Page One of USA Today had a story entitled Team-first, back-to-basics foreigners changing NBA. This was page one, Section A -- the front page, not page one of the Sports section.
Granted the NBA playoffs are about to start. However, a sports story on the front page that doesn't come the day after the Super Bowl is unusual. In short, the article pointed out that NBA coaches and General Managers are increasingly looking to coutries outside the US for players -- especially players from Europe.
The reason is simple. European players are fundamentally sound and play a team first game...
If you read this blog, you know that I am a big advocate of teamwork. While it is a cliche', the definition of TEAM -- Together Everyone Accomplishes More, is true in business as well as sports. On effective teams, members subjugagte their egos for the good of the team. The NBA is a good case in point. The two best teams over the past few years, San Antonio and Detroit, play team basketball.
The same is true in college basketball. In an article in USA Today the Friday before this year's Final Four weekend, Tim Wendel commented that the four teams, Florida (the eventual champion), UCLA, LSU and George Mason, all put team ahead of individual glory. "Champions, like the best companies, church groups or community organizations often have the best role players -- the people who are willing to give up their individuality for the good of the team."
Robert Quinn, author of Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Extraordinary Results, says "when teams are playing at the highest level of competition, synergy really matters." or, as Barry Posner, a professor of leadership says "cooperation beats competition hands down."
Dr. Posner echoes Mr. Wendel's comments when he says "teams fail because the stars try to do it all. At a basic level, they're more concerned about their own performance than the team's."
Teamwork is even more important in business than sports. In successful businesses, everybody understands their roles and responsibilities and does their best to make sure they perform well in these roles.
In addition to an understanding and acceptance of individual roles and responsibilities, effective teams have two other things in common. They trust one another. Members do their job and assume that others will do theirs. When someone falls short, everyone helps pick up the slack. Second, effective teams have a sense of spirit. They believe in themselve and what they are doing. They have a sense of pride, excitement and mutually accoutability.
Mr. Quinn makes the most telling comment about the difficulty of working together as a team. "On any kind of team that has performed above expectations, the participants say things like 'we were all on the same page and pulling together, it was amazing'. The word 'amazing' suggests that we normally are not all on the same page and pulling together." Sad, but true all too often.
Fundamentals may be more important than teamwork. They are key to effective performance. Six sigma, continuous improvement programs and ISO certification are all based on fundamentals. Master your job, then look for small ways to improve how it is done. That's fundamentals in action in the work place.
Dave Blatt, an American who coaches in Italy's premier Basketball league says "I still believe that the best basketball players in the world come from the US. But the best taught players are no longer there." There's something to this. The US 2002 World championships team, and 2004 Olympic teams, finished sixth and third respectively. Both were a who's who of NBA stars. As the USA Today article says: "substance and five on five play usually beats slam dunk style and one on one flair". In my mind, this is true in business as well as basketball.
The common sense point: fundamentals and teamwork are two key ingredients of small business success.
That's it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense business advice.
I'll see you around the web, and at Alex's Lemonade Stand.
Bud
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