It takes an incredible amount of discipline to continue to work towards a distant future. Boredom will tempt a team to change direction for the sake of entertainment and that will delay or limit the team’s ability to arrive at its chosen destination. Changing direction comes at a cost if it is done simply so that the team can find a change of pace. Greatness can always be traced back to the moment that a team was tempted to stray but overcame it with a faithfulness that makes decisions based on commitment to the destination and not feeling better about my tasks today.

I have found that both the direction and the destination of a team are equally important. Great teams make a distinction between the two by identifying direction as a short-term focus that builds toward the destination, or long-term focus. To treat them as the same thing confuses the team because they will struggle to understand how short-term decisions influence long-term desired outcomes. Great teams understand that they make decisions today that move the team in the direction of the destination down the road. 

Most people would say that they value life but they actually mean that they value survival. What I mean by this is that people prefer not to die. That is not the same as living. Not everything is life or death and we know it. Most things, however, are a choice between living and just surviving. Living requires the inconvenience of quality human interactions. Living requires the consideration of others. Survival only requires the bare minimum standard. People can “survive” alone. A case could be made that without the teams of life (family, work, and sports) we are merely surviving because living requires life with others.