Anyone who watched the 2010 NCAA “March Madness” (Men’s National Basketball Championship) could not help but notice the Butler Bulldogs, the Indiana team that made it to the final, championship game, even though they lost to the Duke Blue Devils.  Butler University is a school of about 4,000 students.  They competed with teams in the NCAA tournament that were as much as five times their size and that attracted more sought-after athletic talent.

One reason that Butler did so well was their focus on “the team.”  During one TV interview one team member said, “We just trusted that one of the others on the team would make a play when we needed it.”  The Butler coach stressed this point in his interviews as well.  He also talked about their communications, about keeping their minds focused on the game situation and about helping each other to make the right plays.

Today, with business competition, customer expectations, new technology, etc. it is more critical than ever to build teamwork in your organization.  The many challenges that your organization faces, the more critical it becomes that teamwork is effective.  The key elements to successful teamwork are trust and communications.  It is also crucial to have effective leadership; a focus on common goals and that everyone assume responsibility for success.  However, without trust and communications the team will have difficulty functioning effectively.

The whole process of organizational teamwork must begin with a company leadership team that creates a business strategy and a focus on the critical goals of the enterprise.  It then becomes a process of communicating the vision, values and mission of the organization to a team, or teams that will be responsible for planning and executing the mission and building trust in the teams and within the teams to carry out their assigned responsibilities.  Marketing plans, as well as other operational plans, will succeed only with team-based planning and execution. 

The young men of the Butler basketball team understood their mission well, to win the NCAA tournament.  Though they did not win that final game they learned a valuable lesson in the value of the team.