Teamwork is Beautiful
The San Antonio Spurs should not be in the NBA Finals. As far as ‘sports years’ go, which are akin to dog years, their star players are all old…so mid 30s. So why are they still competitive, much less battling for a championship? In my eyes it’s 100% because of their team first attitude.
You can put 5 talented players on a basketball court but that doesn’t make them a team. Just like you can put 5 employees in a room but that doesn’t make them a team either. So what does being a great teammate look like?
- Lead by Serving. If the lead employees and managers don’t have a team spirit then it will never work. And for the record team spirit doesn’t mean shoving the work off on the people who work for you either. It means stepping up to do stuff when you ‘shouldn’t have to’ because it needs to get done.
- Have a good attitude. This sounds easy, except when you get stuck with a role that you don’t like. Employees who are eager to serve their fellow teammates make the best teammates.
- Think ahead. What is something that you can do to help the next guy out? While you are in the system solving for your piece can you make some changes that will help your teammate out tomorrow?
- Compliment your teammates. I want to be the best team member I can be so when someone is better at a task than me my first reaction is to want to be better than them at it. I’ve found it’s very helpful to instead compliment them on their skill and learn from them.
- Don’t play mind games. If you want to succeed at work cut out manipulation, gossiping and playing one side against the other. Everyone is going to have good days and bad days and not everyone is going to be best friends but if goals can only be achieved together don’t disrupt your own team.
To be a great team and a great teammate takes time. If you have a teammate that doesn’t have a team attitude it certainly doesn’t make things easier. But no team success happens without a synergy. You can never achieve as much alone as you can being a part of a team. So be a good teammate, it’ll catch on.