Real Estate Tech Talk

Its called a team…

June 19, 2010 at 12:47 am Leave a comment

Team – by definition this is a group of people who work together fulfilling their own unique roles to accomplish a larger goal or common purpose.

A simple sentence, right? If you look at it a little bit longer there are a few key points about this sentence that seem to be commonly overlooked by those belonging to a team. So lets break it down and put it into perspective. I’ve been a part of teams as long as I can remember, growing up as an athlete. After that, I’ve been building teams my entire adult life. I find that most people view a team as the first part of that sentence “a group of people who work together”. Thats great… but just because a few people work together, a team it does not make.

Lets look at the second part of that sentence that makes it very important….”fulfilling their own unique roles”. What does that mean? Own unique roles? Well, a team has to function as one, but every member of a team does not necessarily do the same thing as the other members. Rarely in fact, is that the case.

We’ll wrap it up with the third part of that sentence and ultimately the most important…”to accomplish a larger goal or common purpose.” Why is the team in place? Whatever the answer is should be the answer to keeping everyone on the same page towards the desired outcome. Think of a football team. They are all there to get the ball across the goal line. THATS IT. They all have a different role in making sure that happens, but ultimately the goal is to get the pigskin in the end zone.

The reason I feel compelled to talk about this today is because I see folks who are on teams who have a stronger purpose of their own, rather than the teams purpose AND I see people who are running teams (or trying to anyways) who aren’t taking into account the needs of the team and its members. As team leaders we lean on our team members to buy into the team vision, to support the team goals; but are we as a team also supporting their goals?

Just a little food for a team thought.

Entry filed under: Accountability, Team Building. Tags: buidling a team, liz landry.