Alas, it has occurred to me that having a college degree does not necessarily make you “smarter than the average bear”, so to speak. In theory, it should. Yet, a recent experience forced me to re-evaluate myself, particularly my leadership skills and abilities, and hence I found myself back in the classroom listening to a lecture on business management and organizational behavior.

To date, my college years have been the best years of my life. It has been two years since I had to cram for a final or write a prolific term paper that would be the determining factor of whether or not I would survive that semester and be able to proceed on to the next. Since graduating from college, with a degree in public relations and business management leadership, I have been juggling my time between working full-time, starting up an online sun protective clothing business, running an award-winning non-profit organization, and doing freelance consulting work for women business owners. According to my resume, and the college degree, I possess a fairly sound knowledge base for what it takes to recruit, build and maintain an effective team. I may even have a few pearls of wisdom to share about building teams, coaching, and leadership development. And up until recently, I thought this to be true; however, I realize that I still have much to learn and relearn. In fact, personal and professional growth is an ongoing process of refining, reflecting, and revising. It is a process. The word development itself suggest this, so why would leadership development be any different?

When four members of my board of directors at the aforementioned non-profit organization told me they wanted to take time off and go back to school, I wasn’t even fazed. That is, until months down the road, our organization garnered two prestigious awards, coupled with national recognition, thus resulting in a seemingly endless “To Do” List. I managed to answer the hundreds of emails, return the dozens of voice mails, write thank you notes, organize and give presentations, fairly well, especially considering I was still managing several other projects with a fast approaching deadline attached to them. Then, one night when on the phone with an old friend, I was approached with the following: “I understand that you have lost four of your key players who have been helping you with the day-to-day maintenance of the organization, recently, but why on earth have you not utilized the other team members? There are other members who volunteer time, right? So why not delegate a few projects to them and give them an opportunity to contribute more to the organization. They would probably appreciate having more responsibility and having an opportunity to volunteer their time in a meaningful way. Besides, you can then attend to the projects that you have committed to previously, but have been neglecting due to being over-extended.” Unfortunately, when I (finally) heeded this advice and approached the other volunteers, I learned that many of them had been feeling detached from the organization. Not the cause, but the organization. For many months, I had neglected to delegate and thus leaving them to feel unappreciated, under utilized, and even unnecessary. Suddenly, I was left an increasing workload but without any manpower. I had lost my team.

So, it was back to the drawing board. I was sitting in front of my computer screen answered week old emails and racking my brain for some brilliant method of re-building my dream team, when flashbacks from the movie Jerry Maguire (mingled with the faint, monotonous ramblings of an old business professor floating around in the back of my head) forced me to have an epifany. There is no “I” in team.

Although trite, (not to mention obvious), the simple fact is that there is a lesson to be learned in recognizing that the key to building teams is accepting and appreciating the fact that we other people. We cannot achieve our goals and objectives, professionally or personally, without the assistance of others. We need manpower to accomplish tasks within an organization, but moreover we need to recruit the myriad talents, skills, ideas, energy, insights, and personalities of a variety of individuals. Recruiting people is one thing, yet utilizing them well so as to successfully carryout the mission and vision of the organization is another. Albeit, that unlocking the unlimited potential each team member brings to the table not be overlooked or underestimated. After all, it is best leaders—the ones worth following—that understand this concept and thus are skilled enough to put into practice. Bringing this back to the example illustrated in Jerry Maguire.

(To Be Continued)

Danielle White is a client account specialist for 10x Marketing and the Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness (CMOE), an international leader in corporate consulting, executive team coaching, team building, and business strategizing. To schedule a team building workshop or find effective management tools, check out CMOE today.

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