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Team Building – Audio

Hi, I’m AJ, welcome to this months’ VIP lesson. Our topic this month Team Building. Building a team, building a strong team, building an effective team, building a winning team.

The first question is, why?

Why do we need teams? What are the advantages of building a team, an effective team, a successful team?

Now we all, of course, want individual success, individual accomplishments. You have accomplished things individually in your life and I’m sure you felt proud, you felt great when you succeeded individually. I also have had individual successes. For example, I completed two marathons, two marathon races and each of those were individual accomplishments. I ran those races with other people, but they were not on my team. I had no help. It was just me running those 26 miles and so that was an individual accomplishment each time.

There’s nothing wrong with that we need that, we need individual skills. We need individual success and accomplishments. And, in fact, the more effective we are as individuals, the more we can contribute to teams. But why teams? Well, first of all, you know, as individuals we are limited. We can accomplish a great amount as individuals, but still we are more limited when we do things alone. With the team you can accomplish more. We see this in business, for example.

Now an individual businessperson, I mean, like myself can accomplish a certain amount. You can make a certain amount of money as an individual. You can accomplish a certain amount of work, have a certain amount of success in business as an individual. But, you are always limited as an individual. To really have huge massive success in business you must build a company, a team or several teams within a company. The most successful business people, the richest ones, they build companies they do not just do business alone.

But you don’t have to do this, you know, as a businessperson, for example myself, I have chosen to stay small. I mostly do business individually. I don’t want to build a huge company; it’s my choice. But, if you really want huge success in some area of your life, building a team is the way to do it, because when we work together as an effective group we can simply accomplish more. It makes sense right? I mean, if you have one person, well, then you have your strengths, but you also have your weaknesses. We all have weaknesses, but if you can build a team then you have a whole group of strengths and weaknesses and you complement each other. Maybe you’re strong in one area but you bring someone else, they’re strong in a different area. If you can learn to work together well, now you have two powerful strengths instead of just one.

They can compensate for your weaknesses. You can compensate for their weaknesses. To compensate for means to, you know to overcome.

So, we can accomplish much more as a group, but only as an effective group. See, this is the key thing with teams. A bad team can be worse than an individual. A bad company can actually lose more money than an individual; can perform less well than an individual. So, just having a team doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get more success and bigger success. It gives you the potential but you must build a team effectively. You’ve got to be a great leader to get that big success in life.

The second reason for team building is really just about life and enjoyment and happiness. See, in our lives when we accomplish something individually, we do feel great and it builds our confidence so we do need those individual accomplishments. However, there’s something special about achieving a great success as a group. It brings you together. There’s a special kind of connection, a special kind of happiness that happens when you succeed together, when you work together to accomplish a goal.

So, you know, I’ve noticed and it’s like I said, I ran two marathons. So when I crossed the finish line for the marathon the first time and the second time I felt great, yah! But to be honest, there was also just a little bit of loneliness with that accomplishment, because there was no one else to share it with. Now my family came and they actually watched me do my second marathon and they cheered for me, so I got to share it with them a little bit but it wasn’t the same thing, they didn’t run the race with me. We did not accomplish it together. So there was no one there who shared the same problems and pain and feeling of success at the end.

On the other hand, when I have been part of a group; for example, in Saigon last year I did a big event, a couple of big events and I did speaking to large groups. It was fun, but one of the fun things about that is that these speaking events, they’re a team project. It’s only me on the stage just speaking alone, but to do a big event we need a whole team of volunteers, of organizers to do the tickets, to do security, to get people into their chairs, to set up the room, to run the music, to do the lights, it’s a whole team. So, at the end of the event when we have a big event and the end, we celebrate. It’s a different kind of feeling because we all did it together. We share the excitement. We share the success. We share the problems.

And it’s a deeper feeling, and I think it’s actually, kind of a happier feeling when you’re connected with other people working together to accomplish something. So that’s another reason to build teams.

Now, when I say teams… usually when people think team, maybe the first thing a lot of people think is sports. That’s a good example, because sports teams are good examples of success and failure, but we all know great sports teams and we can see that magic of a group of people working together to accomplish something. But that’s not the only kind of team, you might think of also, work teams. So if you’re working you’re usually part of a team. Most of us don’t work completely alone and so you’re part of a team, a group of people trying to accomplish something.

Now, some of us have a lot of bad experiences, because some work teams can be very negative and bad, but if you get lucky then you can have a really good team experience at work. And I think the most important team of all is your family. Your family’s a team. Again, it’s a group of people working together towards a purpose. And we all have families, whether it’s your mom and your dad and your sisters and your brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins or a wife, a husband, a boyfriend or a girlfriend, your own children or even just a very, very close group of friends. You have a family and most of us don’t think of families as a team, and a lot of times we don’t think of needing leadership skills in our families and yet, that’s super important. It’s the most important team in your life and you need to think about, how can you build that team and make it stronger? Because if you don’t, problems can come up and the team, the family can get weaker. We all know this. You can see many examples in life of families that even fall apart and break, because they’re not a strong team working together.

So how do we do it; how do we build it? First of all, you must accept responsibility to be a team builder. That’s what a team leader’s about. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually the official leader, but you can still be the leader in respect in the way of building the team, making it stronger, even if someone else has the position. You know, I’ve talked about this before with leadership. Someone may have an official title as the leader, as the captain, as the manager, as the dad or the mom in a family, for example. But, that doesn’t mean that they are always the leader in every part of the family, of the team. Even if you are lower or under them, you can still be a leader by helping to build the team. Now, let’s talk about how to do that.

In the commentary I’ll give you some very specific ideas. I’m going to give you some general ones now.

1. The number one thing you must do to create an effective team, this is the key, it’s the foundation; you must have this.

Without this you don’t have a great team. Without this no other leadership skills will work, and that is a we mindset, instead of a me mindset. Me and we, you need a we mindset, us, us, us. So everyone in the team needs to first think about we and us. The team must come first before the individual. Again, this is a very, very important part of team building. I’ve talked about it in other ways in the past, and it’s because this is the foundation. Without this forget it you don’t have a team.

The trick is, how do you do it? Because, the problem in life and in our society is we’re taught me, me, me, me, me. We’re trained. Think about school. Think about your whole experience in school, you were trained to think me, me, me, me, me, not we, right? In a classroom you’re sitting in the class, you’re taking notes and then you take tests and you get grades. Did you get graded for being a great team member, a great classmate? No! What happened if you tried to help someone in your class if they were having problems, they didn’t understand, they didn’t know the answer to a test question? If you tried to help them what happened? They said you were cheating. You were punished. Both of you would be punished for cheating.

They discouraged team work. They discouraged helping each other .They discouraged a we mindset, it was me, me, me; it was only you. All the grades were individual grades, the learning was always individual and in many ways you were encouraged to compete against the other people in your classroom, and some of you were said to be smart and good students, and other of you were said to be bad students or stupid or have learning problems or whatever. So it’s created this whole me, me, me mindset; individuals, individuals, individuals; me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

And in our popular culture in the media, again, it’s this whole selfish idea of me, me, me. Everything is individual. And so, when you have a team… your family, work or even a sports team you’re part of, automatically most people are programmed with this me mindset. So you’ve got to overcome that to be a great leader, it’s the first and most important thing you must do, is to change everyone’s mindset in the team to we, we, we. Me becomes second; we is first. How are you gonna do this? Well, I recommend that you have a few, we could call them mottos. You could call them an incantation. It’s something you repeat powerfully. We could just call them beliefs. You could call them team rules. But you need to have… I’m gonna give you four right now. I recommend that you actually, you talk about them with every member of the team. I recommend that you write them down. I recommend that each member of the team discuss them and then sign a paper agreeing to follow these four ideas or principles or rules. Let me give you the four we mindset rules of a team.

All success equals team success. All success is team success.

This means the team succeeds together. So if one person in the team does well it means the whole team succeeds together, you’re not succeeding as an individual. Right, it means no one in the team tries to be a big success individually. If someone in the team does well then they share the success, they share the credit. (Credit means who’s responsible for the success) They don’t say, I did it they say we did it.

Now, you’ll notice on championship sports teams, really great winning teams they will do this. There’s an American football team called the New England Patriots. They’re famous for this we mindset. They’re the best football team in America for like the last, I don’t know, 15 years, just consistently good all the time. They’ve won many championships and this is their main thing, they’re always we, we, we. So let’s say their leader– it’s called the quarterback, the guy that throws the ball – this guy’s a big star but when they interview him about a game and maybe he had a great game, he always says we. He doesn’t say yes, I had a great game I did great. Oh, I’m so happy I did well. He always says, oh, we did well; we won; thank you to my team for the win; the team did such a great job.

So all the success is always the team, the team. He never talks about himself only, he always, always, always says oh, thank you to the team. The team succeeded. The team did it. He never says, I, I, I it’s always we, we, we. His coach is exactly the same. Everybody on that team is exactly the same, they always say we, we. All success is team success.

1. Now, the other side of this is all problems are team problems. This is the second belief of a we mindset. All problems are team problems.

You must all agree to this. This means if one person on the team has a problem, everybody else on the team accepts it as their problem also. It’s everybody’s responsibility to help solve that problem. Let’s say you have a team at work, one person gets sick. It’s not just their problem right? In a bad team everyone would say oh, he’s sick. Oh, you need to catch up on your work, when you come back because you’re sick. But a great team will say, we must solve this problem together it’s our problem, it’s a team problem. They will jump in. They will help do the extra work automatically without being asked. They will help the person get better. They will help the person rest.

In fact, if the sick person tries to work they will tell them no, don’t work. Take a break, you need to rest. We’ll help do your work until you come back. Maybe they’ll even bring them some food to help them get better. So they take care and they help with the problem. So if one person has a problem, the whole team helps to solve it so all problems are team problems, not individuals. 3. The next one, we all move forward together. We all move forward together. This is another key team belief.

So, again, it’s the idea that the whole team goes together, not one person jumps ahead and runs ahead and the others fall behind. One person doesn’t finish before everyone else does, so again let’s say there’s a project. Let’s say it’s a work project. Everyone has different jobs to do on the project. Let’s say one person finishes the project, their part, they finish it before everyone else, they finish first. They say ah, my part is done. They don’t just go take a vacation then, because the whole team finishes together, so if they finish their individual part they will go back to the team and say okay, I got this part done now I need to help you finish your part. What can I do now? What more can I do? Because, the whole team needs to finish together, move forward together not one by one. We all move forward together. Super important belief for team building.

1. And finally, we all succeed or fail together. We all succeed or fail together.

You can think of this in a family too. This is interesting right. Think about this. Let’s say you have a child. We all succeed or fail together and your child fails a test, gets a bad score or bad grade in a class. Now, you know, an old way, an individual way of thinking would be to get mad at the child. Oh, you failed, you did bad but if you have a team mindset, we all succeed or fail together. It means the whole family got an ‘F’. The whole family failed the test. The whole family failed the class. So suddenly, again right, it’s not an individual problem it’s a whole family problem. Everyone in the family is responsible for helping improve that grade.

Maybe mom and dad find a tutor to help. Maybe mom and dad help the child to study better. Maybe brothers and sisters have to help. Maybe you have a family team, family meeting to discuss, how can we help, instead of blaming, blaming, blaming the one child; you discuss it, oh, how can we all succeed together?

And see that will help the child too, because the child instead of feeling all this pressure on them only, now they feel like, oh, I’m part of a team, everyone’s here to help me. We’re all doing this together it’s not just everyone blaming me. And the great thing is then, if they succeed they get an ‘A’, well then we all celebrate together, we all did it together. We all succeed together and we all fail together. The great thing about this, it creates such a strong connection and see this is what’s most important in a family; it’s really the love and connection you have right? It’s not if you succeed or fail in some individual thing.

If you really think about it that’s not what’s most important. What’s most important is that you have that love and connection for your whole life. And that love and connection gets so much stronger when you share your success and share your failures. So if you fail, well, then you all fail together and well, you kind of share the pain of that. You share the disappointment and that can actually bring you together, because you can all support each other. And the same thing, when you succeed then you all celebrate together, you did it together and again it brings you together. You feel like, ah, we did it all as a team and it will strengthen that connection. And this is also even true with friends and in work projects and sports teams, all of these situations.

So those four. Now, here’s the key thing, you can’t just talk about this one time with your team and then it will happen, you have to repeat these things. Every single day you have to be talking about these four, repeating them, saying them again and again and again. Write them

5 down. Make everyone sign a paper agreeing to follow these four. Constant repetition, that’s your job as the team leader, as the team builder. So, again, even if you’re like at the bottom right, if you got a boss and you’re all the way down to the bottom, you can still do this. You can still be a team builder and a team leader in this way; constantly, every day reminding everyone of these four again and again and again, repeating, repeating.

A lot of being a leader is just repetition with emotion, just repeating the same key values, the same key ideas again and again and again and again, getting everybody to think about them constantly, reminding them constantly. It’s really quite simple. People think that leadership is some magic thing, you have to be like an amazing speaker and all that, but it’s not true. Actually, you just need to identify some really important values, important ideas and constantly repeat them with emotion until you get the whole team to agree and work together on these key ideas, these key principles. You do that you will build a great team.

All right now, in the commentary I’ll give you some more detailed examples of team building, some problems you might have in teams, most teams do have problems and so I’ll tell you what the problems are, how to avoid them and how to fix them. That’s in the commentary.

All right, see you soon.