SUCCESS: What makes a good team good

Molly Vandemoer and her two teammates, Anna Tunnicliffe and Debbie Capozzi, were members of the 2012 US Olympic Sailing Team. They won gold at the 2011 Women’s Match Racing World Championship, silver at the 2012 Worlds, spent more than a year ranked #1 in the world and finished 5th at the Olympic Games. Here Molly explains the elements she observed that helped their team, and could help any team…

Each time you join a team, you learn a ton about yourself and about the people you are with, and you learn what works and what doesn’t. The three biggest aspects needed for a good solid team are

1) Have mutual respect for each other. You talk about it, and you think it exists, but when you actually see it exist, it is among the best feelings in the world. Regardless of the number of people, there must be respect for each person’s opinion and their ability.

2) Everybody on the team has a common goal, that everyone is working for the same thing, for the same reasons, and has a common work ethic. There is nothing worse than feeling like you are putting in more than the person next to you, or that you are feeling guilty because you are not contributing enough.

3) Being able to turn off and have fun. It can get very stressful when you are trying to excel and be the best at what you do, so being able to make each other laugh and remember that we are doing this because we enjoy it is an important trait to have amongst the team members.

Source: The Latimer Group