Are you a team player?

“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”

Babe Ruth

Would you rather be the best player, or on the best team? Is it about the collective results, or individual stats? Is it all about you, or what the team needs to accomplish? Do you play for the team, or do you play for yourself?

I’ve worked with and been a part of great teams where everyone was tightly focused on achieving the end goal. Teams where everyone played their individual parts to perfection. No matter how hard the work was it was fun and energizing. The team was stronger as a whole than any of the individual players. It it such a blessing to be part of a team that functions in this way.

I’ve also been on teams with individuals that were incredibly talented and smart, arguably far more so than the rest of the team members, but instead of playing for the team, they played for themselves. Those teams weren’t nearly as much fun, or as successful, as those where everyone was focused on playing together and achieving the end goal. There was no chemistry and while the results might have been acceptable on some levels, in many ways those teams underachieved.

I’ll take a team of people that play for each other, and for the team itself, over a team of individual rock stars focused on themselves every day of the week….