I grew up playing organized sports. One of my favorite sports to watch and play is basketball. While on a basketball team in the 90’s a coach gave us an acronym. That acronym was T.E.A.M. He taught us that if we wanted to be successful and go far as a team we had to grasp the concept that Together Everyone Achieves More. In team sports and in the workplace it is important for a team to be on the same page. In sports champions are made when the T.E.A.M. concept is present. The same concept is true in building a protection plan. Everyone from the leadership down must be on the same page to be successful. Failure to work together can have a very negative effect on the people charged with protecting the organization and it will have a negative effect on the environment they are securing as well. The purpose of a protection team is to protect people, property and assets of a specific location. This task is impossible to accomplish without fluid communication and teamwork. There are 5 specific qualities that must be present for a protection team to be successful:
Communication: The members of the team must be willing to communicate ideas and issues with one another. Conversations must take place in which everyone listens to the speaker and feels free to respond to what was said. Team members should approach all conversations with respect, trust and honesty. They should all feel like they have a voice and their opinion matters. There is no I in T.E.A.M.
Sense of Responsibility: Each member of the protection team should have a sense of responsibility to the team and to the location they are protecting. A protection team can be successful when team members understand and live up to their responsibilities to the team.
Know Your Role: A successful team must have clearly defined roles for each member. Michael Jordan is arguably the best basketball player of all time but he couldn’t score every point, grab every rebound or defend every position. He needed help from his teammates and those members had to know their role. Defining roles helps team members to understand their responsibility to the team and will allow them to understand the roles and responsibilities of their team members as well.
Ability to Resolve Conflicts; All teams experience some kind of conflict. A successful team will be able to work through issues that arise within the team. There is a saying that states; “Teeth and tongue fall out sometime, which means that people who are closest to each other can have disagreements, but they still have to work together for a common purpose. A protection team will spend a lot of time together during the course of a workday. Allowing conflicts to linger within the team will have a negative effect on the overall goal which is to provide protection for people, assets and property.
Support from leadership: Like a coach setting the pace for the team, a person in leadership needs to recognize and uphold the responsibility to lead their team with support in both the team’s success and failures. This lets a team know that they are in it for the win. Knowing that leadership stands behind them and supports them when they need it is a tool of empowerment.
When a team works together goals can be achieved. There are no big I’s or little U’s because Together Everyone Achieves More.
