Also, much thanks to the following who contributed both personally and indirectly by providing comments, insights, and the opportunity that led to the writing of Why Teams Win: Dan Allen, Steve Ballmer, R. Meredith Belbin, Ken Blanchard, D’Arcy Boulton, Bill Bradley, Alan Brahmst, Bev Brown, Michael Campany, Bruce Castoria, Craig Channell, Annemarie Chapman, Richard Church, Brady Clark, Shaun Cloustan, James Co, Matt Cohen, Jim Collins, Kevin Constantine, Geoff Courtnall, Stephen Covey, Marc Crawford, Mark D’Silva, Willie Desjardins, Robert Dirk, Derek Dorsett, John Dowling, Peter Drucker, Team Fenson, Michael Goldberg, Forest Gregg, Glen Hanlon, Bret Hedican, Darby Hendrickson, Clark Higgins, Ken Hitchcock, Larry Huras, Gord Huston, Clark Higgins, Dick Irvin, Phil Jackson, Shiv Jagday, Davey Johnson, Mike Keenan, Robert Keidel, Alan Kerr, Steve Kerr, Bob Knight, Rich Kromm, Nadira Laing, Tom Landry, David Lanphear, Rick Lanz, Greg LeMond, Rick Ley, Jeffery Liker, Vince Lombardi, Ed Lukowich, Morris Lukowich, Bas Lycett, Lorna MacDougall, Joe MacIlvaine, Sharon MacKay, Len McNealey, John Maxwell, Scott Mellanby, Gary Meredith, Mark Messier, Henry Mintzberg, Mike Moore, Joe Namath, Harry Neale, Andrea Neil, Roger Neilson, Merlin Olsen, Charles Ottewell, Bill Parcells, Sam Perlozzo, Even Pellerud, Bryant Perrier, Jim Poling, Pat Quinn, F. David Radler, Vic Rapp, Joseph Ravitch, Doug Reisborough, Branch Rickey, John Robinson, Gervais Rioux, Cliff Ronning, Bill Russell, Kris Russell, Jerrid Sauer, Johan Sauer, Dave Scatchard, Rodger Schmidt, Don Shula, V.J. Singh, Marshall Starkman, Roger Staubach, Casey Stengel, David Thielen, Joe Thornton, Y.A. Tittle, Barry Trotz, Bruce Tuckman, Bob Tunstead, Bill Walker, Tom Ward, Karen Watson, Tom Webster, Charlie Weis, Dave “Tiger” Williams, David Wolfe, Mitchell Wolfe, Eric Wright, Martin Wright, and Steve Yzerman.

During this time I’ve also consulted with corporate teams in sales, service, management, and manufacturing in a variety of industries across North America. Some of these groups increased their sales volume 100 percent, some doubled shareholder value, and others not only exceeded profit targets but were repeatedly listed nationally as a top 50 company to work for. I’ve also run medical and rehab teams in which the focus was helping people regain their health and return to productive life. In every case, the challenge involved helping people work together and perform to the best of their abilities. As such, I find the team experience an exciting and meaningful challenge.

Growing up, I played a lot of team sports. I was fortunate to play for teams that won city championships in high school and a national championship in college, and later to work with elite sport, corporate, and health service teams as a professional. Being part of a winning team is a satisfying and exhilarating experience. People often compare the feeling of winning to sex. Indeed, neuropsychologists tell us that for competitive people winning triggers a release of dopamine, a feel-good hormone and neurotransmitter that creates pleasurable emotions and contributes to the intense sense of satisfaction that winning provides.

Personally, I think being part of a successful team is a spiritual experience. It requires faith, and giving or surrendering something of oneself for the collective good. In so doing one can become part of something greater than oneself, and bond with others doing the same. In making that investment I have found the team experiences I participated in as a player, consultant, and coach to be challenging, enjoyable, and very rewarding.

What sparked the idea of this book was a synchronicity of events over a span of a few weeks. I had been on the road for a month, working with a couple of sport teams. One, the Nashville Predators of the NHL, was battling for a spot in the playoffs. The other, a US Olympic team, was getting ready for the Winter Games. Not surprisingly, my thoughts were charged with recent team experiences and some of the issues and factors that contribute to team success. The process of strengthening qualities like intention, commitment, identity, focus, and mental toughness was very much on my mind. Furthermore, I was just finishing a book, Hockey Tough: A Winning Mental Game on the psychological side of sport and had recently defined several factors critical to team success.

While traveling through Chicago on my way home, I ran into Kevin Constantine at O’Hare airport. Kevin is a well-known NHL coach. After clearing security we sat down and had a conversation about team success. I mentioned to Kevin that I was working on a book about winning and discussed with him our impressions as to why teams win. He shared his experience and insights on team success, highlighting the importance of focus, commitment, and preparation . . . all of which reinforced my thinking on the subject.

Immediately on my return to Vancouver, I had a meeting scheduled with Gord Huston, the CEO of Envision Financial, a very successful credit union in the Pacific North West. The organization had recently merged and was dealing with issues relating to identity and culture. In preparation for the meeting I reflected on some core issues as to why organizations and teams in business and sport are successful . . . in effect, why and how teams win. As I organized my thoughts for the meeting, it became increasingly apparent that sport, with its clear and fast bottom line and commitment to continuous improvement, is an excellent performance model for many forms of human endeavor. And that many of the characteristics that contribute to team success in sport are applicable and would be of interest to a wide range of team leaders and players in business—and life.

So I began to write. Yet, as sometimes happens, after a brief inspired beginning, circumstance and seemingly more pressing commitments put the project on hold. A couple of years passed during which my work with sport and corporate teams took me coast to coast across North America, from California to Newfoundland, and abroad, to Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and Norway in Europe; to Korea, Malaysia, and China in Asia; and to South Africa. In that time, I helped sport teams prepare for the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, hockey’s Stanley and Memorial Cups, plus a half dozen World Championships and World Cups. At the same time I consulted with a variety of corporate teams helping them improve teamwork, hit sales targets, strengthen team identity, and increase profitability. The consistent enthusiastic response of all these groups to my input on Why Teams Win sparked me to resume, in earnest, the challenge of writing this book.

Most of us live and work in teams of one sort or another. In reviewing the nine keys, I encourage readers to reflect on their past and present experience with teams and consider what they and their associates can do to enhance both their individual and team’s performance in these areas.

Before we begin exploring why teams win, let’s define exactly what we mean by the terms team and win. What is a “team”? And what do we mean by the word “win”?

Over the last quarter century I’ve asked dozens of groups, “How do you define team?” The most common response from people in all walks of life is, “A team is a group of people working together to achieve a common goal.” I then explain that while that may be the popular use of the word, the word originally referred to a group of animals hitched together pulling in a common direction to a common goal . . . as in the case of a team of horses or a dog team. Expressed in this manner it becomes graphically clear that if one of the horses strays and wanders off course, all the other horses have to pull harder to keep the team in line and enable it to achieve its goal. Or, if one of the dogs falls asleep in its traces, all the other dogs have to work harder to move the team along. And so it is with teams of people.

A team requires a dynamic shared commitment where everyone makes a difference. As a team player, what you do either contributes to moving the team in the desired direction, or what you do impedes the group’s progress and everyone has to work harder to move you and the rest of the team towards the desired end. In this respect the team challenge is a personal one. And a commitment to enhancing individual performance can enrich both the player’s and the team’s experience.

As for the word win, a definition that I believe captures the spirit of winning is, to win is to gain through effort or struggle. In the late eighties I was working on a book on high performance. At the time, my son was ten years old and an enthusiastic Little Leaguer. One day he came into the room where I was writing, watched me typing away, then asked what I was doing. I explained I was writing a book. He asked what the title of the book was going to be. I replied that I was thinking of calling it Winning With Ease. Hearing the title he immediately shook his head and curled up his nose in displeasure.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, “Don’t you like that title?”

“No Dad,” he said still shaking his head, “it’s not right. Everyone knows winning isn’t easy. To win you’ve got to hustle.”

Winning isn’t easy. The world is becoming more and more competitive.

In sport, competition is intense, with everyone vying for the same prize, and training all year long to achieve it. When Lorenzo Neal, a fifteen-year veteran of the NFL, was asked how he survived the violence and played so effectively over the years, he said, “I train hard in the preseason.” Then he paused and said, “Actually there is no preseason.” Training is all year long. And as for security and longevity, the word in sport is that you are only as good as your last game, that champions rarely repeat, and relatively successful coaches can be fired if they don’t win it all.

In business, all the screws are being tightened. People want things done better, faster, and cheaper. And as corporations compete with businesses from around the globe, many workers are challenged to become online accessible day and night.

The definition of winning as achievement through effort or struggle reflects the challenging process of setting a goal, and then working with determination, diligence, and perseverance in a highly competitive forum to make that goal a reality.

Not everyone is excited by the word winning. When I discussed the Why Teams Win program with the vice president of human resources of a large energy corporation he surprised me by saying, “We’re not interested in winning here. I think the concept is destructive to cooperation and the team-building process.” He went on to describe winning in the primordial sense of combatant versus combatant . . . where only one person walks away at the end of the battle.

His experience was clearly very different from mine. I explained that teams compete and win through an integration of talent, focus, and effort. Within the context of a high-performance team, winning is not as much about individuals competing with each other as it is a cooperative synergistic (win-win) process, where team members learn they can accomplish more by working together than they would by creating on their own. Winning is everyone working together and achieving together.