Teamwork – My next Frontier in Leadership Development

Every day, in some ways, we are part of a team. In home, my wife and I are a team. In my social circle, my friends and I are a team. In school, my teachers and I are a team. Often, I hear my fellow colleagues asking the question “Will we participate in “that” activity (that involves others)?” To me, the more important question should be “Will my participation with others be successful?”

Everyone agrees that teamwork is a good thing – in fact, the phrase “a good team player” appears constantly as a desirable behavior. But I wonder how does teamwork really work? What makes a winning team? Why do some teams succeed, while others seem to go nowhere? I suppose these questions do not have simple answers. If they did, many of the great teams in sports would have more back to back championships, and list of successful companies would remain unchanged year after year.

A friend of mine pointed to the strong work ethic of the teachers in his school as one of the key to successful teamwork. But I believe that teachers in all schools are as hardworking and yet they never worked together to achieve the potential – the sum of the whole did not exceed the mere sum of individuals. Then I think of chemistry, like what one of my colleagues described about the Secondary 4 Cohort Dean team during last Thursday’s cohort dean meeting. But I myself who was part of that team could not explain how the chemistry was created – only that we knew it when we saw it.

I desire to grasp the key concepts about team building, to internalize it and putting it into practice in my new leadership role. I want to unpack the key elements about effective team building with the goal of applying it to accomplish my tasks (my life tasks, social tasks, school tasks) with my teams (at home, in my social circle and in school).

It is with this intent that I read John Maxwell’s “The 17 Indisputable laws of teamwork”. Is there any other recommendations of readings? I will also attempt to apply these laws of teamwork and evaluate how these laws will impact my teamwork skills (areas of improvement and recognize its effectiveness or discover an area of weakness that I did not know I had) and how these laws affect the success of the teams (at home, in my social circle and in school). In the end, I will select among these laws and personalize it!