For all of you college football fans, your day finally arrived last Thursday with an exciting, nail-biting South Carolina-Vanderbilt matchup. Next on the docket…the NFL.

Football and the pending fall equinox go together like peas and carrots. Why?

Because…we can relate. We associate fall football with the ‘start’ of a new season: new beginnings, new game plans, new direction…new opportunities.

Plus, we all know that cooler weather is on the way!

So, how do we generate excitement of a new season…in our own organization?

In a word: teamwork.

By definition, teamwork is considered cooperative or coordinated effort on the part of a group of persons acting together as a team or in the interests of a common cause.”

“A common cause.”…I like that. Because, in the end, isn’t that what we are all about?

Although we are pitting our agencies against each other, like the offensive and defensive units of our favorite football team…we are all fixated toward similar causes: safety and security for our clients. For each agency, there is a different set of goals and challenges: adding new staff, developing a new business plan, or perhaps expanding our operation.

By creating opportunity through planning and preparation, we create opportunities for not only our clients, but for our own teams as well. Teams generate solidarity. And, through solidarity, teamwork can lead to robust communication, award-winning collaboration, quality member contributions, mutual support, willpower, and uniformity.

We cannot provide opportunities for our clients if we don’t have the team to back our industry’s paralleled foundations and individual agency mandates.

Teamwork engenders a vision for a common cause. And, through teamwork, specific agency goals can be achieved:

  • Inspiring and reachable goals are created
  • Encouraging feedback between team members
  • Roles and responsibilities are well-defined
  • Team members build a culture of trust
  • Open communication on all levels
  • Sense of community

As with any agency, teamwork is the foundation of success. We build upon this framework to create the solidarity, and much like a football team, it starts with a foundation of unity.

To put this teamwork idea into a football perspective, just imagine if everyone on your team has to have their hand on the ball…all at the same time. Everyone gets to protect the ball, warding off the defense…all running towards the goal…together.

Whether your agency is three or thirty people strong, everyone has a responsibility to have their hand on the ball…and to move it down the field…together. It’s the game plan.

It is your agency’s decree.

A new perspective on teamwork brings new beginnings, new game plans, new direction…new opportunities. It’s how you build upon that culture that will help you separate yourself from the competition.

The game of football is merely a metaphor here…teamwork is the real deal.

Either way you look at it…ask yourself two questions:

What is the game plan?

When’s your game day?