Teamwork is not necessarily about being polite, agreeing, or avoiding conflict. Nor does it ensure that everyone will march in lock-step. Quite the contrary! Teamwork is about bringing people's diverse views together and holding them together under time and performance pressure in order to create a breakthrough result that lifts everybody to a new level. (more…)

An entrepreneur friend of mine has built and sold eight companies. His new venture is a massive, important economic development project that requires the simultaneous launch of three or four different companies with a large number and variety of partners. As my friend told me about his plans, I found myself leaning farther and farther back in my chair --...