60 Quotes to Inspire Collaboration in the New Year
Many startups have been transformed into some of the most impressive and admired brands today due to hard-working and cohesive teams. Seldom has anything of greatness been the result of a solo effort.
When teams share and respect each member’s thoughts and differences they stand a greater chance of being more cohesive and successful together. Make this the year your leaders share these 60 inspirational team building quotes. Then create meaningful discussions to motivate and build momentum for a lasting impact on collaboration, inclusiveness, respect, and synergy.
- “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
- “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard
- “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed. It is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
- “The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Phil Jackson
- “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” -Andrew Carnegie
- “Individual commitment to a group effort–that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” – Vince Lombardi
- “A strong team can take any crazy vision and turn it into reality.” -John Carmack
- “The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.” – Tony Dungy
- The speed of the boss is the speed of the team. – Lee Iacocca
- When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality. – Joe Paterno
- Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story. – Casey Stengel
- Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.
– Steve Jobs - I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion. – Mia Hamm
- “Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” – Patrick Lencioni
- “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
– Henry Ford - “It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.”
– Sandra Swinney - “The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals.” – Rensis Likert
- “The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.” – Lewis B Ergen
- “You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins.” – Jim Stovall
- People with different tribe, race, religion, and nationality can come together and accomplish something extraordinary. The key is the culture of unity and teamwork.” – Farshad Asl
- “Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success.” – Ted Sundquist
- “You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.”
– Henry Ford - “Talent wins’ games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan
- “If you can laugh together, you can work together.” – Robert Orben
- “There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” – George Shinn
- “There’s nothing greater in the world than when somebody on the team does something good, and everybody gathers around to pat him on the back.” – Billy Martin
- “No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” – Reid Hoffman
- “Teamwork makes the dream work.” – Bang Gae
- “A successful team is a group of many hands and one mind.” – Bill Bethel
- “Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.” – Ifeanyi Onuoha
- “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.”
– Napoleon Hill - “A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others.” – Norman Shidle
- “If a team is to reach its potential, each player must be willing to subordinate his personal goals to the good of the team.” – Bud Wilkinson
- “People achieve more as a result of working with others than against them.” – Dr. Allan Fromme
- “Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” – Stephen Covey
- “Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you’re the CEO.” – Max McKeown
- “Teams share the burden and divide the grief.” – Doug Smith
- “Many of us are more capable than some of us, but none of us is as capable as all of us.” – Tom Wilson
- “We realized that no one of us could be as good as all of us playing unselfishly.” – Bill Bradley
- “Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
- “It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin
- “Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” – Virginia Burden
- “The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” – James Cash Penney
- “Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.” – Pat Riley
- “When you need to innovate, you need collaboration.” – Marissa Mayer
- “A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other.” – Simon Sinek
- “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “We talk a lot about hope, helping, and teamwork. Our whole message is that we are more powerful together.” – Victoria Osteen
- “Surround yourself with a trusted and loyal team. It makes all the difference.” – Alison Pincus
- “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” – H.E. Luccock
- “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” – John Wooden
- “It takes both sides to build a bridge.” – Frederik Nael
- “The way a team plays as whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.”
– George Herman - “To build a strong team, you must see someone else’s strength as a complement to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority.” – Christine Caine
- “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” – Ryunosuke Satoro
- “Times of stress and difficulty are not the times when men who are on the same side can afford to think overmuch about the extent of their differences. It is more profitable to think of points of agreement.” – John Henry Joshua Ellison
- Many hands make light work. – John HeywoodHere are just a few of my own inspirational quotes that help keep me focused on teamwork and collaboration:
- When at a crossroad, a team can choose to either amplify their chances for success by traveling a path together or amplify their risk of failure by choosing to go it alone. – Moira Alexander
- “Strong and cohesive teams thrive when leaders highlight how much they all have in common, not how much he or she stands above from the crowd.” – Moira Alexander
- “Success can’t truly be felt if you are alone on the journey or the victory.” – Moira Alexander
As your company emerges in the New Year, select one of these inspirational quotes each week, or as often as you choose, to talk about with your teams. Encourage open dialogue where every team member can share their interpretation and views on the quote and put it into practice. This ongoing exercise can help to build a ‘teamwork’ mindset and culture where individuals strive to increase their contributions to the team, improve their level of performance, and achieve better results.