Teams

I recently read that basketball was the sport where teamwork and coaching mattered least, and individual talent mattered most. The argument was that while a football or soccer team of average players can overcome a team of less than average players with one star, a basketball team with one star can often do very well. I talked with Coach Edwards about this and he quickly agreed, especially in today's NBA. He talked about how NBA players often get confused when they play international teams because the international teams still utilize a more teamwork-styled play.

Despite the fact that a star can make a difference, it's still very important that the star be with the right team. Victor Oladipo is a great example. While with the Magic, he averaged between 13 to 17 points per game over three years. He then goes to the Thunder for one year and averages just under 16 points per game. But when he moves to the Pacers, he finds the right fit on the right team and the same player now averages 23 points per game. That's a huge difference. Being on the right team has been studied quite a bit in the working world as well. One study showed that surgeons perform much better at one hospital over another despite their years of experience. The same can be said of pilots. A study found that 75% of airplane crashes happen when the pilot is put with a new crew. Even sleep-deprived flight crews and pilots dramatically outperform crews that do not usually work together.

So with all that this tells us, why do we focus on individual success and improvement? Doing that seems a little counter-productive. If we take lessons from the research, we should probably be focusing on how well our teams work together. Everything shows that this leads to individual improvement of all of the team members and wins for the group as a whole. This concept in education probably isn't that strange for elementary or middle school teachers. But the higher up in grade levels you go, the more you start to see teachers focus more on what is going on in their own rooms. But when you do see high school teachers that reach beyond their rooms to build a functioning team, great things tend to happen. So the next time you are sitting at a department meeting, ask yourself what all you are doing to build your team. Chances are, it's the single most important thing that you can
do to improve your own performance.