Exceptional Teamwork Quotes

Eight-year-olds playing soccer, Teddy decided, was a lot like a pack of border collies chasing a single sheep, except that the dogs would’ve used more teamwork.

We all, without exception, need relationships to achieve extraordinary things.

High performance teams have six characteristics that allow them to consistently achieve exceptional levels of results: Common Purpose Crystal Clear Roles Accepted Leadership Effective Processes Solid Relationships Excellent Communication

Can you do it again tonight?" "The Catamounts were a wretched team," Andrew said. "They brought that ridicule on themselves." "Can you or can't you?" "I don't see why I should." Neil heard the click of a lock coming undone and knew the referees were opening the door. Andrew wasn't moving yet, but Neil still put an arm in his path to keep him where he was. He pressed his gloved hand to the wall and leaned in as close to Andrew as he could with all of his bulky gear on. "I'm asking you to help us," Neil said. "Will you?" Andrew considered it a moment. "Not for free." "Anything," Neil promised, and stepped back to take his place in line again. Neil didn't know what he'd gotten himself into, but he honestly didn't care, because Andrew delivered exactly what Neil wanted him to. Andrew closed the goal like his life depended on it and smashed away every shot. The Bearcat strikers took that challenge head-on. They feinted and swerved and threw every trick shot they had at Andrew. More than once Andrew used his glove or body to block a ball he couldn't get his racquet to in time. That might have been enough, except Andrew didn't stop there. For the first time ever he started talking to the defense line. Neil only understood him in snatches, since there was too much space and movement between them, but what he caught was enough. Andrew was chewing out the backliners for letting the strikers past them so many times and ordering them to pick up the pace. Neil worried for a moment what they'd do with Andrew's rude brand of teamwork at their backs, but the next time he got a good look at Matt, Matt was grinning like this was the most fun he'd had in years.

If you're short of everything but enemy, you're in combat If you can see, you can be seen. If you can shoot, you can be shot. Incoming fire has the right of way. Don't look conspicuous, it draws fire. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo. Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: -when you're ready for them. -when you're not ready for them. Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack. If your attack is going well, then it's an ambush. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself. If you're short of everything but the enemy, you're in a combat zone. Friendly fire isn't. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping. If at first you don't succeed, call in artillery. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can't hit the broad side of a barn. Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack. When you are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.

Even in organizations that, on the whole, are toxic to teams, exceptional teams can still be found. There is consistent evidence that adversity sometimes creates an esprit de corps within the team that is difficult to summon in times of prosperity. In such situations the team must pragmatically evaluate the situation and develop adaptive strategies to the furthest extent possible. The more challenging task will be to maintain a positive attitude and sense of humor about things they cannot change and yet not become cynical.

Conflict resolution. The team discovers the principles and process of managing conflict in a healthy, productive manner. In organizational settings, we tend to live on one of two ends of a continuum. We either have mismanaged agreement (conflict avoidance), or we tear the relational fabric between people to shreds. Conflict is the door to creativity, consensus, and commitment. If the team doesn't learn how to talk straight and be tough on issues without blowing one another out of the water, they will probably never experience the creative synergy needed to achieve exceptional results.

If the group has an unhealthy view of conflict or doesn't have the skills or process by which to manage it constructively, they will never attain the realm of synergistic communication and the exceptional levels of performance it supports.

However, we can have too much of any good thing, and team spirit is no exception. Teams can sometimes draw the lines of team inclusion too tight and too thick. The team becomes an entity in itself, often losing its sense of connection to the larger organizational entity as well as to other groups within it. When this happens, our team comes first, no matter what. Even if this means that by placing our team needs or goals first, other teams or even the larger organization may fall short of their goals. Management experts call this sub-optimization, a group optimizing its sub goals at the expense of the goals of the larger organization.

Leadership is the ability to turn your vision into reality by enlisting the help and winning the hearts of others. It's time to share leadership. It's time to win–together.

There is an expectation that a trip into the wilderness—even just for the weekend—entails certain risk not found in daily life. A good trip entails a lot of physical effort and teamwork. People expect to be able to cope with the usual demands of the wilderness, and, thus, they develop unusual coping mechanisms. Sometimes, however, for some or all of the people on the trip, events surpass standard coping mechanisms. Then a wilderness-style critical incident has occurred. A critical incident is almost any incident in which the circumstances are so unusual or the sights and sounds so distressing as to produce a high level of immediate or delayed emotional reaction that surpasses an individual’s normal coping mechanisms. Critical incidents are events that cause predictable signs and symptoms of exceptional stress in normal people who are having normal reactions to something abnormal that has happened to them. A critical incident from a wilderness perspective may be caused by such events as the sudden death or serious injury of a member of the group, a multiple-death accident, or any event involving a prolonged expenditure of physical and emotional energy. People respond to critical incidents differently. Sometimes the stress is too much right away, and signs and symptoms appear while the event is still happening. This is acute stress; this member of the group is rendered nonfunctional by the situation and needs care. More often the signs and symptoms of stress come later, once the pressing needs of the situation have been addressed. This is delayed stress. A third sort of stress, common to us all, is cumulative stress. In the context of the wilderness, cumulative stress might arise if multiple, serial disasters strike the same wilderness party. The course of symptom development when a person is going from the normal stresses of day-to-day living into distress (where life becomes uncomfortable) is like a downward spiral. People are not hit with the entire continuum of signs and symptoms at once. However, after a critical incident, a person may be affected by a large number of signs and symptoms within a short time frame, usually 24 to 48 hours. The degree or impairment an event causes an individual depends on several factors. Each person has life lessons that can help, or sometimes hinder, the ability to cope. Factors affecting the degree of impact an event has on the individual include the following: 1. Age. People who are older tend to have had more life lessons to develop good coping mechanisms. 2. Degree of education. 3. Duration of the event, as well as its suddenness and degree of intensity. 4. Resources available for help. These may be internal (a personal belief system) or external (a trained, local critical-incident stress debriefing team). 5. Level of loss. One death may be easier than several, although the nature of a relationship (marriage partners or siblings, for example) would affect this factor. Signs and symptoms of stress manifest in three ways: physical, emotional, and cognitive. Stress manifests differently from one person to the next. Signs and symptoms that occur in one person may not occur in another, who has responses of his or her own.

You may be the Five, but you have no experience in detective work or crime scene investigations, you can tamper with the evidence,” Chase pointed out. “Right, except we won’t because we’ll be working side by side with experts,” Ava’s smile was unwavering. “See, Chase? We don’t want to be in on this alone. We’re great at teamwork.