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Newsletter Article
There Is No I in Team
By Lexi Herrera, M.S. and Dr. Jean Greaves
NBA basketball teams lean on the performance of marquee players, many of whom live the repeated sentiment of the great Michael Jordan, “There is no ‘i’ in team, but there is an ‘i’ in win.” Jordan’s team, the Chicago Bulls, won six NBA championships during his tenure. But where would the Bulls have gone without him?
Superstars at work, similar to superstars in sports, are famous for creating chaos. They often turn the concept of team into a one-man show, leaving everyone else in the dust. We’ve all worked on projects in which the same amount of work—if not more—could’ve been completed individually. Which begs the question, why form work teams in the first place?
Ever been in a meeting when ideas were flowing, everyone offered his or her unique perspective without the fear of ridicule, and tasks were accomplished with ease and efficiency? Neither have we. But at TalentSmart, we’ve worked with hundreds of teams, and addressed hundreds of thousands of individuals, and the quality that separates those teams that work together efficiently from those that fall apart is team emotional intelligence. You see, just as an individual has an emotional intelligence score, or EQ, so does an intact work group.
A 2006 independent research study at Alliant International University measured the Team EQ of intact work groups, and compared the Team EQ scores to overall team performance. Team EQ scores not only predicted performance; they had a direct, linear connection to group productivity. The higher a Team’s EQ, the more the team achieved. Team EQ was the single determining factor between groups that achieved peak performance and those that achieved moderate to average performance.
