Quotes About Teamwork

I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone.

Nevertheless, the current social paradigm enthrones independence. It is the avowed goal of many individuals and social movements. Most of the self-improvement material puts independence on a pedestal, as though communication, teamwork, and cooperation were lesser values. But much of our current emphasis on independence is a reaction to dependence—to having others control us, define us, use us, and manipulate us.

dependence is the paradigm of you—you take care of me; you come through for me; you didn't come through; I blame you for the results. Independence is the paradigm of I—I can do it; I am responsible; I am self-reliant; I can choose. Interdependence is the paradigm of we—we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.

We not me. True greatness will be achieved through the abundant mind that works selflessly, with mutual respect, and for a mutual benefit.

Public Victory does not mean victory over other people. It means success in effective interaction that brings mutually beneficial results to everyone involved. Public Victory means working together, communicating together, making things happen together that even the same people couldn't make happen by working independently.

Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players. They're not coming from the paradigm of interdependence necessary to succeed in marriage, family, or organizational reality.

Unclear expectations in the area of goals also undermine communication and trust.

Gates and Ballmer accomplished much more by working together than they ever could alone; 1 + 1 is much larger than 2 (Habit 6: Synergize).

But Lilienthal took several weeks to create a high Emotional Bank Account. He had these people get to know each other—their interests, their hopes, their goals, their concerns, their backgrounds, their frames of reference, their paradigms. He facilitated the kind of human interaction that creates a great bonding between people, and he was heavily criticized for taking the time to do it because it wasn't "efficient." But

He wanted his people to work together, to share ideas, to all benefit from the effort. But he was setting them up in competition with each other.

Creating the unity necessary to run an effective business or a family or a marriage requires great personal strength and courage.

Interdependence is a far more mature, more advanced concept. If I am physically interdependent, I am self-reliant and capable, but I also realize that you and I working together can accomplish far more than, even at my best, I could accomplish alone.

Dependent people need others to get what they want. Independent people can get what they want through their own effort. Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success. If

Is there a chance the way I look at the people who work for me is part of the problem?

to get things done. When fear replaces cooperation, both people involved become more illogical and defensive.

Many of the great things in the history of our civilization have been achieved by the independent will of a determined soul. But the greatest opportunities and boundless accomplishments of the Knowledge Worker Age are reserved for those who master the art of "we." True greatness will be achieved through the abundant mind that works selflessly—with mutual respect, for mutual benefit.

interdependence.

Independent thinking alone is not suited to interdependent reality. Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players.

you become truly independent, you have the foundation for effective interdependence. You have the character base from which you can effectively work on the more personality-oriented "Public Victories" of teamwork, cooperation, and communication in Habits 4, 5, and 6.

Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on four levels: 1) personal (my relationship with myself); 2) interpersonal (my relationships and interactions with others); 3) managerial (my responsibility to get a job done with others); and 4) organizational (my need to organize people—to recruit them, train them, compensate them, build teams, solve problems, and create aligned structure, strategy, and systems).

When a boss becomes the first assistant to each of his subordinates, he can greatly increase his span of control.

Independent people who do not have the maturity to think and act interdependently may be good individual producers, but they won't be good leaders or team players.

ingenuity, his resourcefulness. PC work is treating employees as volunteers just as you treat customers as volunteers, because that's what they are. They volunteer the best part—their hearts and minds.

Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.