I don’t know who said this, but I heard it a few years ago – there are no statues of teams. Well there may be a few but not many – if you Google “statues of teams” not much comes up. It seems that as a society we are better able to recognise and honour in this long-lasting way talented or famous individuals rather than teams.
I know sporting teams are recognised and revered by their fan base and the best football and basket players are highly rewarded, but if you think more historically in terms of lasting memories, it is individuals rather than teams that seem to stand out.
Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson is famously remembered at the naval Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, sending his famous signal before the engagement ‘England expects every man to do his duty’. And he duly has a grand statue at the top of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square built between 1840 and 1843. He also made a key tactical decision splitting his numerically inferior fleet in two and sailing straight at the French and Spanish fleets. His deputy Vice Admiral Collingwood who led one part of the divided fleet also has a giant statue overlooking the mouth of the River Tyne.
However, what of the officers and men of the British navy, the crews of each of the 27 ships who executed the complex manoeuvres necessary to give effect to this tactic in sailing ships and then fight in the battle? They are mostly forgotten and lost in the tides of history. They certainly don’t have statues though I suppose Trafalgar Square is a sort of tribute to all of them.
I have been part of several great teams bidding for and negotiating outsourcing contracts over the last couple of years. In each of them every person in the team has played a part and at times has provided leadership and direction and valuable contributions. More combinations of different disciplines have arrived at solutions and dealt with tasks and issues in a way no individual on their own could have done. Often now the senior players encourage the best in others and welcome contributions rather than insisting they know what’s right.
But still over time whilst leaders are remembered the team players and the teqam itself are not really. They may have a bit of a moment in the sun perhaps reflected in a bonus at the time, but the true lasting values of these teams and their interworking is not always appreciated.
I suggest it is important that teams as a whole are recognised during and after their work. See, for example, this article on Teams: Rewards and Recognitions which says Leaders who recognized the good work of a team—as a team—contributed greatly to the motivation levels and cohesion of that team. And teams that were ignored or devalued expended far too much energy having to build each other up, attempting to move beyond negative emotions like frustration and hurt, and looking for recognition from peers.
There’s also a book by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton called The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance which has been recently updated for the UK. They suggest that when your team as a whole achieves goals, recognizing its accomplishments is perfectly appropriate. And don’t wait until the particular project is near completion.
“In sports, we don’t wait for the team to win before we applaud; we celebrate each incremental step toward victory. Yet in business there’s this tendency to wait until the project is clearly working well before we celebrate anything.”
And industry leaders past and present have all valued teams – see the following great quotes - even though each of them was a powerful figure worthy of a statue in their own right.
1 Henry Ford “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
2 Lee Iacocca "I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team."
3 Steve Jobs "Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people."
Even Lord Nelson cared about and recognised the value of his sailors. Even though he must have had a lot else on his mind, he wrote a letter which has recently come to light to a supply vessel asking for more raisins and suet one week before the big day in 1805!
I know sporting teams are recognised and revered by their fan base and the best football and basket players are highly rewarded, but if you think more historically in terms of lasting memories, it is individuals rather than teams that seem to stand out.
Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson is famously remembered at the naval Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, sending his famous signal before the engagement ‘England expects every man to do his duty’. And he duly has a grand statue at the top of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square built between 1840 and 1843. He also made a key tactical decision splitting his numerically inferior fleet in two and sailing straight at the French and Spanish fleets. His deputy Vice Admiral Collingwood who led one part of the divided fleet also has a giant statue overlooking the mouth of the River Tyne.
However, what of the officers and men of the British navy, the crews of each of the 27 ships who executed the complex manoeuvres necessary to give effect to this tactic in sailing ships and then fight in the battle? They are mostly forgotten and lost in the tides of history. They certainly don’t have statues though I suppose Trafalgar Square is a sort of tribute to all of them.
I have been part of several great teams bidding for and negotiating outsourcing contracts over the last couple of years. In each of them every person in the team has played a part and at times has provided leadership and direction and valuable contributions. More combinations of different disciplines have arrived at solutions and dealt with tasks and issues in a way no individual on their own could have done. Often now the senior players encourage the best in others and welcome contributions rather than insisting they know what’s right.
But still over time whilst leaders are remembered the team players and the teqam itself are not really. They may have a bit of a moment in the sun perhaps reflected in a bonus at the time, but the true lasting values of these teams and their interworking is not always appreciated.
I suggest it is important that teams as a whole are recognised during and after their work. See, for example, this article on Teams: Rewards and Recognitions which says Leaders who recognized the good work of a team—as a team—contributed greatly to the motivation levels and cohesion of that team. And teams that were ignored or devalued expended far too much energy having to build each other up, attempting to move beyond negative emotions like frustration and hurt, and looking for recognition from peers.
There’s also a book by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton called The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance which has been recently updated for the UK. They suggest that when your team as a whole achieves goals, recognizing its accomplishments is perfectly appropriate. And don’t wait until the particular project is near completion.
“In sports, we don’t wait for the team to win before we applaud; we celebrate each incremental step toward victory. Yet in business there’s this tendency to wait until the project is clearly working well before we celebrate anything.”
And industry leaders past and present have all valued teams – see the following great quotes - even though each of them was a powerful figure worthy of a statue in their own right.
1 Henry Ford “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
2 Lee Iacocca "I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team."
3 Steve Jobs "Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people."
Even Lord Nelson cared about and recognised the value of his sailors. Even though he must have had a lot else on his mind, he wrote a letter which has recently come to light to a supply vessel asking for more raisins and suet one week before the big day in 1805!
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