imapMyTeam Blog

Who Is Your Glue?

Who is the glue on your team?  Who holds your team together? Who keeps your team focused? Who does all of the little things (behind the scenes more often than not) to make your team successful?

Every team needs one or more to succeed and that man or woman is the [forgive us, but the alliteration is too good to pass up] ‘Glue Guy ‘or ‘Glue Girl’!

Annually Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated writes a column on his ‘all –glue’ basketball team. I love that column. Seth does a great job of stating the case for each player he has nominated and why the team is better for having that player on the team. To be qualified to make the ‘all-glue’ team you cannot be the superstar.  You may not even be a starter in some cases; you are however, defined as a key role player who produces game results when the team needs you most. You do all the little things well and mainly when you don’t see it – at practices for instance.

In reading Seth’s 2015 article it made me think that every business team needs a glue guy or glue girl too!  Every good leader probably can name one or more people who play that role on their team.

For instance we may send the ‘superstar’ out to do the critical client presentation, but who is the glue that worked behind the scenes to help them prepare or plan the presentation?

I think to be successful in business you need a whole lot of glue!

Take some time to consider who and how certain individuals act as glue on your team.

Perhaps a review of the Team Dynamics Grid in imapMyTeam® is in order. One possible way someone might be the glue is if they are in the interest or strength quadrant by themselves. In that case they bring something different to the team that no one else is.

Successful teams all have ‘glue’ – who is yours?