Pictured above is my High School Football team from 1977 (Ledford Senior High School Panthers, Thomasville, NC). I know you are wondering which number I was. I am number 51 in the picture but #1 in the hearts of Panther fans (ha ha ha).
What a team we were. Some of us had been together for years. We went to football camp together, trained in the blistering heat of August and September, practiced and played hard, ran hard, tackled hard, challenged each other, and won and lost together. We had big dreams and high goals. We were champions, and we made each other better!
Every person in the picture above was a unique individual. Each possessed different skills, talent levels, drive, and determination, but we all rallied around one common goal: We wanted to win! Our coaches taught us that to win, we had to play together, and we understood that Together Everyone Achieved More (T.E.A.M.). Lots of things have changed, but this holds true: People are best built in teams.
Today’s world has elevated individualism to new heights, and our modern individualistic culture emphasizes attributes like uniqueness or difference; personal goals; independence, self-reliance, self-sufficiency; and privacy. These can be good qualities in measured expressions, but an individual will never reach his or her full potential by themselves. We need one another, and we need to be part of a team.
When people work together on a team, it requires each individual to practice collaboration and cooperation while working toward common goals founded on common values to produce extraordinary outcomes. The magic of this arrangement builds a team, but it also builds individuals. Trust is developed, respect is required, and caring for others and what others think becomes more important than getting your way. It’s a level of growth and maturity a person forfeits if he or she chooses to travel the road of unrestrained individualism. God created us to need one another, and when we work together, we are better.
Today, I look at my high school football team picture from 46 years ago, I can still see the young men we were; each name, each face, each memory etched on my mind. There was more than football happening on those fields, we were learning to discipline our individualism to become a team, and through the process, we made each other better because people are best built in teams.
At Doing Good at Work, we encourage and equip individuals, businesses, organizations, and non-profits to build people through teams. This starts by treating people well and moves to create work environments conducive to living and working well. When people are built in teams, it creates special teams that produce exceptional results.
“Build People in Teams” is a simple but powerful idea. I invite you to join others as a participant in the Doing Good at Work movement. Participants receive bi-monthly communications on the first and third Mondays and additional ideas about doing good in their community. They also have the opportunity to DO MORE GOOD by becoming a “Good Buddy.” If you know that people matter, click HERE to join the movement.
Building People and Teams,
Boomer
Dr. Boomer Brown, Ph.D., is the CEO of Doing Good at Work. Doing Good at Work is a 501(c)3 organization that functions like a business. We desire to “Make People Better” because we know better people make better businesses and better businesses make a better world. Learn more: https://doinggoodatwork.com/