Over the last decade, employers have increasingly realized the need for greater teamwork in the workplace. Open offices became the norm as walls were torn down, desks huddled into groups, and collaboration became the golden word.
Since then, many employers have realized that employees can get “in the zone” easier when they have a quiet place to focus. Some people have called it the end of the open space fad. But, regardless of the layout of an office, teamwork is not a fad.
The benefits of teamwork are profound, not just for the employer, but also for the employee. We’ve put together a list of over 100 quotes about teamwork to make it easier for you to inspire your team to greater teamwork.
Exciting Teamwork Quotes With A Sports Reference
For many youths, sports are the first real introduction to teamwork. Classroom teams often fail because individual members never really contribute to the team. But, in sports, individuals have to learn how to play cohesively and work toward the good of the team.
Sports analogies can speak volumes to the importance of teamwork and inspire greatness.
“The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” JohnWoo
“I’ve never scored a goal in my life without getting a pass from someone else.” Abby Wambach
“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
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” Michael Jordan
“When you start out in a team, you have to get the teamwork going and then you get something back.” Michael Schumacher
“To me, teamwork is the beauty of our sport, where you have five acting as one. You become selfless.” Mike Krzyzewski
“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
“Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you’re the CEO.” Max McKeown
“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 individuals, is the ultimate champion.” Mia Hamm
“No individual can win a game by himself” Pelé
“There is no “I” in teamwork”
15 Best Quotes About Teamwork For Individual Inspiration
Sometimes inspiring a great team means getting one important leader on board. Use these quotes to inspire your employees to see how the team nurtures individual growth.
“The nicest thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.” Margaret Carty
“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. “ Helen Keller
“Individual commitment to a group effort: That is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” Vince Lombardi
“Teamwork; Simply stated is less of me and more of we.”
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” Booker T. Washington
“The best teamwork comes from men who are working independently toward one goal in unison.” James Cash Penney
“None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” Mother Teresa
“When we learn how to work together versus against each other things start getting better.”
“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” Amy Poehler
“There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” George Shinn
“If you take out the team in teamwork, it just works. Now, who wants that?” Matthew Woodring Stover
“I can do things you cannot. You can do things I cannot. Together we can do great things.” Mother Teresa
“We rise by lifting others.” Robert Ingersoll
“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton
“Teamwork can build friendships that last a lifetime.” Natalya Neidhart
10 Best Quotes on the Importance of Teamwork
Solo players reap great benefits from successful teamwork and collaboration, but sometimes they may not see it. Check out these quotes to inspire independent workers to come together for great teamwork.
“Together, ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results.” Becka Schoettle
“It’s better to have a great team than a team of greats.” Simon Sinek
“Team spirit is knowing and living the belief that what a group of people can accomplish together is much larger, far greater, and will exceed that which an individual can accomplish alone.” Diane Arias
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African Proverb
“Many of us are more capable than some of us, but none of us is as capable as all of us.” Tom Wilson
“Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.” Ifeanyi Onuoha
“The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better.” Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
“When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.” Joe Paterno
“No problem is insurmountable, With a little courage, teamwork and determination can overcome anything.” B Dodge
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead
“The path to greatness is along with others.” Baltasar Gracion
15 Best Quotes for Building a Great Team
Great teams don’t happen magically. They take work, but the effort is well worthwhile. When a group of individuals become a team, then magic is made.
“Remember, teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.” Patrick Lencioni
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team” Phil Jackson
“If you can laugh together, you can work together.” Robert Orben
“A leader must inspire or his team will expire.” Orrin Woodward
“I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.” Jean-Francois Cope
“Finding each other is the beginning, staying together is the process, Working together is the success.” Maegan Gunderson
“Bad attitudes will ruin your team.” Terry Bradshaw
“In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly.” Mark Sanborn
“A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contributions to praise the skills of others.” Norman Shidle
“The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team.” Lewis B Ergen
“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” Virginia Burden
“What divides us pales in comparison to what unites us.” Ted Kennedy
“A successful team is a group of many hands and one mind.” Bill Bethel
“Lead by example, insist on teamwork, and instill motivation. Self-discipline is what gets you to work every day, and hard work builds character.” Dave Mueller
“A team is more than a collection of people. It is a process of give and take.” Barbara Glacel
“The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” Kurt Koffka
Teamwork Quotes With A Science Connection
Nearly every team has someone who is scientifically minded. These science team quotes will spark interest and give another view of teamwork.
“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
“Teamwork is the best ever investment. If I make 3 and you make 5, together we will not make 8. We will make 15. Leaders build active teams.” Israelmore Ayivor
“How did we cure polio, smallpox and send a man to the moon? How did we decode the human genome in just 13 years? Collaboration. Focus on a specific goal, and teamwork.” Margaret Cuomo
“The combined result of several people working together is often much more effective than could be that of an individual scientist working alone.” John Bardeen
“Anyone who images they can work alone winds up surrounded by nothing but rivals, without companions. The fact is no one ascends alone.” Lance Armstrong
Best Teamwork Quotes For Reaching Organizational Goals
Every organization that reached impossible success did so through great teams. These quotes show the importance of teams to organizations and businesses.
“Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation, and consensus.” Simon Mainwaring
“We talk a lot about hope, helping, and teamwork. Our whole message is that we are more powerful together.” Victoria Osteen
“Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.” Steve Jobs
“Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” Mattie Stepanek
“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
“Team player is the one who unites others toward a shared destiny through sharing information and ideas, empowering others, and developing trust.” Dennis Kinlaw
“Teamwork requires that everyone’s efforts flow in a single direction. Feelings of significance happen when a team’s energy takes on a life of its own.” Pat Riley
“You are either supporting the vision or supporting division.” Saji Ljiyemi
“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
“In union there is strength.” Aesop
“When you need to innovate, you need to collaborate.” Marissa Mayer
“Synergy – the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously.” Mark Twain
“Overcoming barriers to performance is how groups become teams.” John Katzenback
Teamwork Quotes For Success Driven Individuals
Creating a great team makes the difference in the next level of success. Understanding how a team drives success can help star employees to be willing to work in teams better.
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” Henry Ford
“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
“The value of achievement lies in the achieving.” Albert Einstein
“Teamwork is the lynchpin in our long term success.” Ned Lautenbach
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” Henry Ford
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” Mark Twain
“It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” Napoleon Hill
“The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first. “ Iyanla Vanzant
“Teamwork is a make-or-break situation. Either you help make it or the lack of it will break you.” Kris A Hiatt
“Success is best when it’s shared.” Howard Schultz
“Teamwork is how everyday people achieve remarkable goals”
“Surround yourself with a trusted and loyal team. It makes all the difference.” Alison Pincus
“Teamwork divides the task and doubles the success.”
“Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.” Pat Riley
“Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.” Stephen Covey
Great Teamwork Quotes For Achieving the Impossible
Nearly every technological advance we take for granted would have been thought impossible to earlier generations. But, because of great teams, technology continues to advance and unprecidented speeds.
“Cowards say it can’t be done, critics say it shouldn’t have been done, creator say well done.” Amit Kalantri
“None of us is as smart as all of us” Ken Blanchard
“Teamwork makes the dream work” Bang Gae
“Collaboration allows teachers to capture each other’s fund of collective intelligence.” Mike Schmoker
“The bigger the dream, the more important the team.”
“Only by binding together as a single force, will we remain strong and unconquerable.” Chris Bradford
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Harry Truman
“Tough times don’t last, tough teams do”
“Teams are incredible things. No task is too great, no accomplishment too grand, no dream to far-fetched for a team. It takes teamwork to make the dream work.” John Maxwell
“Every team needs a hero, every hero needs a team”
Amazing Teamwork Quotes With A Beautiful Analogy
Check out these great teamwork quotes that function like poetry and tell a story in their simplicity.
“It takes two flints to make fire.” Louisa May Alcott
“We may have all come from different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“A single leaf working alone provides no shade.” Chuck Page
“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” Warren Buffet
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up” Oliver Wendell Holmes
“One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say, that individuality counts but teamwork dynamites.” Jin Kwon
“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.” H.E. Luccock
“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” Ryunosuke Satoro
“It takes both sides to build a bridge.” Fredrik Nael
“Many candles can be kindled from one candle without diminishing it.” Midrash
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition.