Quotes About Teamwork

the whiteboard effect. For some types of problems, working with someone else at the proverbial shared whiteboard can push you deeper than if you were working alone. The presence of the other party waiting for your next insight—be it someone physically in the same room or collaborating with you virtually—can short-circuit the natural instinct to avoid depth.

Work is not just about getting things done; it's a collection of messy human personalities trying to figure out how to successfully collaborate.

Marriage is not merely sharing the fettucini, but sharing the burden of finding the fettucini restaurant in the first place.

To work entirely independent of others is art. To work creatively as a team, with a share of the work done privately, is design.

Until the August 1 story about the Dahlberg check, the working relationship between Bernstein and Woodward was more competitive than anything else. Each had worried that the other might walk off with the remainder of the story by himself. If one had gone chasing after a lead at night or on a weekend, the other felt compelled to do the same. -- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

The August 1 story had carried their joint byline; the day afterward, Woodward asked Sussman if Bernstein's name could appear with his on the follow-up story - though Bernstein was still in Miami and had not worked on it. From the on, any Watergate story would carry both names. Their colleagues melded the two into one and gleefully named their byline Woodstein. -- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward

Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we're-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude.

David Mamet's film House of Games is a wonderful exploration of cons and con artists that shows forced teaming at work.

Forced teaming is an effective way to establish premature trust because a we're-in-the-same-boat attitude is hard to rebuff without feeling rude. Sharing a predicament, like being stuck in a stalled elevator or arriving simultaneously at a just-closed store will understandably move people around social boundaries. But forced teaming is not about coincidence; it is intentional and directed, and it is one of the most sophisticated manipulations.

River mostly contributed backing vocals and handclaps, although he may have played some guitar on "Rock Out with Your Cock Out.

It wasn't surprising that Bill Murray was there too—but nobody expected him to stick around after the show, helping the stadium cleaning crew pick up the heaps of trash at the end of the night.

I am proud of my racing trophies," Seppala once said, "but I would trade them all for the satisfaction of knowing that my dogs and I tried honestly to give our very best in humanitarian service to our fellowman, regardless of race, creed, color, in Alaska's pioneer days. Often the going was rough—sometimes my courage was greater than my team's—several times I was ready to quit but was ashamed because of the great fighting heart of the Siberian Husky.

Wait, you want me to ride the bike?" He nods. "And you'll what? Run alongside me?" "No. I'll ride you." His eyebrows shoot up, and I feel myself blush. "On the bike," he clarifies

I'm sick of you all acting like I'm this English freak raining on your little math-science parade. Sung seems to think my contribution to this team is a little less than everyone else's." "Anyone can memorize book titles!" Sung shouted. "Oh, please.Like I care what you think? You don't even know the difference between Keats and Byron.

C'mon, Alec," Damien said. "Sung just wants us to win." "No," I said. "Sung only wants us to win. There's a difference." Damien and the others looked at me blankly. This was not, I remembered, a word-choice crowd.

You can't help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.

A great team doesn't mean that they had the smartest people. What made those teams great is that everyone trusted one another. It can be a powerful thing when that magic dynamic exists.

Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni. He writes that in order to have mutual trust, you need to be vulnerable.

What made those teams great is that everyone trusted one another. It can be a powerful thing when that magic dynamic exists.

While the redshirts battle to contain the raging engine fire that is threatening the entire ship, the bridge officers continue to cover their asses,

I say assertively, "Give me three lists. One that requires Brent work, one that increases Brent's throughput, and the last one is everything else. Identify the top projects on each list. Don't spend too much time ordering them—I don't want us spending days arguing. The most important list is the second one. We need to keep Brent's capacity up by reducing the amount of unplanned work that hits him.

However, we must remind everyone that improvement of daily work is more important than daily work itself, and that all teams must have dedicated capacity for this (e.g., reserving 20% of all cycles for improvement work, scheduling one day per week or one week per month, etc.). Without doing this, the productivity of the team will almost certainly grind to a halt under the weight of its own technical and process debt.

when something does go wrong, we conduct blameless post-mortems, not to punish anyone, but to better understand what caused the accident and how to prevent it. This

This is the reality of operating complex systems; no single person can see the whole system and understand how all the pieces fit together.