“A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” Ecclesiastes 4:12 NLT

No Truly Great Success Has Happened Without a Team.

If you disagree, show me an example. I bet, after having explored the greater details of that individual’s success, you and I will both agree that there was a team involved. 

The star athlete cannot win the championship without the support of a strong team and coach. The entrepreneur CEO poured her blood, sweat and tears to create the promising startup, but did not do it alone. She had a mastermind that she was a part of, powerful mentors and investors. Doctors have staff. Racing drivers have engineers, mechanics and pit crews. On a personal level, each of these successful people has support from an extended team: family and friends. Anyone that is truly successful has a team!

If we explore the greatest victories and achievements in world history, we will fail to find an example of someone who achieved such success without a team. Those who consistently generate extraordinary results have built high performance teams. We will explore many examples throughout these chapters.

To add to this, the greatest achievements in life were not individuals, but teams. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969, but it was a team of mathematicians and scientists that enabled the effort. It is important not to be caught up in the face of the achievement, the lead singer of the band. If you are going to be successful on your mission, it is critical that you embrace being a team member, even if you are not the lead singer. If you choose to be a part of a high performing team, you may find more success than you ever would by being the lead singer of the amateur band.

“I’’ Is The Limitation Of Success.

For now, my hope is for you first to acknowledge that individually, you will only get so far in life. As the cliche goes, if you want to go somewhere fast, do it alone. If you want to go far, do it with other people. This is a quite accurate description of individuality versus teamwork. Personally, I have witnessed the limitations of individualism in my own life. 

Taking the journey alone – in my career, investments, responsibilities – only brought me so far until I hit a plateau.

• I hit a ceiling as a manager in my company
• Our family finances stopped progressing for 5 years
• My level of fitness was simply “maintenance-mode” for 10 years
• I was simply surviving as a parent and trying to figure it out as a husband

At some point, after some reflection, I realized it was time to do something different. It was time to invite or develop a team to the key areas of my life. In other words, the individualism that got me to my current level of success would never take me to the levels I dreamed. So I made some changes to my approach.

• I engaged professional mentors and attended networking groups
• I invited a successful person into my life to give me advice on my finances
• I followed the fitness plan and habits of those more fit than me
• I selected people who have been there and done that as married parents of young children 

This is an ongoing journey. I am certainly not perfect in any of these areas, but I have progressed immensely. And that is the beauty of life, we strive towards perfection, knowing we will never quite get there. Certainly, our goal should be to become the absolute best version of ourselves possible. Why would you shoot for anything less?

As the quote at the top says, two people create more synergies than one person doing it all on her own. Even more effective is a 3-stranded cord. In other words, the more support from others the better. For many people, it is not natural to seek help or work with a team. 

This post is written to identify the significant impact of high-performing teams, share insights from the greatest successes of high performing teams and highlight the framework for you to take the next step in building your own high-performance team. 

Leaders Are Crucial.

We leaders have an incredible opportunity to impact the teams we support and those depending on the team’s success.

I have a friend who coaches kids baseball. He proudly told me about the joy he gets after each season when parents text him about the impact he had on their children. He is reminded that he never forgot his own childhood coaches and now, he plays the same role of an unforgettable positive influence in these young children’s lives. People can find immense meaning and purpose from leadership. 

These last 15 years, I have been getting the requisite life experience to write about this subject. I excelled in my career, managing multiple teams, led teams of church volunteers, coached kids sports and raised my own four children alongside my wife. The endless list of growing responsibilities was the training ground for where I want to go next, which is leading at a higher level.

Whatever Your Endeavor, You Need a Strong Team!

Whether you are a business owner, department lead, coach, minister, the framework for building high-performing teams is the same. Whatever your mission, you inevitably will rely on a team. Unfortunately, weak teams, even those with strong missions, do not yield the desired outcome. You need a strong team. 

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