After more than twenty years of playing lacrosse and coaching lacrosse, I’ve learned a lot about the sport, but more importantly, I’ve learned about teams and what it takes to be a great teammate, and most importantly, what goes into a high performing team.
I’ll be the first to admit it, I was never the best player – in terms of skill - on any of my teams over the years, but you’d have a hard time convincing me now that I wasn't an integral piece of the puzzle. In fact, there’s a story I’ve shared many times before, but I’ll share it again, that speaks directly to this:
I had the absolute pleasure of being part of The Ohio State University’s Women’s Division 1 Lacrosse team for four years in college, but I only clocked about twenty minutes of regulation time in those four years… and looking back, I don’t doubt my contribution to the team, not one bit!
Don’t get me wrong, I had my doubts back then… I clearly remember a conversation I had with one of my teammates. She was an “all-star” in every sense of the word, her nick name was even “Text Book” she was so perfect! She played attack, and I played defense, but like I said, I really didn’t play in the games – I was what we call “the practice team.” One night after practice, I was feeling especially frustrated, and my teammate pulled me aside and told me how important I was to the team, to her specifically!
She told me that she was only as good as she was in our games, because she had to play against me in practice every day.
After that conversation, everything changed! I saw how my effort in practice played a key role in my teammates’ performance in our games. This not only gave me the push I needed to not quit, but it drove me to practice and play even harder.
The same goes for workplace teams… Every team has the “all-star” team and every team has the “practice team,” but the important thing is that everyone knows and understands the value they bring to the team – that’s what defines a high performing team!
Every high performing team has one thing in common: All members of the team must know their roles! One of the biggest issues effecting a team’s effectiveness is that everyone wants to be the “all-star” and the people who are the “practice team” feel like they’re not as good as the others, but in reality, as it was for me, even the practice team is good – that’s what makes for an unstoppable team.
In order for this to happen, everyone must have clearly defined expectations of their performance, as well as their teammates. In college, I knew it was the starting players’ job to gain control of the ball off the draw, score goals, and prevent our opponent from getting into the scoring zone on defense. Similarly, I knew my job – along with the rest of the practice team – was to get our starters ready for the game. This meant playing the best possible defense and attack against them so that when they were in a game situation it was easy.
So, is your team clear on their roles?
Are they raising the standard for each other?
Are they practicing as hard as they play?
