By Leigh Currey Merrifield
May God rest her precious soul – my mother saved every single one of the Food for Thought columns I wrote during my long tenure at the News & Journal. Many of them have yellowed over the years, but each one is protected in a vinyl casing and stored in several large ring binder notebooks, still lined up in her built-in bookshelves. There are well over a thousand of them – none ever repeated.
She used to question how I managed to come up with new topics each week. I wish I knew how I managed that because now that I’m doing the column again (and being older!), I fear that I might tap out of fresh material soon!
Don’t ask me where it came from, but this week I had decided to write about the effectiveness of “teamwork” in all avenues of life. I have always tried to find an appropriate quote from someone that linked well to my topic, and I continue to do that. This week, for some reason, I searched for a suitable quote BEFORE composing the text instead of afterwards. Unlike my usual searches, this one was easy; there were so many choices and they were all good ones. I decided that many of the recognizable people I was quoting could probably get the point across much better than I could, so I’m switching things up a bit and giving you the quotes first. I guess this is another example of teamwork; I am ‘teaming’ with others who will contribute to my efforts to give you ‘food for thought’ this week. Here goes ………………
“The strength of the team is each individual member; the strength of each member is the team.” ~ Phil Jackson
”I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team; I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.” ~ Mia Hamm
“When was honey ever made with one bee in a hive?” ~ Thomas Hood
“There is no such thing as a self-made man; you will reach your goals only with the help of others.” ~ George Shinn
“Coming together is a beginning; staying together is a progress, and working together is a success.” ~ Henry Ford
“I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.” ~ Mother Teresa
“A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues.” ~ Lee Iacocca
“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” ~ Helen Keller
“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” ~ Vince Lombardi
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” ~ Pres. Harry S. Truman
“Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people.” ~ Steve Jobs
“To build a strong team, you must see someone else’s strength as a complement to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority.” ~ Christine Caine
“A single leaf working alone provides no shade.” ~ Chuck Page
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” ~ Henry Ford
I think all of these words speak volumes about achieving goals as a “team”, a group working as one to move toward one goal. While they may not always agree, they can willingly listen to the input of others, and reach more effective solutions; teams don’t rely on just the input of one person. A good outcome relies on the special talents, skills, and strengths of many individual contributors, and bonds are formed in this kind of friendly, supportive environment. Teamwork – people working together – is healthy whether it is in sports, in a workplace, in an organization, in a church, in i friendships, family relationships, in a marriage, in politics, just about anywhere! Give it some thought!
I’ll close with the quote I loved most – “A beautiful symphony is the work of an entire orchestra, not just one instrument.” ~ H.E. Luccock
