In today’s culture, there seems to be an obsession over who’s the best. If you grew up a kid on the block, you always wanted to know who was the fastest, tallest, smartest, who had the nicest baseball cards or better jump rope record. It doesn’t change much when we grow up. We’re looking always for the richest man in the world, strongest man on earth, employee of the year, and so on and so forth.
Is there anything wrong with being the best? Absolutely not. In fact, I believe that we all need to strive to be the best- if not compared to others then compared to who we were yesterday. But could it be that in the quest for the best individual that we have forgotten the importance of something more powerful than just the best individuals?
What Kawhi Has To Say
My favorite Basketball team of the century would have to be the San Antonio Spurs, not because of their winning record, but because of the philosophy it’s built on. San Antonio is not about having the “best” players by the league’s standards. Although they have some ridiculously good players, that’s not what makes the San Antonio system work. What makes it work is the teamwork- a higher priority placed on team interest than individual ones.
And the team’s superstar- Kawhi Leonard’s– statement given recently just embodies that. Here’s what He had to say when praised for being the second best player in the world (next to Lebron James):
“I didn’t hear it, but it doesn’t matter. I’m trying to be the best team in the world right now. It’s not about me. It’s all about the Spurs. And that’s all I wanna do.”
The Most Important Words In Team Building
Without a shadow of a doubt, personal development matters and I advocate that a lot, but even more important is team development. God’s purpose for our lives are so big that there’s no way we’re going to be able to accomplish it on our own. If you want to fulfill, scale, grow (whatever you wanna call the process of advancing God’s kingdom) your efforts, you’re going to need a team.
Who makes up your team right now? Your family, your work colleagues, your communities or your ministries. We need people around us to be strong where we are weak, experienced where we are noobs, intelligent where we are flawed.
And the most important words every team player must learn if we want to grow effective teams are these four words: “It’s not about me.”