It amazes me how often we throw around the word “team.” Some people think that just because you’ve formed a group, you’ve formed a team. In sports, our teammates are often others who were selected from a pool of players, but the moment we show up, and are handed a jersey, we are labeled a team. Are we really a team? Go to work for a company, and often it’s one of the first things we will hear: “Welcome to the team!” Our teammates might simply be strangers with cubicles near ours, but based on proximity, and perhaps job assignment, they magically become our teammate. Does that make us a team?
I’ve always felt there was more to it than that. I loved playing on teams, and when I was twenty-one, I coached my first team. It was an awkward group of seventh graders from Sligo Junior High School, in Maryland. They learned a lot from me, and I learned a lot from them. The players played for themselves, and I coached for myself. All I wanted to do was win, so I could show these parents what a great coach their kids had. We lost our first game, and then our second, and our third, and our fourth. The parents were frustrated with their young coach, and their young coach was frustrated with himself.
I decided to take them all out to dinner and talk about our predicament. For the first time, the players actually socialized with each other, smiled, laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company. We never talked about our predicament; we just started to care about each other. We won our next ten games in a row.
Over the next thirty-two years, I went on to coach fifty-two more teams. I never held a first practice without a dinner together, and we usually added multiple social events throughout the season. The players cared about each other, and the wins seemed to just keep coming. My theory has always been a simple one: If people, who are brought together to complete a task, care more about the success of the team than they do about their own personal successes, the team overachieves. Always.
Recently, I saw my theory play itself out again, only this time I wasn’t coaching; I was competing. My University of Maryland dormitory, Garrett Hall, decided to reunite and enter a race together. It was a 200-mile, twelve person relay race from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to Washington, D.C.
Forget the fact that no one on the team was under fifty-four years old, and half the runners (including myself) hadn’t run for decades, we made a commitment and saw that commitment through. One of the requirements was we had to provide an accurate reading of how fast each of us could run six miles. In this race, each of us was responsible for running about three times that distance, over a thirty-three-hour period of time.
Master's Division Winners Garrett Hall Terps
What happened was astonishing. Oddly enough, there wasn’t a single person on the team who did not exceed every expectation they had set for themselves, and break every record they had set in practice. Every single person! Surely that must have been some sort of anomaly? I say no. In fact, I think in hindsight, it was actually predictable.
During my senior year in college, I lived with an extraordinary group of people. We took trips together, laughed together, cried together, and most importantly, cared about each other. Even though we each individually had to train to get ready for this race, there was a shift when we saw each other and began to operate as a team. When we met to run this relay race and we broke into two vans, we were no longer running for ourselves; we were running for each other. When we handed the baton from one to another, we realized that we were a team.
The experience once again reminded me of the remarkable feats a true team can accomplish. Being called a “team” is not a phrase that should be taken lightly, or merely used to describe a group of individuals thrown together by circumstance. It takes work. Strangely enough, it takes work that usually has nothing to do with the actual task the team must undertake. When people truly care about each other, they become a team. A real team can motivate teammates to do great things. That’s because the success they seek is no longer for themselves; it’s for those around them.
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Very inspiring.
Rocket, congrats on the race and thanks for the story. You shared tremendous wisdom in your closing sentences. A lesson for everyone.
“A real team can motivate teammates to do great things.That’s because the success they seek is no longer for themselves; it’s for those around them.”
Makes sense to me.
Very inspirational! I want to add an ingrediant to the concept of team…Passion. (Rob’s middle name!) Passion might be inherent when coaching a sports team or an organization of true volunteers. When someone signs up to play or to volunteer, they probably like, and most likely love, whatever they signed on for. When it comes to the office, it’s not so easy to create passion. There are a lot of potential teammates that have only signed on to do their job and collect their pay-check. This goes back to putting the right people in the right seats on the bus. As you say Rob, the real work of creating a team starts first with putting the right people in the right seats on the bus… As always Rob, thanks for the inspiration and always making us think!
Great article! What more can I say, keep up the good work!
Love it, Rob! I also agree completely about that extraordinary group of people!
Great article Rob! So much more can be accomplished when a group of people gain from the synergistic effect of becoming a team.
Loved this one! Another great BLArticle.
Rob, this is such a terrific article! Congrats on all your years of coaching teams, inspiring people to unite and work towards a common goal. I remember the Red Sox falling apart a couple seasons ago….and one of the main reasons cited was that many didn’t like each other. There wasn’t any teamwork….and the results were disastrous.
Thanks again for sharing the article!
Way to go Coach! : ) You always make a positive difference in our world.
Nice article Rob. The foundation of a successful team is trust, something we Garett Hallers built a long time ago. We “played” to each other’s strengths, with the stronger, more seasoned runners volunteering for the more difficult legs or jumping in to take on additional legs when we went down in numbers. Each team member was committed to the end goal of finishing the race and nothing got in their way….not blisters, heel or knee pain. It just goes to show what a group of individuals can accomplish together!
The anecdote about how your team started winning when you took them out to dinner, was a very inspiring one. I’m going to share this one on Facebook.
Wonderful! I love how you talk about connection. I feel that we are always stronger when we work together.
Karma has been a recognized universal truth for centuries.
Team is a child of the parent Karma.
The sum of all working and caring for the team together,
will always surpass one working for themselves.