Teamwork Examples and Lessons

 

Teamwork and highly functioning teams have always been at the top of my list of interests.  I do a lot of reading in this area always trying to learn more about what makes a team cohesive and successful.  I played competitive sports growing up and in college.  I also coached youth soccer for 18 years (rec and competitive).  On the career side of things, I started my own company, DecisionPoint, in the mid to late 90’s.  I have always felt that teamwork was a large contributor to success and achieving your goals.  No one does it alone, so you must learn to work well with other people to have the best chance of moving in the right direction.  I can’t say that I handle every situation well or have been the best teammate at times.  However, I try to approach things with compassion and am willing to admit my mistakes and try to do better next time.  At the end of the day, that’s all you can do.

You can find a lot of books to read on teamwork that were written by current and former sports coaches.  My favorites are books that were written by John Wooden.  I’ve tried to leverage some of his ideas and philosophy.  Another great resource for teamwork information is books written by members of the military about situations that they and their teammates faced, how they handled it, etc.  In particular, I find books written by special operations military personnel the most helpful.  Their teams are often in desperate or intense situations that require an optimally functioning team that are life or death.  My favorite military books are the ones that are based on a true story around a desperate situation.

One of my favorite books, which is also a movie is "Black Hawk Down". The storyline involves a seemingly easy situation that goes from bad to worse quickly. What was supposed to be a simple capture of a military leader in Somalia turns into a disaster after a series of unfortunate events. What I find most interesting throughout the book/movie is the dedication and commitment that each member of the armed forces has to other members…even ones that are not on their immediate team. There is dedication to helping each other in some pretty dire circumstances.

In the book/movie, no matter how bad the situation got, each member of the military wanted to go back out to make sure that everyone got back to the military base safely. Unfortunately, many men didn't make it. However, there were some remarkable events and feats of heroism throughout the book/movie all in the cause of supporting a teammate. That is the ultimate commitment to teamwork.

One of my favorite characters in the movie is a character named "Hoot". He is a Delta Force operator with a go anywhere, do anything attitude no matter the personal cost.  He is completely fearless, dedicated to his job, and has a very subdued attitude about death (i.e. shit happens). Near the end of the movie, he's getting ready to go back out to save more men when he runs into someone else while eating quickly. His line goes somewhat like this: "When I go back home and people asks me 'Hoot, why do you do it? Are you some kind of war junkie?' I ain't gonna say a god damn thing. They won't understand. They won't understand that it's about the man beside you, and that's all it is..." He then leaves to go back out and find/save more men.

This hits me every time I watch the movie because it represents commitment to teamwork and team members even with the risk of death staring them in the face. When I reflect on changes to existing teams or newly forming teams, trying to figure out the best way to make the team cohesive is critical.  You're all working together to achieve something, and for the most part, all you have is each other. It's about the goals of the team, and the people working beside you and that's all it is. If your team is not cohesive and dedicated to each member’s success and collaboration, the team falls apart.  Sadly, it only takes one “rogue” teammate to destroy the chemistry.  Hopefully, the team can work with that teammate to be a better fit within the team.

This leads me to think about the most challenging aspect of teamwork…people. There are a lot of challenges finding the right people for the team.  When you do find them, setting appropriate teamwork expectations becomes critical. A hiring mistake on a team can be catastrophic if there's not a good fit with the team in addition to the skills the person brings with them.  Too often, there is a focus on skills and not fit within the team, and it leads to a lot of hires that end up disrupting the working relationship on the team.

Throughout my career, I’ve learned a lot about myself when it comes to people and the teams I have been part of over the years.  My first lesson had to do with mistakes that I made in my expectations of myself and others that came into a team. As someone who is a high achiever with a lot of drive, I am a very passionate person about what the team is trying to accomplish. I work many long hours because I enjoy it and I am passionate about what we’re trying to do. For my entire career, I have been a driven individual who is able to accomplish some pretty amazing feats regardless of the odds. I am an adrenaline junkie (working on that). The more stressful and exciting the situation, the harder I work to deal with it. I have won some fantastic awards as a result of the drive and energy.

There is a downside to this. I’ve had several instances where I ended up in the emergency room for lack of sleep, general fatigue, chest pains, and a body on the verge of physical collapse induced by high levels of stress. I would say that I am far more balanced today, but like any addiction, I always need to be careful about over doing it. If I'm not careful, the next stop at the emergency room is right around the corner. More importantly is that I sometimes transfer my expectations of myself, and attempt to measure other people the way I measure myself.

This is a key mistake on my part that I continue to work on. As seen above, I could barely keep up with my own expectations. How could I possibly expect others to live up to those same expectations? The bottom line is that those expectations were unreasonable not only for me, but also for the people I worked with. Those expectations did cause a lot of chaos and conflict when I was working with other individuals on the team. People who had a more balanced approach to work didn't have the drive or stamina that I had, and it was frustrating to me when they were unable to step up the way I would. My lesson here is balance, both with myself and with others... I am such an adrenaline junkie that I honestly believe that some people on my teams think I am truly nuts.

The other part of this is that the highs can be really high and the lows can be really low. I willingly let myself ride the roller coaster of every success and failure, and there were many of both. For me, trying to get off the roller coaster and get more balanced felt like getting off to get on one of the kiddie rides at an amusement park. Just not something I was interested in. With the chance to reflect on things can I honestly see how destructive this was on my own physical and emotional health, and more importantly, the impact it had on the teams I have been part of.

When it comes to other people, I still struggle with my expectations of people I work with. Especially in larger organizations where things move a lot slower than they did at the other jobs I’ve had. I haven't found the right answer to what is appropriate to expect of others. Part of it has to do with setting proper expectations with individuals up front about how the team works and how they fit in with the team. The other part of it has to do with ongoing expectation setting and communication so that if something changes with the team, appropriate adjustments can be made. Ongoing expectations are often the place where teams and organizations fall down.  The only way teams and organizations stay cohesive is to be aware of what is changing and the adjustments that need to be made as the changes happen.

It's important that regular communication happen so that people always know where they stand, and what's expected of them. There may be situations where you feel a teammate is not meeting your expectations. In those cases, it's best to ask yourself "have I clearly communicated my expectations, along with any adjustments in those expectations I make?" In many cases, you'll find the teammate isn't meeting your expectations because you failed to communicate the expectations to them effectively. I have had many situations where I've done this well, and many where I have not done it so well. Where I have not done it so well, it was usually the case that the individual would have been more successful if I had communicated my expectations more clearly. That’s a tough situation to put a teammate in.

As far as effective communication of expectations. It's vital that you have regular voice to voice communications with people to make sure they know where they stand. The communication should not be electronic, such as email or text messages. Too many misunderstandings happen with that type of communication. It needs to be voice to voice where questions can be addressed and confusion cleared up. This is especially true in today's world where teenagers and young adults are used to using their cell phone more often for text messages than for voice to voice calls.