The Genius Of Teamwork

Teamwork applies to every business today, because without it, we can't serve the big picture. A team is not just a group of individuals who work the same eight hour day at the same location. Rather, a "team" is a group of people who may not be equal in experience, talent or education, but are equal in their commitment to working together to achieve established goals for the good of the organization.

If individuals and companies are going to be successful, we can no longer look at our organizations as departments, divisions or branch offices. We must look at the bigger picture and resolve to work together in ways we may never have done before.

That means we need to cooperate with the competition as well. Think of all the mergers and acquisitions we have seen in the past few years. Your number one competitor today could be your partner tomorrow.

But teamwork doesn't happen by accident. It requires commitment and effort, a willingness to accept the uniqueness of others and an appreciation of diversity. We need to build teams in our companies the same way we build relationships with our friends and co-workers. With team building, we establish ourselves and our companies as reliable, both internally and externally. We then project the same image to our customers, our vendors, competitors and communities.

The beauty of teamwork is we get better results when we work as a team. We do it by respecting others, showing appreciation and remembering that by working together we will be a "genius".