We  talk a lot in business about the power of teamwork. Great companies are built, it is said, on the power of exceptional teams.

There is certainly truth to this but it obfuscates the fact that teams are composed of individuals. And unless an individual is strong, smart and innovative, his value to a team is minimal. People don’t get great because  they are joined together in groups, they can only contribute excellence in a way that– in the best of circumstances– makes the  group greater than the sum of its parts.

Anyone who is ever naked on a stage — a ballerina in a solo performance, an executive making a speech, a scientist working in a lab by herself–has to be exceptional WITHOUT a team. With nothing but their raw talent.

If they can accomplish this with genius, aplomb or both, they have passed  trough a kind of baptism by fire that tests their mettle and, in turn, qualifies them for membership in a team.

A team that is more substantial than a group of people simply working together. The fact is, mediocre people banded together in an operating unit is not as much a team as a bureacracy. In cases such as this, the coming together in a unit, of sorts, simply provides cover for their individual ineptitude. No one excells, everyone whines, progress and excellence are not in the lexicon. It  is called a team but it really just a rag tag collection of also-rans blending into the woodwork of each other.
When the extraordinary scientists who came together in Los Alamos to make sure America won WW II by creating the world’s first atomic bomb, the great physicists had already made their mark, individually, on the naked stage of scientific discovery. For a brief, compelling and triumphant period, they were will to cast aside their egos and cross pollinate their genius for the greater good.

This is the glory and the majesty of an exceptional team. It is a group of talented people, fully capable on their own, who come together to dance Swan Lake in a way that thrills the audience or that produces software that breaks the existing barriers on human productivity.

A true team is a rare and powerful marvel. It is a group with an exponent over it work.

Mark Stevens
CEO
MSCO | The Art and Science of Growing Businesses
www.MSCO.com
www.YourMarketingSucks.com

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I was just a kid when out of the corner of my eye I saw JFK standing on the steps of the Capitol, coatless and hatless on a frigid January afternoon, taking the oath of office as the 35th president of the United States.

In a flash, all of the dates and factoids about this place called America came together in an explosive epiphany that manifested itself in a burst of passionate patriotism. Somehow, with his natural gift of leadership, his God-given ability to make us aspire to greatness, I understood what had come before in the shaping of this exceptional land and what would be next as we set our sites on the moon.

Years later, I would witness Ronald Reagan light a similar torch. Although their names are rarely coupled — as they were of different times and politcal parties–they shared the gift of extraordinary leadership. Not measured only in the number of bills they passed (Kennedy was stolen from us too soon), but by political aspirational quality that is at the core of the few great ones who can move us to be be brave, to have hope, to build things, to point to the sky (as the Brits did under Winston) and make it clear to the Nazis that they would never surrender.

My radio show, The Business Warrior, made its debut yesterday on WABC radio.  As I was viewing the call-in monitor, I could see that a listener wanted to talk about the qualities of leadership in business.

Time ran out before I could take the call, but I would have told him to watch any of the Kennedy/Reagan milestone speeches and view them as true compasses for genuine leadership. Forget the issues they were talking about, the agendas they wanted to pursue in Congress, but simply absorb the way they could and did make so many of us want to join a cause.

The cause of America.

This is vitally important because every great company, like every magnificent country (although I know of only one), is just that, a cause. If it is simply a group of people working under the same roof, a collection of technologies and files and dollars and cents, it is so far removed from its potential, that it is tragic.

This quantum leap from an entity that engages in the transactions of commerce (the way our corrupt and self-serving Congress engages in the transactions of lawmaking) to an enterprise that exhilarates all who are touched by it, is a daunting  feat.

But it is the only goal worth shooting for. It is our call to rocket a man to the moon. Our challenge to “Tear that wall down Mr. Gorbachev!”

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I announced last week that I am making a fundamental change in the way I interact with the thousands of people who follow me on TV, read my Entrepreneur.com articles, listen in to my ABC radio show, and read my business and marketing books. I’ve realized that I haven’t had the opportunity to work with many of you one-on-one and I want to change that. The Internet provides the means for us to engage together through video, blog posts, comments, teleseminars, and email so we can work on our businesses together and learn from each other in a community environment.

I’m going to share with you insight that I’ve gained over the years. I’ve put together a short 3 question survey for you to take that will provide me with the insight I need to begin to help you overcome the challenges and struggles you face with your business.

I’ll be in touch later this week with the results of this survey and my next “Business Dispatch” video.

We’ll Talk Soon,

Mark Stevens
CEO, MSCO

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