“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” — Michael Jordan

Casey Stengel, the only person to manage a baseball team to five consecutive World Series championships explained, “It’s easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that’s the hard part.”

Team building gurus Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith have identified the critical factor in the team formation process: “Within teams, there is nothing more important than each team member’s commitment to a common purpose and set of related performance goals for which the group holds itself jointly accountable.”

The Bottom Line: Leaders achieve extraordinary results by strategically building high performance teams.