Get on or get out of the way

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." -Henry Ford

What does it take to make a team?

I don't think that you can put a team together and expect teamwork to occur organically. Teammates find their roles. Leaders, glue guys and role players emerge as the team works over time.

I believe that you have to just worry about the details. Execute the plays and the outcome will take care of itself. This is not always the easiest way to live--it creates a lot of uncertainty about the future and adds stress to the group. But how can you have piece of mind when you are building something that doesn't exist?

I have a terrible time being anything other than optimistic. One of my partners calls it a 'salesman's confidence' but I would prefer to view it as dedication to the play. I believe that I am going to succeed on a project or task. You can't succeed with a team full of people with that sort of ambitious recklessness. You need people to be measured and conservative. You need rational thought. But you also need an element of committed driven optimism; you cannot succeed without it. 

Steve Jobs got stopped with Ninja Stars in a Japanese airport today (9/14/2010). He seems to me to be someone who is ambitiously reckless. Ninja stars. Damn, that is cool for a guy in his late 50's. But think about all the incarnations his career has had from savant-like founder, to ousted rebel, to repeat visionary, and finally to a homecoming and final act that has allowed him to take all those lessons he learned and apply them to his first large success and bring it full circle. I don't know him nor have I read any biographies about him; but it seems like he has been a guy who just 'believed' in himself. That made him into a leader. That made him the leader of teams. He was not anointed.