable in a team ... in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict.
- Susan Gerke

To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like saying, "Your end of the boat is sinking."
- Hugh Downs

Three things I'd say to a team to help hold them together:
If anything goes bad, I did it.
If anything goes semi-good, then we did it.
If anything goes real good, then you did it.
- Paul "Bear" Bryant

The vehicle of accomplishment is fueled by teamwork.

Team learning is the Process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members desire. It builds on the discipline of developing a shared vision. It also builds on personal mastery, for talented teams are made up of talented individuals.
- Peter Senge

Individuals score points, but teams win games.
- Zig Ziglar

Strength is derived from unity. The range of our collective vision is far greater when individual insights become one.

Teamwork doesn't mean everyone runs to left field when the ball is hit there.

Fourteen Impact Factors of Self-Directed Work Teams:

1. Self-Interest
2. Belief in the team's vision
3. Presence of leadership
4. Common values
5. Support and cooperation
6. Duty and responsibility
7. Challenge and opportunity
8. Shared goals
9. New member integration
10. Non-judgemental attitude
11. Motivational atmosphere
12. Global perspective
13. Authenticity
14. Recognition

A demanding performance challenge tends to create a Team. In any situation requiring a combination of multiple skills, experiences and judgments, a team inevitably gets better results than a collection of individuals. Teams provide the kind of responsiveness, speed, on-line customization and quality that is beyond the reach of individual performance.
- Katzenbach/ Smith

Very often management doesn't know what they want teams to do in the first place. Various executives may have done some easy reading on empowerment and since they want to downsize anyway, see teams as the natural vehicle.
- Training Magazine

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to obtain uncommon results.

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.
- Vesta M. Kelly

The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.
- Vince Lombardi

A big part of succeeding is teaming. That's why I establish filters for who I work with. That's not arrogance. It's confidence.
- Larry Smith

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Whenever ideas are shared, the result is always greater than the sum of the parts.
- Rich Willis

Teams, not individuals, are the fundamental learning unit in modern organizations. This is where the "rubber stamp meets the road"; unless teams can learn, the organization cannot learn.
- Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Most potential teams can become real teams, but not without taking risks involving conflict, trust, interdependence, and hard work. For example, a common team purpose, set of performance goals, and approach rarely arise without conflict. Indeed, quite the contrary -- the most successful teams recognize their members' conflicting views and experiences as a source of strength. Similarly, mutual accountability requires trust and interdependence, which usually do not grow without risk taking. And, finally, most potential teams include members who must develop the skills needed by the team after they have joined the team itself. This, too, implies risks and hard work for everyone on the team.
- "The Wisdom Of Teams," by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

Teams in the American workplace

60% prefer to work in teams
66% of women prefer teamwork
54% of men prefer teamwork
Adult workers spend 61% of time working in teams
90% have exposure to teams, 50% receive team training
72% say that working in teams makes the job less stressful
67% say it makes them feel better about their jobs
66% say it improves quality, productivity and profitability

What makes teams successful?
33% - getting along
29% - listening
21% - setting priorities
6% - feeling recognized
6% - having everyone agree
4% - deciding who's in charge

- from Teamwork in the American Workplace, Dale Carnegie & Associates (Training and Development, January, 1996 - Pp. 15 – 16)

Group desire is different than individual desire. With individual desire, it's up to you to feed the fire. With group desire, you get all kinds of people rolling logs on from every direction.
- Vince Pfaff

Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
- Henry Ford

The era of the rugged individual is giving way to the era of the team player.

Everyone is needed, but no one is necessary.
- Bruce Coslet, Coach, Bengals

E Pluribus Unum - From many, One

Houston, we have a problem.
- James Lovell

We must all hang together,
or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
- Benjamin Franklin

If I could solve all the problems myself, I would.
- Thomas Edison, when asked why he had a team of twenty-one assistants

Just because we are all equal does not mean we are all the same.

The ratio of We's to I's is the best indicator of the development of a team.
- Lewis B. Ergen

What we want is performance...
What we ask for is teams...
What we get is confusion!
What we want is performance...
What we should ask for is performance...
What we will get is performance!

Synergy is the highest activity of life; it creates new untapped alternatives; it values and exploits the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people.
- Stephen Covey

The key elements in the art of working together are how to deal with change, how to deal with conflict, and how to reach our potential...the needs of the team are best met when we meet the needs of individuals persons.
- Max DePree

A championship team is a team of champions.

Do you want a collection of brilliant minds or a brilliant collection of minds?
- R. Meredith Belbin

The path to greatness is along with others.
- Baltasar Gracion, Spanish Priest

Teamwork: Simply stated, it is less me and more we.

Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Teams share the burden and divide the grief.
- Doug Smith

Teams are successful when they are focused, have a short cycle time, and are supported by the executives.
- Tom Bouchard

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

The strength of the team is each individual member...the strength of each member is the team.
- Coach Phil Jackson - Chicago Bulls

A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of the others.
- Norman Shidle

You will be most effective when members can compliment each other without embarrassment and disagree without fear.

Effective teamwork will not take the place of knowing how to do the job or how to manage the work. Poor teamwork, however, can prevent effective final performance. And it can also prevent team members from gaining satisfaction in being a member of a team and the organization.
- Robert F. Bales

Teamplayer: One who unites others toward a shared destiny through sharing information and ideas, empowering others and developing trust.
- Dennis Kinlaw

Wearing the same shirts doesn't make you a team
- Buchholz and Roth

Synergism is the simultaneous actions of separate entities which together have greater total effect than the sum of their individual effects.
- Buchholz and Roth

The goal is not to have a team, but to increase productivity and employee satisfaction.

Members of groups that do not meet regularly usually do not feel a strong sense of belonging and do not take ownership for the success of the group.

Gettin' good players is easy. Gettin' 'em to play together is the hard part.
- Casey Stengel

The same dynamics that promote performance also support learning and behavioral change.
- Katzenbach & Smith

Overcoming barriers to performance is how groups become teams.
- Katzenbach & Smith

Teamwork represents a set of values that encourage behaviors such as listening and constructively responding to points of view expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, providing support to those who need it, and recognizing the interests and achievements of others.
- Katzenbach & Smith

Fun is only real and sustainable if it feeds off the team's purpose and performance aspirations.
- Katzenbach & Smith

Real teams don't emerge unless individuals on them take risks involving conflict, trust, interdependence and hard work.
- Katzenbach & Smith

Teamwork is the quintessential contradiction of a society grounded in individual achievement.
- Marvin Weisbord

Team members who feel threatened but who are not aware of it become rigid -- and that stops teamwork.
- Will Schutz

A team is more than a collection of people. It is a process of give and take.
- Barbara Glacel & Emile Robert Jr.

Synergy -- the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously.
- Mark Twain

Teamwork is the lynchpin in our long term success.
- Ned Lautenbach

Teams are the means, not the end.

Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.
- Michael Jordan

None of us is as smart as all of us.
- Ken Blanchard

When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.
- Joe Paterno

A self-reinforcing upward spiral: performance stimulating pride stimulating performance.
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Without forgiveness, there can be no real freedom to act within a group.
- Max DePree

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

If two people agree, one of them is unnecessary.

Work and self-worth are the two factors in pride that interact with each other and that tend to increase the strong sense of pride found in superior work teams. When people do something of obvious worth, they feel a strong sense of personal worth.
- Dennis Kinlaw

Working together works.
- Dr. Rob Gilbert

Either we're pulling together or we're pulling apart.

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

Coming together is a beginning
Staying together is progress
Working together is success
- Henry Ford

Teamwork is working together -- even when apart.

A job worth doing is worth doing together.

Coming together, sharing together, working together, succeeding together.

A successful team beats with one heart.

Teamwork divides the task and doubles the success.

No one can whistle a symphony. It takes an orchestra to play it.
- H.E. Luccock

Shared value is the unifying force of a team.

Teams are not ends in themselves; they are a means by which to achieve other organizational goals.
- Richard Wellins, William Byham, Jeanne Wilson

Teamwork doesn't tolerate the inconvenience of distance.

Effective teamwork is all about making a good, well-balanced salad - not whipping individuals into a single batch of V8.
- Sandra Richardson, OD Consultant

To be a Most Valuable Player (MVP) on a team, you must have a Mission, a Vision, and a Passion.

Douglas McGregor's list of the unique characteristics of an effective management team:
1. Understanding, mutual agreement, and identification with respect to the primary task
2. Open communications
3. Mutual trust
4. Mutual support
5. Management of human differences leading to group synergy
6. Selective use of the team
7. Appropriate member skills
8. Leadership: Managing and integrating the other 7 characteristics

Men have never been individually self-sufficient.
- Reinhold Niebuhr

SYMBIOSIS: Beneficial relationships can develop between very dissimilar things. Example: Lichen (pronounced "liken") is actually a symbiotic community made up of fungus and algae which, in many environments, could not exist by themselves, but together are able to flourish. Very often, the blending of different (sometimes even opposing) ideas can result in very creative solutions. There is strength in diversity.

TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More

Good TEAMWORK is based on:

CLEAR GOALS & PRIORITIES
- which lead to:
CLEAR ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
- which lead to:
CLEAR PROCEDURES & PROCESSES
- which lead to:
GOOD INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Wild ducks make a lot of noise, but they also have the sense to benefit from occasionally flying in formation.

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.

Teamwork is the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives.

A farmer who had a quarrelsome family called his sons and told them to lay a bunch of sticks before him. Then, after laying the sticks parallel to one another and binding them, he challenged his sons, one after one, to pick up the bundle and break it. They all tried, but in vain. Then, untying the bundle, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease. Then said the father, "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for anything, but differ and separate, and you are undone."
- Aesop

A successful team is a group of many hands but of one mind.

Skeptics on the new "team" work ethics will say:
TEAMWORK: another management fad that attempts to get employees to do more work without paying them for it
TEAM LEADER: the boss
TEAM MEMBERS: the people who carry out the boss's orders
EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT/EMPOWERMENT: a technique that creates the illusion that management really cares about what I think
PARTICIPATIVE MANAGEMENT: an opportunity to agree with what management has already decided
Be prepared for the SKEPTICS!!

It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit.

There is no "I" in "TEAMWORK".

Lucy to Linus (who is contentedly watching a TV show): "Change the channel!"
Linus: "Do what?"
Lucy: "CHANGE THE CHANNEL!!"
Linus: "What makes you think I should just respond like that?"
Lucy: (showing her hand) "You see this? These are just 5 little weak fingers. But when they are rolled together into something called a fist they become a weapon that is formidable to behold."
Linus: (after contemplating Lucy's fist, changing the channel and then looking at his own little fingers) "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"
When people come together for whatever reason the question that often surfaces as people try to work together is "Why can't we get organized together? Why can't we become something which although weak independently, becomes formidably strong when it's put together?"

Most teams aren't teams at all but merely collections of individual relationships with the boss. Each individual vying with the others for power, prestige and position."
- Douglas McGregor

Example of Synergy: Blue circle overlapping with Yellow circle. The Green represents synergy. (Something new, but made up of the old)

As a team leader, create teams who: Care, Cooperate & are Committed.

Organization teams thrive on four types of team players: Contributors, Collaborators, Communicators, Challengers

I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity... to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that.
- Paul McCartney

TAKE FIVE LESSONS FROM THE GEESE AND WILD DUCKS:
(For a slide presentation of the following, click here)

1. As each goose flaps its wings, it creates a "uplift" for the birds following. By flying in a "V" formation the whole flock adds 71% more flying range than if each bird flew alone.
LESSON: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.
2. Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the birds immediately in front.
LESSON: If we have as much sense as a goose, we will join formation with those who are headed where we want to go.
3. When a lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into formation and another goose flies at the point position.
LESSON: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership - with people, as with geese interdependent with one another.
4. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. LESSON: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging - not something less helpful.
5. When a goose get sick, wounded or shot, two geese drop out of formation and follow their fellow member, to help and provide protection. They stay with this member of the flock until he or she either is able to fly again or dies. Then they launch out on their own, with another formation, or to catch up with their own flock.
LESSON: If we have as much sense as the geese, we'll stand by one another like they do.

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.
- Althea Gibson

Ultimately the team must serve the needs of the individual.

When pulling a sled, unless you are the lead dog, all of the scenery looks the same.

We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
- Benjamin Franklin


End of Quotes on "Teamwork"

12/10/2008

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