Teamwork: I find it fascinating that a snowflake, by itself, can be so delicate; but when they team up, they can close down an entire city.
– Steve Maraboli
How many of you have heard of the ‘5% Club’? Would you like to be a part of it?
You know who they are. They’re those people who take that extra step above the rest of the pack to be extraordinary. They are the movers, the shakers, the people who dream and (here’s the difference) take action to turn their dreams into reality.
They are the business owners, the self-starters, the entrepreneurs, the visionary CEOs, the ones who commit fully and wholeheartedly to the job of the dream – and the dream of the job – and work their way up the ladder.
Steve Jobs. Lisa Messenger. Sheryl Sandberg. Jodie Fox. Evan, Biz, Noah and Jack who challenged precise messaging to create and launch Twitter.
Here’s the interesting thing about those amazing ‘five-percenters’ though. If you ask any of them the question ‘could you have achieved this alone? Could you have seen this dream become a reality without support and collaboration and amazing thinkers around you?’ – I am willing to gamble that in the majority of cases the answer would be ‘no’.
Individually, yes, they are the super-nova with the idea that fires the imagination of the team – but it takes the team to make that dream turn into a product, a concept, a package. As Richard Branson famously said, ‘no-one can achieve success alone’.
We need a team around us to:
- challenge our thinking
- force our curiousity
- push our boundaries
- help us be restless
- pick us up when we fall
- make us celebrate our little – and big – wins
- strive for perfection, and, at the same time
- understand that we are allowed to fail.
Success is a lonely journey if you do it by yourself. Those who do stand by themselves rapidly realise that, and also miss out on that amazing cross-pollination that a team brings.
The world is such an exhausting place and we are moving so quickly in every aspect that it’s hard to stay focused, let alone happy! Technologically, advancement is so rapid that innovations are being forced every day in product design, functionality, delivery, how we market, how we communicate, with whom we communicate – and via what forum.
Imagine doing this alone on the path to that 5% Club. Exhaustion. Burn out – physical, emotional or mental – or of course a combination of all three. Instead, why not embrace collective thinking, energy, persistence and drive to add fuel and momentum to the trip to the top?
That’s the secret that those in the Club already know.
So start your team engines.
And drive. Straight to the top 5%.
