Teamwork

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I am obsessed with teams. I think I always have been.  From an early age, for example, I chose volleyball over tennis as the sport I wanted to focus on. That's probably because at my height and stature I believed I could have more fun and success as a role player in a team sport versus a star in a largely individualized activity.

That decision helped me enter doors previously closed to me: hung out with a fun bunch in high school, got into a prestigious eating club in college probably through teammate intros, jumped and played above my "weight class" during and after school, made many friends for life.

I even spent 3 years as director of one of the top volleyball clubs in California, where I had the privilege of serving and empowering over a thousand female player/athletes amidst some standout teams. Take for example Encore VBC's 18-1 team in 2017 led by the extraordinary coach Jen Agresti. Depicted in the photo shown, this squad was ranked pre-season #1 in the nation that year, featured 11 NCAA Division 1or NAIA- committed athletes; 2 years prior, they finished #3 in Open at USVBA Junior Olympics. A very special team that I had the fortune of supporting and observing.

As I have traveled along that journey, I have collected a ton of useful lessons around what makes high-performing teams and why some teams never achieve their potential. Many of the characteristics or tenets that comprise great teams are not revolutionary but I think some of them consistently stand out in teams for work and  for play, and so are worth mentioning. Those characteristics include:

• high integrity and trust in each other
• clear values, goals and objectives
• play in competition like they practice everyday
• growth mindsets
• repeatable systems and processes
• supportive infrastructure like families, coaches, trainers, facilities
• role specific skills
• the willingness to stay together for an extended period of time
• unselfish and no to low attitude

If you're interested, I plan to write about some of these team characteristics in future posts.

ps: Incidentally, the team depicted underperformed their expectations that season. There are reasons according to the coach that map to some of the characteristics you need to have in top high performing teams. Many of the team members have gone on to phenomenal collegiate careers as part of other great teams.