The Team Effect: How Collaboration Can Supercharge Your Goals

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." - Henry Ford

Teaming with Success

Is teamwork the root of success and goal fulfillment? I recently listened to an Adam Grant podcast, and it got me thinking about how much teamwork has to do with achieving our goals. Grant interviewed members of the 1980 US Men’s Olympic team who delivered the Miracle on Ice gold medal game victory. This deep dive into a team that had its greatest achievement 44 years ago was absolutely fascinating, and so relevant today.

The podcast’s focus was on how to design successful teams, while unpacking what truly successful teams have that other teams don’t. There are so many different parts and pieces that go into a team: talent, timing, coaching, collaboration, familiarity, and more. Together, this package of people creates a performance, sometimes good, sometimes mediocre, and sometimes breathtaking.

While I don’t want to spoil a great podcast, I do want to highlight that teams are what help drive a higher level of success because you have people to fill the gaps. No one person is perfect, but a group of people together can find perfection by leveraging and leaning on each other’s strengths. They also create accountability.

The Lone Wolf

I’m sure many would counter the above points with individual performers that find success without teams. While this might seem true, it’s likely not. Top performers surround themselves with a team, whether they call it that or an entourage or something else. There are many examples out there to call upon. The Powers of Two is one particularly deep dive into creative genius and the dependence of the celebrity innovator on their lesser-known creative partner. Researched, well written, and thought-provoking, it digs into the Steves – Jobs and Wozniak, the Curies – Marie and Pierre, the Beatles – Lennon and McCartney, and many more. These pairs were teams, and many of them stretched beyond two, relying on a core group that accelerated and amplified their historic impact.

Another great example is found in Open , Andre Agassi’s autobiography. I didn’t count while reading, and I haven’t been able to find a source that did, but Agassi had to have talked about his “team” about a 1000+ times throughout the book. I found this especially poignant because he was so typecast as an individual performer renowned for his “image is everything ” Canon campaign. While Agassi was seen performing individually, he always had his team close by, he understood the importance of them, and he recognized the role they played in driving his success.

What is the meaning of this?

In my last article , I talked about getting started on 2025 goal planning now. As I continue thinking about how to make next year great by capitalizing on the time left in 2024, I want to highlight some of the things that leave us disappointed when goals don’t pan out.

A lack of a team is part of why goals fail. Having a team delivers accountability. It carries with it inspiration. The people on your team – if you’ve designed a team with the end in mind – fill the gaps to accelerate shared success, just like the Miracle on Ice team did in the 1980 Olympics. Find people you trust. Find people that are willing to push back and push you. Find people that multiply your energy, believing in your vision and telling you it can be done. Find people that will say, "that won’t work" but immediately follow that with, "I have five other ways that it can."

How to assemble a team

This is a tough one, and may take another article to unpack, but I’ll start with my own team. I didn’t consciously create one. It fell together over time through following my gut. At the start of my MBA, I was working with a peer mentor that talked about working with a coach. I’d never worked with a coach but had wanted to for years. She made the introduction, and we started working together. That was three years ago.

At the same time, that peer mentor floated the idea of connecting with another classmate to create a peer mentoring group (aka, TEAM). The three of us have been meeting on a weekly basis now for over three years.

Not long after I was released back to the wilds of professional life, one of my friends went through a similar albeit different workplace separation. We’ve been meeting weekly for a few years now and exploring the next chapters of who we are.

Where can we go from here?

I honestly believe that having a core team is the best way to achieve goals, and that the best way to set goals is by thinking of them as a journey instead of a point in time (aka, stopping point).

In my next article, I’ll dig deeper into team design and goal setting to continue capturing momentum now and funneling it into making 2025 the best year yet.

Thank you, as always, for reading this far. If you did read this far, please consider recommending this newsletter to someone you think would appreciate it like you do.

Thanks again and Happy Halloween!

Gerry