As I sit and watch the NCAA basketball finals, Coach Roy Williams was asked the question, “Who needs to step up tonight?” His simple answer was very telling, the team needs to step up. It is so easy to discuss the stars on your team that need to step up and deliver. He talked about the whole team needing to deliver in order for North Carolina to win. With sports team, the analysts discuss who needs to deliver – it usually is the stars, the ones that everyone knows and those that have been there all year. For a coach, it is not individuals, it is the “team”, singling out one or two individuals is not a team. Each member of the team has his assignment and needs to deliver for the overall success of the team. When I am coaching sports (either hockey or softball), the team comes first! I don’t want to say that coaches do not have certain members of the team that they really lean on more so than the others. Those are the formal or informal leaders that other players look to as well.
When you apply this to work teams, I personally feel it is not different. When you have your goals set it takes the whole team to make it success. Can you be successful without some of the team members stepping up? Sure. When the team understands the goal and what success looks like, folks make it happen. I have had teams, that no matter what the goal, they make it happen. I have set, what I thought were impossible goal, but they made it happen.
At the end of the day, teams just want to be successful. Within the team, each individual wants to deliver on their end to insure that the team is successful. Either in a team sport or a work environment, we have our goals, getting it done is the only thing that matters.
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