<a href="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Team.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-8369" alt="Team" src="http://egroup.jasonmangone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Team-150x150.jpg" width="150" height="150" /></a>

Just days off of eGroup’s Quarterly Meeting—where updates, strategic vision and roadmaps are delivered throughout the day— I started thinking about the power of teamwork.

Why? It’s simple.  In order to achieve greatness, you rely on individuals and their respective skills to come together and work in unison to ensure smooth project rollouts, and ultimately customer and company success. Day in and day out.

Vince Lombardi, the NFL’s best and most successful head coach, said it much more eloquently: “The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.”

So what makes a great team member? What are those characteristics and qualities? Here are five to get us started:

<b>Resilience</b>. It’s horrible to lose a deal when you spent six months strategizing, refining, and pitching—over and over and over. It’s worse when a long-standing customer chooses to go another route. But having the ability to sensibly <i>review</i> and quickly <i>recover</i> is what I look for in team members. These team members typically have the best and most consistent attitudes.

<b>Integrity</b>. At eGroup, we especially pride ourselves around the customer experience, and delivering what we said we would. In order to achieve this, we need consistent (see a pattern here?) and sound team members who can be relied upon to execute and deliver. Unfortunately, we live in a world where the mindset of “the end justifies the means” rules over what is right. Team members with integrity know what is right<i> </i>and do it <i>with</i> or <i>without </i>anyone watching.

<b>Imagination</b>. I love working with others who find new solutions to old problems – in any area of the business from sales and marketing to engineering. I’m not saying to reinvent the wheel at every turn, but seeing new possibilities keeps us all on our toes and may in fact uncover a better, faster, and cheaper way to deliver a project or campaign. We often times say internally, “what got us here today, won’t get us there tomorrow.” In order to ultimately execute on that phrase, we must have imaginative team members.

<b>Adaptability</b>. How boring would life and business be if everything went as planned? Exactly. As we all know, the technology solution provider business is full of surprises on the customer project front. But, even more so, from an industry perspective due to changing demands, market conditions, and emerging technologies. It’s no longer sufficient to be a “simple reseller” of product – one must provide value, customized solutions, cloud offerings, etc. Having team members who can adapt quickly on a project without fear, and having leadership who can adapt the business plan long before others jump on the wagon, are who I want to work with.

<b>Reliability</b>. How much more awesome are you in your job when you can rely on others to do what they say they will do when they say they will do it?! Sounds harsh, but it’s true. We depend on our colleagues to fulfill their work commitments so that we in turn can fulfill our own. Follow through and achieving results is absolutely critical in our world. That said, we all fall victim to the “too much going on” excuse (which happens), but the reliable team members give you a heads up and address the issue before it harms the rest of the group.

Do you agree?  What did I miss?