PDF Summary:The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, by John C. Maxwell

Whether they’re winning sports championships or engineering technological breakthroughs, teams can accomplish amazing things. But building a high-performing team requires more than getting a group of people together and hoping for the best. In The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, leadership expert John C. Maxwell provides 17 pieces of advice compiled over a lifetime of leadership research to help you recruit and organize the right people, align their efforts with a common goal, and create a positive team culture. By following Maxwell’s advice, you can raise your team to its highest potential and achieve your most ambitious goals.

In this guide, we’ll discuss why teamwork is crucial for reaching big goals and explore how you can build a winning team by assembling the right people, fostering a team identity, and cultivating strong team dynamics. Along the way, we’ll share more practical tips to help you make the most of Maxwell’s techniques and supplement his advice with other expert perspectives on leadership and teamwork.

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Find Your Team’s Catalysts

Maxwell writes that even high-performing teams can lose steam and stop growing after some time. To keep people motivated, add a “catalyst” to your team. Catalysts are go-getters who bring energy and enthusiasm to the whole team. They inspire the team to overcome challenges and see that the necessary work gets done. According to Maxwell, once you have a team of individuals working in roles that maximize their strengths, adding a catalyst can take the team’s performance to the next level.

(Shortform note: Maxwell doesn’t explain why he calls this type of team member a “catalyst,” but a look into the origins of the word can give us some clues. The word “catalyst” originates from chemistry, describing a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction. By adding a catalyst to a mixture of other substances, the reaction happens faster and produces more of the desired product. Similarly, a person who acts as a “catalyst” for a team can have a positive impact on the team’s performance, helping everyone become more motivated and productive and produce desirable outcomes.)

To find a catalyst for your team, says Maxwell, look for a person who communicates well, has passion about what they do, and is creative, talented, responsible, and generous with their time and efforts. Catalysts also take initiative and are intuitive—they sense advantages, weaknesses, and needs before others do. All these traits make them uniquely influential. When you identify a catalyst on your team, Maxwell suggests you help them recognize their role and encourage them to step up as a good influence on the team.

(Shortform note: Research corroborates the benefits of having a catalyst on your team, with one study showing that a single overachiever often has more influence on a team’s success than the rest of the members combined. However, relying too much on one person to carry the team can have negative consequences: Often, the highest contributors feel the least engaged and satisfied with their work. To prevent your catalysts from becoming burned out, encourage them to be mindful of their limits and motivate other team members to step up and take more responsibility. This way, you can create a more balanced and effective team that doesn’t rely solely on one person’s responsibility, creativity, generosity, and initiative-taking.)

Recruit Support Members

Maxwell suggests you also recruit supporting members to your team. These are people who can support your team’s core members in various ways, such as by substituting, assisting, or providing resources. For example, successful sports teams have a strong bench of reserve players, software companies have testers who can support the main developers, and executives have assistants who handle administrative tasks. Recruiting support members gives your team more flexibility, allowing it to capitalize on new opportunities and overcome unexpected challenges.

Maxwell advises that you not only bring support members onto your team, but you also work on developing them to become core members of your team. This way, if you lose key members, you’ll have capable people to fill the gaps. With time and training, your team’s support members may become your team’s most invaluable units.

(Shortform note: There are numerous benefits to adding support members to your team. Support members improve team morale by helping to reduce your core team members’ workload and stress. They also enhance your team’s performance by allowing people to specialize in the type of work they excel at and enjoy. Like Maxwell, other experts say you should develop your support members, and they recommend you consider how they might fit into the team long-term before you bring them onto the team.)

Encourage Teamwork Over Self-Interest

Assembling a team of capable individuals is only the starting point, Maxwell writes. Your next step is getting team members to value the common good of the team and its goals more than their personal interests and desires. Maxwell notes that people can sometimes be tempted to seek personal glory and recognition. However, this self-interest only diminishes what the team can accomplish as a whole. He suggests several strategies to promote a collective focus among team members.

Promote a Shared Identity

Maxwell writes that one way to help people become more team-oriented is to create a shared identity that unifies your team. A shared identity gives people a sense of belonging and purpose. When everyone wants similar things and follows the same guiding principles, they’re more motivated and committed to achieving team goals rather than pursuing their own interests. To create a shared team identity, you must establish a compelling vision and meaningful values that everyone can appreciate and embrace.

1) Create a strong vision for your team. A vision—a common future everyone aspires toward—aligns your team and gives them direction. When they not only know what they’re doing but also why, they’ll have more confidence and motivation. To be compelling, your vision should encourage integrity, stoke people’s passion, build on your team’s tradition, instill a sense of purpose, have realistic steps to achieving that purpose, and help your team see its potential.

2) Create meaningful team values. Creating team values gives your team a unique identity and attracts others with similar values to your team. Collaborate with your team members to come up with values your team can share—for example, honesty, positivity, and fun. To encourage team members to adopt these values, model the values yourself, implement them into your team operations, and praise people when they display the team values.

Strengthen Your Team’s Tribal Culture

The authors of Tribal Leadership explain how creating a shared identity transforms your team from a collection of self-interested individuals into a cohesive and collaborative group. They explain that humans naturally form tribes, which are groups with shared social norms and ways of working. A tribe develops through five stages, evolving from a loose affiliation of members—who, despite feeling some loyalty to their group, are largely driven by individual impulses—to a cohesive group that works well together and forms a productive, innovative team that can enact groundbreaking changes.

According to the authors, only 25% of the modern workforce moves beyond the stages where team members are competitive and individualistic. The authors align with Maxwell in saying that establishing a vision, or purpose, and a shared set of values is the key to making this happen, and they advise that to do so, you should ask each team member what they think the team works in service of and have them explain their answers. Then, facilitate a discussion until you reach a consensus that everyone agrees on and supports.

Like Maxwell, the authors recommend creating values collaboratively with your team, but they add that you should also recruit new members based on those values. One way to do this is to tell a story during the interview that illustrates one of your team’s values. If the candidate can identify the message of the story, then you know they understand the value.

Be Willing to Make Sacrifices

Next, for a team to work well toward a collective goal, all members must be willing to make sacrifices for the team. Team members must be ready to take risks, put in the hard work to improve their skills and accomplish tasks, and sideline their personal interests for group goals. To build a team willing to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve greatness, Maxwell recommends you lead by example: Show your willingness to make sacrifices, and others will follow suit. Then, praise people who put the team before themselves.

(Shortform note: In The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Posner agree with Maxwell that to build a strong team, you, as the team’s leader, should first articulate your team's values and next, live by them. They write that it's only when people see you "practice what you preach" that they'll follow your lead enthusiastically and be inspired to also commit to those values. Research has shown that direct reports mimic the behavior of their leaders quite closely, and thus, the most effective way to encourage team members to put the good of the group ahead of their own good is to do the same.)

Foster Strong Team Dynamics

To create a winning team, you must also foster strong team dynamics by improving how team members collaborate and support one another. Maxwell suggests you do this by cultivating positivity and building trust among team members.

Keep Things Positive

To enhance positivity, boost the team’s morale. A team with high morale more easily overcomes challenges, innovates, takes risks, and performs. Maxwell suggests that if your team suffers from low morale, you should identify and address the root causes of it—for example, by providing your team with more training to boost their confidence in their skills. Then, help your team members feel hopeful and believe in themselves by demonstrating your belief in them.

(Shortform note: Morale is how enthusiastic and optimistic people feel toward their team and their work. Numerous factors can affect morale, such as boredom with assigned tasks or work-life balance, so some experts recommend having open feedback channels where team members can share their concerns. This allows you to identify and address the real causes of low morale. In addition, recognize and appreciate team members’ achievements to demonstrate your belief in them and help them feel valued.)

Maxwell says that when you’re trying to improve morale, watch for negative attitudes. Some warning signs you should look out for include the refusal to admit mistakes, being unforgiving of others, acting jealous, feeling more important than others, being overly critical, or claiming all credit.

(Shortform note: In The Laws of Human Nature, Robert Greene defines attitude as the overarching emotion you filter the world through. Attitudes are malleable and are influenced by genetics, upbringing, and life experiences. People often develop negative attitudes during childhood if they lack support systems. According to Greene, there are five types of negative attitudes: hostile, depressive, anxious, avoidant, or resentful. Each of these is important to watch for on your team.)

Maxwell argues that good attitudes might not ensure success, but bad attitudes will definitely lead to failure. This is because attitudes affect performance—a team that’s positive and hopeful performs better than one that’s pessimistic and doubtful. He suggests you address bad attitudes in the team as soon as possible because attitudes are also contagious. One team member with a bad attitude will not only undermine the team’s morale, cohesion, and performance, but they'll also cause others to become more negative.

To correct negative attitudes, Maxwell suggests you have a conversation with the other person. Share your observations and ask them to explain their perspective. Then, help them change by setting clear expectations and providing support.

The Benefits of Positive Attitudes

Maxwell focuses on the negative effects of bad attitudes, but what are the effects of positive attitudes? In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor explains how positive attitudes improve performance: They release chemicals that activate your brain’s learning centers. When this happens, you’re able to think quickly and creatively, solve problems and process new information more effectively, and be receptive to more ideas.

Achor further explains why attitudes are contagious: Our brains have cells called mirror neurons that detect the emotions, reactions, and behaviors of people around us, and light up as though we were doing or feeling the same thing. Some team members can even have a stronger impact than others if they’re more expressive or socially connected. Thus, you can spread positivity to your team simply by expressing positivity.

Build Trusting Relationships

Maxwell emphasizes that to create a strong, unified team, you must build trust among team members. Team members can only perform at their best when they know they can depend on one another.

To build trusting relationships, Maxwell suggests you foster two things within your team:

1) Reliability. According to Maxwell, team members must have five traits to be reliable: good character, the necessary skills to fulfill their responsibilities, commitment to the goal, the ability to deliver high-quality results over time, and solidarity in the face of adversity.

2) Good communication. Leaders and team members alike should talk openly and frequently with one another with honesty, respect, and vulnerability. Maxwell asserts that when teams communicate well, they can act and perform with efficiency and effectiveness.

Practical Strategies for Boosting Trust

In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni adds another layer to Maxwell’s definition of trust: Trust means you not only depend on team members to do their part but also feel safe to admit your mistakes and share unusual ideas without fear of judgment. He writes that this is a crucial element of a functioning team because if team members don’t feel safe admitting their mistakes, they’ll likely cover them up instead of asking for help to resolve them, which will inevitably lead to further problems.

Lencioni agrees with Maxwell that reliability is also necessary to build a strong team, and he offers some tips on how to foster it: He suggests you promote accountability within your team by empowering team members to give regular feedback to one another. This helps people feel responsible for their actions and for the outcomes of those actions.

Lencioni also adds insight into how you can encourage communication in a team, arguing that before team members can communicate openly and honestly, they must first get to know one another. Encourage people to share information about themselves, such as by asking icebreaker questions. This allows people to start forming bonds. Because it’s harder to be vulnerable about mistakes and fears, Lencioni recommends that leaders first share a story of failure or embarrassment to let others know it’s safe to share such things.

Position Your Team for Success

Once you apply Maxwell’s advice in the previous sections, you’ll have assembled a team with the potential to reach its collective goal. Your next focus should be helping your team perform at its best. You can do this by regularly evaluating your team’s performance and encouraging team members to become leaders.

Evaluate Your Team’s Performance

According to Maxwell, to achieve its goals, a team must regularly evaluate its performance so that it can make any necessary improvements. He recommends identifying clear criteria to measure your progress. For example, a nonprofit organization might evaluate its impact based on people served, funds generated, and amount spent.

Clear criteria allow you to objectively gauge how well your team is doing. This can help you make smarter decisions and adjust your team’s strategies to achieve better results.

(Shortform note: In Deep Work, Cal Newport recommends using lagging and leading metrics to evaluate and improve your team’s performance. Leading metrics measure progress, such as the actions you’re taking that lead to your goal—for example, the hours your team spends training or your marketing budget. Lagging metrics measure the outcome, or how well your team met your desired goal—for example, the matches won or sales made. Once you create these metrics for your team, Newport recommends publicly displaying them to keep the team motivated and also celebrate small successes.)

Empower People to Become Leaders

Maxwell argues that a team’s leadership is the key factor that determines whether it performs at its fullest potential and succeeds in meeting its goal. Good leaders enable their team instead of holding it back. They know how to inspire and motivate people, push their capabilities, and empower them to take on responsibilities.

(Shortform note: There isn’t a single model of an effective team leader, but James Kouzes and Barry Posner write that good leaders do five things: They lead by example, motivate their team with an inspiring vision, challenge the status quo, empower others to act, and genuinely care about their team. According to research, 96% of team members with these types of leaders feel highly engaged at work, and companies with these types of leaders experience 18 times the net income growth compared to companies with leaders who don’t follow these principles.)

To create a team with strong leadership, Maxwell recommends you devote time and energy to developing your team members into leaders. He explains that leadership isn’t a fixed role that belongs to a single person—instead, the role might be better managed by different people depending on the situation. Instead of having the same person make decisions for all tasks and projects, you should delegate leadership to the person with the most experience and capabilities for the task at hand. This allows you to optimize the performance of your team and leverage the unique strengths of your team members.

(Shortform note: In Turn This Ship Around!, former US Navy captain L. David Marquet echoes Maxwell’s suggestion to delegate leadership and proposes a leader-leader model: Everyone thinks like a leader and decisions are made by those who know the most about the situation. To promote the leader-leader model within your team, have team members state what they intend to do next instead of asking superiors for directions. Marquet says decentralizing decision-making makes the team more resilient and effective in the long run because it doesn’t depend on a single person’s skills and decisions.)