We woke this past Saturday morning to a beautiful day. Vibrant blue, cloudless sky with a crisp autumn breeze. After a cup of coffee at home, we decided to head to our favorite local breakfast joint before beginning our day of errands and tackling the dreaded “to do” list.

While waiting to order, the Host walked by and began clearing and bussing a table nearby. Probably not part of the job description for a Host but he was pitching in since the Servers were busy waiting on their customers. As the Host was finishing up, one of the Servers walked behind him and said, “It takes a team to build the dream.” I laughed to myself as I was pretty certain he was being somewhat facetious.

Later in the day after crossing items off the “to do” list and enjoying the afternoon sunshine, the Server’s comment …. “It takes a team to build the dream” came back to mind.

I recently completed a week long Leadership Development Program with colleagues from our Corporate and U.S./U.K. Field organization in Day & Zimmermann’s corporate office in Philadelphia. In addition to talking about our organization’s growth and upcoming changes, we focused a great deal of time on the development of ourselves and our workplace teams.

Leaders who build effective teams…..

• Align the team around common purpose, goals and results
• Define roles, responsibilities to support execution
• Select and integrate diverse team members
• Establish processes that guide how work gets done
• Promote effective working relationships
• Encourage collaboration
• Support achievement of goals

A team that commits……

• Has clarity around direction, priorities
• Is aligned around common objectives
• Learns from mistakes
• Takes advantage of opportunities
• Is confident
• Moves forward without hesitation
• Changes direction without hesitation or guilt

Regardless of whether a Team is

Winning the World Series……
Supporting Breast Cancer Awareness…..
Lobbying for Government Policies and Change……
Educating our next generation…….
Leading change management within an organization…….

Or……taking care of customers in a small town breakfast joint….

The Server was right…It does take a team to build the dream. Absolutely no one does it alone.

This post was written by Cindy Gurekovich. Cindy is a Strategic Account Director for Yoh. She is fairly new to the Yoh organization but has more than 25 years experience in the Staffing Industry. She is responsible for business development and account management for one of Yoh’s largest national customers. Cindy’s strengths include learning about and embracing her customer’s culture and designing workforce solutions to help them meet their goals and objectives.