I have worked on a few different teams in my life and today I was struck dumb by something that someone on my team said to us. (It was a good dumbstruck, don’t worry!) 

My teammate spoke about the power behind a good team & how if you choose your team wisely everything will begin to fall into place. On our team, each of us has a role that we fill based upon our unique strengths but we each know that we have support from each other if we need it. 

There are some days where I am stuck on something or can’t seem to figure out a good solution to a challenge we are facing in a supply shipment at work and I can get so mired by the details that its hard to view things from a different perspective. 

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## Asking for Help ## 

I’m a guy that grew up in the country on a farm. I wasn’t exactly raised in an environment where guys usually ask for help. There seems to be this unspoken rule that guys just have to figure every situation out on their own and you just don’t ask for help no matter how deep in it you are. 

Thankfully, I have worked on a few teams where it was expected of you to ask for help in order to accomplish your goal and get your work done. We had some damn smart CEOs that intentionally designed the system in such a way that you had to work with at least one other person or the deadline or objective wouldn’t be met. 

Now, as someone that is used to doing everything on my own, this was hell at first. 

Eventually, I got to understand the reason behind the CEO wanting us to work in small groups. Here’s the perspective:
•	You get to know your own strengths and weaknesses better so you can work to improve yourself in a small, controlled environment.
•	We learned about each other and how to interact with people from various backgrounds that had varying perspectives from our own. 
•	In the event of a disagreement, we learned to manage things ourselves without the need for mediation from management. 
•	Having small groups allowed us to bounce ideas back and forth in order to come up with the very best solution! 
•	If you knew you were weak in one area, you could lean on a teammate that was stronger in that area so this cut down on the amount of time that it took to get the same task done if you were working on your own. For example, I am not great at creating charts or graphs but I love crunching numbers. I have a friend in my work space now that loves creating beautiful charts and is GREAT at doing it. So, I crunch her numbers and she makes charts for me. We both are so much more productive now! 

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<center> Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash </center>

The team that I work on now is literally perfect. I am not sure how I got so lucky but each team member is cream of the crop and a subject matter expert in their field. I learn something new each and every day. I look forward to waking up in the morning and checking my messages to see what we are going to be working on that day. I know a few people that hate their jobs and have for years! I am so fortunate to love what I do and who I work with!

What is your thought on teams? I would love to hear your experiences and/or how you would structure a team or support them if you were in a management position! 

Thanks for reading, 

## Jeff ##