The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

You know the cliché that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts?

This is absolutely true for successful teams. Sure, each member of a team brings their own lifetime’s worth of experience, skills, and perspectives, and these diverse backgrounds often complement each other and enable the team to accomplish shared goals. But there’s another dimension that propels great teams to even greater heights: the relationships between team members. 

The interactions and inter-dependencies that come from working together are the source of true innovation; team members help each other to see a problem in a new light, or develop new solutions from a diverse set of ideas. 

Rather than viewing team members like different machines on an assembly line, each with its own distinct function, leaders should encourage their team members to interact and collaborate as much as possible, and facilitate the interdependence by creating a culture of open communication and trust.