"You're My Guys..."

I’ve been thinking about teams a lot in the past couple of weeks. My new job means a new team is forming. We are all from different departments or entirely new organizations, so we are all learning. I’m also reading a books, both fiction and non-fiction that center on the idea of teams.

Teams are important.

At the end of the day you can have a group or a team. Groups are loose and transient collectives of people who occupy the same airspace for a given amount of time.

But a team.

A real team endures.

It’s not easy to be on a team. Teams are made up of people, and people are a messy business. Teams must be formed, then they storm, then settle into a pattern of normalcy, then they storm gain, and somewhere along the way they perform.

Forming, storming, norming, performing, rinse and repeat. This is the life cycle of a team, but in the quiet moments (and the chaotic moments) respect grows, honesty emerges, and if you are lucky loyalty takes root.

I’ve been lucky to be part of many teams, and for that I am grateful. By way of example I served with AmeriCorps*NCCC Team Silver 1 for 10 months. We were a group of strangers randomly selected and thrown together in August 2003 and by June 2004 a family had formed. Sure we had our fair share of difficult times with hammers dropped on heads, fights over the music, minor and major personality conflicts, you name it. But there was also a trust that can only develop when we share a life with 10 other people all day, every day for a year. We parted company nearly 7 years ago, but they are still my team. I think about them every single day. Their picture sits on my desk right next to my brothers and sisters, next to pictures of my wife, and friends from childhood, college and beyond. They are still my team.

Right now, at work, our team is forming. Some have been with the company for a while, others are new, but in the end we have to work together to accomplish some daunting tasks.

Today, a co-worker shared a great quote with me that summed things up quite nicely.

CONTEXT: From the show “The West Wing.” Delivered by Toby to a group of staffers after a comment in a meeting leaked to the Press.

“We're a group…we're a team...We win together, we lose together, we celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats are softened and victories sweetened because we did them together...And if you don't like this team... then, there's the door... It's great to be in the know. It's great to have the scoop, to have the skinny, to be able to go to a reporter and say, "I know something you don't know." And so the press becomes your constituents and you sell out the team... So, an item will appear in the paper tomorrow, and it'll be embarrassing to me and embarrassing to the President. I'm not gonna have a witch hunt. I'm not gonna huff and puff. I'm not gonna take anyone's head off. I'm simply gonna say this: you're my guys. And I'm yours... and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

That's it. At the end of the day a good team always has your back. In that way a good team is a lot like family.