33 Team Building Quotes to Inspire Collaboration
Dip into these team building quotes from time to time to get a little inspiration and don’t forget to share them with your teams.
Words have tremendous power to influence the way people think and approach challenges. And great team building quotes can inspire individuals and teams toward maximum effort and high ideals. Going back thousands of years, when making a team work meant making the very wheels of civilization work, we can cite ancient quotes from the likes of Publius Syrus, who is reputed to have said, “Where there is unity there is always victory.”
When it comes to harnessing individual commitment to team building, inspirational words from great leaders who know what it means to build a great team can become your go-to quotes to inspire the best teamwork to tackle whatever goals lie ahead for your company. Here are 33 team building quotes that might help you see teamwork in a new light.
Teamwork: From a common vision to uncommon results
Leadership is about the team – the culture they keep and embrace. It’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees, and the communities where you do business.
- “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
- “Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success.” — Ted Sundquist
- “When you need to innovate, you need collaboration.” — Marissa Mayer
- “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” — Henry Ford
- “Leadership is about the team – the culture they keep and embrace. It’s about empathy for your customers, clients, employees, and the communities where you do business. It’s about doing the right thing for the right reasons, being confident enough to take risks and responsible enough to think of those who your decisions and risks may affect.” — Kat Cole
- “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.” ― Mother Teresa
- “Great things in business are never done by one person,They are done by a team of people” — Steve Jobs
- “It takes two flints to make a fire.” — Louisa May Alcott
Why working together works so well
- “The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.” ― Iyanla Vanzant
- “Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you’re the CEO.” ― Max McKeown
- “Teamwork is really a form of trust. It’s what happens when you surrender the mistaken idea that you can go it alone and realize that you won’t achieve your individual goals without the support of your colleagues.” ― Pat Summit
- “Surround yourself with a trusted and loyal team. It makes all the difference.” ― Alison Pincus
- “Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” ― Virginia Burden
- “Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” ― Ryunosuke Satoro
- “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
- “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.” ― Helen Keller
Quotes to help your team work in sync
- “Individual commitment to a group effort: That is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” — Vince Lombardi
- “No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” — H.E. Luccock
- “With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything.” — Tahir Shah
- “Collaboration is the essence of life. The wind, bees and flowers work together, to spread the pollen.” — Amit Ray
- “We are not a team because we work together, we are a team because we respect each other.” — Abigail Johnson
- “A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.” — Rosalynn Carter
- “A group is a bunch of people in an elevator. A team is a bunch of people in an elevator, but the elevator is broken.” — Bonnie Edelstein
- “I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.” — Jean-Francois Cope
“A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be.”
Success is not a solo game
- “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” — Michael Jordan
- “A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way.” — Swahili Proverb
- “The way a team plays as a 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.” — Babe Ruth
- “Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.” — Patrick Lencioni
- “No individual can win a game by himself.” ― Pele
- “Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imagination shared creates collaboration, and collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change.” ― Terry Tempest Williams
- “Hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard.” ― Tim Notke
- “Together, ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results.” ― Becka Schoettle
- “It’s better to have a great team than a team of greats.” — Simon Sinek
Lead your team to new heights
Pick your favorite quotes and share them with your team to get them excited about the work you have ahead together. Whether you’re working in person or remotely, you can still draw together and collaborate to accomplish amazing things. In fact, try some of these team building activities to get your team moving forward today.
