teamwork quotes

When individual members of the team are highly disciplined, they can be trusted and, therefore, allowed to operate with very little oversight.

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

There is something about building up a comradeship – that I still believe is the greatest of all feats – and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.

There are a lot of inaccuracies out there when it comes to the SEAL training process. You will see guys carrying logs around on television. They think that the hardest part about being on a SEAL team is getting through that training. The fact of the matter is, if you have a good attitude, that training is fun. I had a blast.

I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.

One thing is certain in business. You and everyone around you will make mistakes.

Waking up early was the first example I noticed in the SEAL Teams in which discipline was really the difference between being good and being exceptional.

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

When I came up to bat with three men on and two outs in the ninth, I looked in the other team’s dugout and they were already in street clothes.

When you are an actor, you have to stay inside this world, but when you are with the crew, on the outside, you are in the dirt, working through all the issues. It’s just a different way of working, and I think I preferred it.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

I’ll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it’s sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

I play a complicated position in an intensely team-oriented game.

Want balance in your life? Then sure, get your own act together, but don’t forget four powerful disciplines of execution in your team and organization.

The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.

We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.

It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

My game is really played above time. I don’t say that like I’m saying I’m ahead of my time. I’m saying, like, if I’m on the court and I throw a pass, the ball that I’ve thrown will lead my teammate right where he needs to go, before he even knows that that’s the right place to go to.

For more than a decade, I led an organization that put on an elaborate Christmas program each December. It was a big production, with over 250 people participating in more than 20 performances. By the end of the season, everyone who participated was exhausted.

No cricket team in the world depends on one or two players. The team always plays to win.

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team.

The important thing is that your teammates have to know you’re pulling for them and you really want them to be successful.

I’ve been pleased to work with so many wonderful stars through the years. This has been an amazing journey. I hope it continues.

If you want to reach the top, don’t run over others. Likely, the only way you’ll reach the top is to be carried there by others.

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

Whenever our neighbour’s house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.

The colonel replied that he didn’t care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

There’s a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony – even vicious harmony – on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.

I’ve been so blessed to play for the greatest coach at a time when our organization has done incredible things. I’ve played with the best teammates. Playing for Mr. Kraft and what his influence on the team has been.

The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.

There have been so many great players that I’ve played with, that I’ve played against over the years.

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

We have a great group of guys that really sacrifice every night, care about each other, and try to play the right away.

Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It’s the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.

Dividers seek to make themselves look or feel better by making others feel worse. They damage relationships, fracture teams and organizations, and create havoc in people’s lives.

We named the book ‚Extreme Ownership‘ because we really found that when we looked at not only at leaders but at teams that were the most successful, we found that the ones that had this attitude of extreme ownership were the ones that did the best, and it’s definitely an attitude that I had.

Nobody’s indispensable.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

My uncle played rugby, and my dad played football, and they used to argue which game was the roughest – and everybody agreed rugby was. It’s a great team sport, and to be successful, every person has to play in the same level.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty… it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – and sometimes three.

We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.

It’s very important to like the people you work with. Otherwise, your job is going to be quite miserable.

As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control.