"The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack."- Kipling
 
According to Chris Stowell, "a team is a tight knit group of competent individuals who care deeply about each other. They are fiercely committed to their mission, and are highly motivated to combining their energy and expertise to achieve a common objective." Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
 
As far back as I can remember I have been a part of some tremendous teams. It started with my father, James B. Redd. For fourteen years, he was the head basketball coach at Central High School in Phenix City, Alabama. He won more than 400 games. His 1981 team won thirty-three consecutive games and was ranked number one in the state for most of the 1980-81 season. More importantly, in fourteen years of coaching, fifty of his players received college scholarships.
 
Although I was a part of several other successful sports teams, not all of the successful teams that I was a part of have been sports-related. When I was a freshman in high school, our symphonic band placed first in the state. For thirteen years I worked for Synovus Financial Corp. in Columbus, Georgia, a company voted by Fortune Magazine in 1999 as the Best Place to Work for in America. For the past three years, I have been the Associate Director at the Center for Servant Leadership at the Pastoral Institute in Columbus, Georgia. The PI, as we affectionately call it, has been consistently recognized as the best Samaritan Center in the country.
 
All of these successful teams have common characteristics:
 
Exceptional leadership. The leadership of each of the above mentioned organizations worked hard at being leaders. They led with integrity, honesty, care and humility. As John Maxwell says, "Everything begins and ends with leadership."
 
Shared vision. In Peter Senge's Fifth Discipline, a shared vision is the mechanism used for building shared meaning. It is the organization's "deep purpose that expresses the organization's reason for existence."  It's not enough for the leadership to know where the organization is going. Every team member must know the team's vision.
 
Overcome adversity. Let's face it, all teams face adversity. My father's last team to make it to the state tournament had to overcome a twenty point second quarter deficit to win the regional finals in order to get to the state tournament. The successful teams are survivors. When the going gets tough, they get tougher. In short, they rise to the occasion.