The Secret to Teamwork

We’ve all heard the clichés about how working as a team is more powerful than working alone; that no man is an island; that T-E-A-M stands for Together Everyone Achieves Miracles.

Perhaps, if you’re like me, you don’t really buy in to that rhetoric especially if you have had experiences where doing it yourself seems not only faster but gives you a better quality result. But this past week I had the opportunity to be on a team that was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Truly together we achieved miracles.

I was volunteering as a crew member for an Anthony Robbins event in Toronto – the same event I attended in March where after the first day you walk barefoot over hot coals. I was placed on what was called “The Fire Team” – the group of people who were to build the fire and prepare the site for 3000 participants to walk barefoot over hot coals in the dead of night.

The first thing we were told by the captains of the team was that normally they have 50 volunteers to get the job done (there were 24 of us) and normally they get one break for dinner, but because of our low numbers, that may not happen. (Please note that the day begins at 8am and ends in the wee hours of the morning.) We were also told that the site managers wanted the whole thing cleaned up that night because they had a group coming in that morning and didn’t want them to see a charred mess when they arrived. In other words, expect to work all day, all night, get no breaks and plan to be there until 3:00 a.m.

OK so be it. I came to volunteer and that is what I did. And so did everyone else. We began our work preparing a park to be safe for 3000 people walking around barefoot in the dark. This meant clearing every twig, rock, piece of glass or whatever from the ground by hand. We assembled 18 wheelbarrows from scratch to be used during the day and to hold the coals that participants would walk on. We then put up a fence that scaled the perimeter of the CN tower park, which is quite large, so that no one would come wandering through the park while people were about to walk on coals. We sodded a rocky hill that led down into the park to protect people’s feet. We swept the concrete and sidewalks leading from the building to the park to remove any pebbles, stones, and sharp objects. We then created 18 firewalk lanes with 2 layers of sod, laid out 18 water hoses to each lane, and of course built and maintained the fire from which we got the coals from – which was another complex process and done on a 12’x 36’ foundation area made of 5 layers of sod which we laid. The fire needed to be stoked and kept burning for at least 6 hours before the coals are ready. All done again by our small but mighty crew.

What was so amazing about our small but MIGHTY crew was that we had so much fun doing it all. At lunch time we were actually ahead of schedule and took a break. At dinner time, we were still ahead of schedule and got an unprecedented second break! We all stayed until the very end when the last coals and sod were cleaned from the site and we were formally dismissed at 12:45 am. Unbelievable. Our team worked like magic.

The next day we had a debrief meeting. The captains said normally they give out a prize for the best seasoned fire team member and the best rookie. Since they were out of country, the Canadian promoter did not provide prizes for the fire team. The captains said it was for the best because they wouldn’t have wanted to choose. Everyone was that good.

That night we began bugging the captains asking them who would have received the prizes if they had them. They threw it back at us asking, “Who would you choose?” We all sat in silence not wanting to name someone over another. I finally said, “The reason we were such an amazing team is because no one person stood out above the rest.” We all nodded in agreement.

So that’s the secret to teamwork: Every person sharing a common vision for a common result. We all knew up front what we needed to do, how long it would take, and we all agreed to stay until the end to see it through. I guess that’s also a common expectation. The communication regarding what to expect was excellent. The only surprises were good ones like “Go eat!” Even the unexpected 4 hours of rain couldn’t dampen our spirits. There was too much good built up to wash it away.

The minute one tries to outshine another, the team is broken. The second one tries to sluff off duties so another has to pick up the slack, the team is damaged. The moment one leaves because they’re done even when the job isn’t, the team ceases to exist. If you expect to get a break and don’t, morale lowers. It’s about vision, outcome, and meeting expectations. If you get all those, you have the ingredients for a miracle. It’s a simple recipe, you just need to remember to follow it.

And that’s my perspective…