What does it mean to be a team player? This is not cliché. Most companies eventually find a great salesperson (or other important role) who makes rain, head and shoulders above the others, but simultaneously creates havoc within the team. They are a great individual performer, given leeway, slack, permission to dance around the rules, yet in the end are destructive to the organization.

You cannot build an organization solely focused on individual performers. The way the team works together becomes more important than any individual on the team. Yes, you need Steph Curry to drain a shot from downtown, but someone has to inbound and pass him the ball.

Building a competent organization goes beyond individual competence.

Individual performers have their own vision of the way the world works and how they intend to make their mark on the world. How do you capture that attention to get those individuals to work as a team? A dramatic shift occurs when we invert our understanding how goals drive behavior. It is not that a person has a goal, but that a goal has the person. It is not that the team has a goal, but that the goal has the team. It attracts the team, pulls them together in coordinated synchronicity.

We give short shrift to mission statements, vision statements, with flowery language. What is a marriage if it is only two individual performers under the same roof? Its mission must be more or the marriage will underperform. What is an organization if it is only a set of individual performers collected in the same room? Its mission must be more or the organization will underperform.

Without an ironclad focus, it will never become a competent organization. This is not a goal the team has. This is a goal that has the team.