Sometime last week, while doing my morning devotion, I read a portion of the scripture from the book of Ecclesiastes. Immediately, my mind went to teamwork. 

I wanted to write on something entirely different this “Leadership Monday,” but the thought of teamwork kept tugging hard at my heart.

So, this is the second part of the teamwork discussion we started last Monday. If you haven’t read the first part, kindly do so here. You will enjoy it, I promise. And hey, remember to share this article with someone you love [drop by our Substack and subscribe if you already haven’t]. 

Teamwork: Two Are Better Than One – Any time, Any day

What wise, deep, soothing, and beautiful words from The Holy Bible. That’s a whole lecture there on teamwork and leadership. 

When we look closely at the stories and lessons in the Holy Bible, we are forced to observe that the theme of teamwork and leadership occur repeatedly.

God is so interested in people doing things together. He knows the importance of it. He knows that human beings function like a great puzzle. 

Each of us has a piece inside us that completes the whole jigsaw. No one man can complete it all. 

Even Jesus, the Son of God, who was God in the flesh, still selected a few men [who were His friends] to help Him on His divine journey of liberating the world.

Last week we talked about why leaders stand alone. This week, we will be talking about “Teamwork and Friendship.” 

I have thought deeply and concluded that your teammates should be your friends. If you want to do anything serious in this life, bring your friends to understand your dreams and make them your teammates.

Or if you bring ordinary people who are not your friends into your team, it will pay you to strive to make them your friend.

Now, don’t get me wrong here. When I talk about making your teammates your friend, I am referring to teammates who are extremely close to the battery of your ideas, that is, those who are building with you, not just those who may be seemingly far away from you.

Visions and dreams are achieved faster when the people working on them are friends. They are friends and brothers and sisters. They love themselves, cherish and adore each other, and want to see themselves grow and see the vision come to life.

I Take Teamwork Personal

I take the idea of teamwork very personally because I know how important it is to fulfilling destinies.

Look around you. Some of the greatest innovations and inventions in the world of technology, economics, science, you name it, were works done within the confines and warmth of friendship. People with like minds teaming up to pour their all into a common cause.

This is where we are getting it wrong today, especially young folks. We have yet to deeply understand the importance of working together. 

We allow elements like ego, pride, laziness, and ‘false’ temperaments to hinder us from working with others as intelligent and passionate as we are in achieving big things. 

So, we try to do it all alone instead of forming solid friendships and teams.

Now, listen to what the Holy Bible said about doing it all alone:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But WOE to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.”

Leadership & entrepreneurship journeys are tough ones. Leadership [and entrepreneurship] is a walk of extreme grit, solid discipline, and genuine commitment. 

People enjoy their comfort zones and anything that threatens them in their comfort zones, they run away from it. This is the reason why only a few people jump into leadership and entrepreneurship.

I applaud you if you are starting all alone in your entrepreneurship journey. But at the same time, I also advise you to start building a “formidable team made up of your friends” who understand the vision and begin as soon as possible. 

If they don’t understand it, then it’s your duty as a leader to ensure they do. 

Bill Gates didn’t work at building Microsoft all alone. He had friends with him who were ready to sacrifice as much as he offered for the vision. 

He had an idea, but his idea was one of many ideas that Microsoft was built on. The ideas and inputs of his close friend, Paul Allen [who co-founded Microsoft with Gates], were also very instrumental in building Microsoft, coupled with the many ideas of other friends who came to join them in building. 

Only true friends can do as much as you do for a dream.

And let’s kill the notion that people should stop labouring for the dreams of others. That’s a big lie. It’s deception. Many of us will find ourselves when we join other people in their dream-building adventures.

Life is all about learning; the only way we can learn is to get involved in building with others.

Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Google, and many other tech giants and giants in other fields have made many, many, many people millionaires. They became financially free, building the visions of others, right? Yes, you can say it again. 

It’s not the vision of others. It’s our vision. If it’s about changing the world and making humanity better, it’s our vision.

How Do We Get The Right ‘Friends’ On Our Teams?

4 Ways To Get The Right People To Build With You

Initially, you may not even have any cash to give people who will work with you. 

You can’t pay for their insurance or holidays and get them new cars. But you can do one thing — show them how much you care about what you want them to build with you. 

Authentic people, I mean real humans who understand the language of greatness, are almost always attracted to the right cause. 

They know it when they see depth and passion. Most of your labor is reduced if you come across people like this.

How to attract them:

• Define Your Missions & Values Clearly: Before you invite anyone to build with you, ensure you have defined your mission and values. Make them as clear as broad daylight. Know where you are going and how you want your vision to look in the next ten or twenty years. I already know what I want from the things I am building today. I have a bold and big picture of what Care City will look like in ten or twenty years. And when I share my vision with people close to me, I try to make them understand.

• Be Open Be Honest: Let them know how far you have gone. Let them know how many resources is on the ground. Be honest and be open. Don’t be forced to lie or impress them with made-up facts. It hurts. You are starting. It’s wise to build on truth and trust. If you don’t have any money, tell them you don’t. If you just attracted a grant or seed funding, tell them about it. If you call them friends, then they should know details like this. If you have two clients, let them know, and if you don’t have any yet, keep them in the loop. It doesn’t cost you a thing. Honesty attracts the right people [and the wrong ones, too].

• Respect Them: Give them the respect due. They are not working for you. You are not their boss. Give them their space if they want it. And if they feel tired, let them recover. Friends need plenty of respect too. Your friends are different from your Co-founders. Let this sink into your head. When/if they become Co-founders, then the game changes entirely. Your co-founder(s) should also be your friends. It’s actually on another deeper level of friendship [I will talk about this in another article]. 

• Communicate & Reach Out: Now that you have defined your mission and values, you know that you must be honest and open, and you are ready to respect your friends; it’s time to reach out and learn how to communicate with them. You can reach out by simply engaging in word of mouth. This works with people who you see physically. Or you can send them emails or send them chats. Remember, they are friends and potential teammates, so you don’t have to be rigid. Just flow. These are the early stages. Be yourself as much as possible. You are building an organic team, the core of your work. You are not doing a formal pitch, more like an outreach. 

And Finally, What About Attracting Healthcare Professionals To Build With You?

Well, it’s still the same tactics I mentioned above but slightly modified. 

You know “healthcare people” are already super-occupied unless you are targeting older professionals who may not be occupied with clinical duties — it’s easier to juggle other things if your primary responsibilities are administrative or research in nature [believe me when I say this]. 

The younger folks are already busy with their healthcare careers, so getting those who will become friends and work with you will l take a lot of effort. 

However, one strategy that works well is LinkedIn outreach. With it, you can reach out to healthcare professionals who are ready and willing to work with you in building. 

You will, however, need to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

So, improve your LinkedIn profile and make it detailed enough, then start reaching out to others who fit your “vision’s description.” 

If you are looking for content creators with a healthcare background, you will find them. Developers, designers, and leaders, they are all there. Make sure you clearly define your visions and missions before reaching out.

Healthcare leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation aren’t really different from others; it’s just that healthcare has always been a very conservative and closed-ended ecosystem, so, often, it takes more time for ideas to grow and develop in the healthcare ecosystem. You have to be more determined and tough in the world of healthcare leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship. An extra dose of everything.

And when you finally find those who have what you are looking for, it’s almost like you won the lottery. 

I cherish and respect all the healthcare folks I am building with. Many of them already have tight and busy schedules as clinicians, yet they take time to attend to the demands of building. 

It’s a big motivation for me. I must not derail or let them down.  

It really takes a lot to build communities around ideas — the dedication, sacrifice, discipline, and commitment — the sleepless nights, the sudden empty accounts, the mental stress…

Well, building anything worthwhile surely takes a big chunk of our lives but in the end, we are excited about everything. To us, it’s an adventure.

I hope you enjoyed this piece. If you did, then share it with your friends and network. And remember to also subscribe. It gives us the push to keep writing and creating content like this. 

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Catch you next Monday for another edition of “Care City Leadership Monday.”