Jon Gordon - The Power of a Positive Team: Proven Principles and Practices that Make Great Teams Great

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Copyright 2018 by Jon Gordon. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Gordon, Jon, 1971 author.

Title: The power of a positive team : proven principles and practices that make great teams great / by Jon Gordon.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2018] | Includes bibliographical references. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018007913 (print) | LCCN 2018010036 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119430599 (epub) | ISBN 9781119430803 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119430247 (cloth)

Subjects: LCSH: Teams in the workplace. | Organizational behavior. | Optimism.

Classification: LCC HD66 (ebook) | LCC HD66 .G6723 2018 (print) | DDC658.4/022--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018007913

For my wife, Kathryn, and my children, Jade and Cole.
You are my team and I thank you for making me better.

We are better together, and together we
accomplish great things.

No one creates success alone. We all need a team to be successful. We are better together, and together we accomplish great things. Teams publish a book like this. Teams win Super Bowls and championships. Teams launch rockets into outer space. Teams perform open heart surgery and find cures for diseases. Teams design, build, and sell automobiles, phones, computers, video games, software, homes, and the latest and greatest products. Teams create commercials, movies, songs, and advertisements. Teams educate children in schools and run nonprofits that feed the poor, heal the sick, shelter the homeless, and provide safe drinking water in developing countries. Teams mobilize support for victims of natural disasters and help fight human trafficking. Teams work together to launch initiatives, companies, brands, products, and missions that change the world.

I know about teams. I've been on teams most of my life. My older brother played youth football and, at the age of six, I begged my parents to let me be on his team. I was too young to play, but they let me join in and gave me a jersey with the number on it. Growing up I was a part of numerous youth sports teams, and in high school I played basketball, lacrosse, and football. In college I played on the Cornell lacrosse team and the experience had a profound impact on my life. As an adult I have been a part of restaurant teams as a waiter, bartender, and eventual owner. I served on a school team as a teacher and worked on a sales team as a salesperson for a technology company. I've been on several leadership teams for start-up businesses and nonprofits, and I even led a political campaign team when I ran for the Atlanta City Council at the age of 26.

Now I lead a team at work and I'm second-in-command of my team at home. I also get the opportunity to speak to and consult with numerous businesses, educational organizations, nonprofits, and professional and college sports teams. I didn't plan it, but I've become someone that leaders call when they need help developing high-performing and winning teams.

I've discovered over the years that a positive, united team is a powerful team. It doesn't happen by accident. A positive team is created by a group of individuals who come together with vision, purpose, passion, optimism, grit, excellence, communication, connection, love, care, and commitment to do something amazing and create something incredible together. I believe that everyone wants to be part of a great team, but not everyone knows how to become a great team.

That's why I wrote this book. I previously wrote The Power of Positive Leadership and You Win in the Locker Room First, but they were written to help leaders build their teams. I also wrote The Hard Hat, which is about how to be a great teammate, but that was meant more for the individual. This book is meant for teams to read together. I wrote it in such a way that team members could read it together and understand what they need to do to be a positive and connected team. In my work with teams, and through interviews with people who were part of some of the greatest teams in history, I've discovered proven principles and practices that make great teams great. I have shared these principles and practices in this book and my hope is that you will read them with your team, discuss what you need to do to be a great team, and then take action together. If you are willing to learn together, grow together, unite together, and act together, you will accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

Positivity is more than a state of mind. It's a power that gives teams a competitive advantage in business, sports, creativity, and life.

I don't encourage teams to be positive just because it's more fun, enjoyable, and rewarding to be part of a positive team. I am passionate about creating positive teams because I know that positive teams are also more engaged and more likely to overcome all the forces against them and make a greater impact.

It's challenging to work toward a vision and create a positive future. It's difficult to launch new ideas, products, movies, missions, and organizations. It's not easy to pursue greatness and do what has never been done before. As a team you will face all kinds of adversity, negativity, and tests. There will be times when it seems as if everything in the world is conspiring against you and your team. There will be moments you want to give up. There will be days when your vision seems more like fantasy than reality. That's why becoming a positive team is so important. When I talk about positive teams, I am not talking about Pollyanna positivity, where you wear rose-colored glasses and ignore the reality of the situation. Positive teams are not about fake positivity. They are about real optimism, vision, purpose, and unity that make great teams great. Positive teams confront the reality of challenging situations and work together to overcome them.