We’ve all heard it: “There’s no ‘I’ in team.” It’s one of those teamwork quotes that pretty much everyone knows. But there are plenty of other terrific inspirational words and teamwork quotes to use when you want to encourage a sense of togetherness for a meeting, class, or within a small group. These teamwork quotes can truly inspire and encourage.
Here are 100 teamwork quotes to motivate collaboration.
A boat doesn’t go forward if each one is rowing their own way. – Swahili proverb
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. – Aristotle
No task is too great, no accomplishment too grand, no dream too far-fetched for a team. It takes teamwork to make the dream work. – John Maxwell
If you don’t seek perfection, you can never reach excellence. – Ken Blanchard
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
What divides us pales in comparison to what unites us. – Ted Kennedy
No one, however smart, however well educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom. – Tony Abbott
Leadership is not something you do to people. It’s something you do with people. – Ken Blanchard
Teamwork gives you the best opportunity to turn vision into reality. – John Maxwell
Remember teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability. – Patrick Lencioni
A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself for the group, for the good of the group—that’s teamwork. – John Wooden
I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone, you run the risk that when you are no longer there, nobody else will do it. – Wangari Maathai
Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another. – Vince Lombardi
Teamwork is what makes common people capable of uncommon results. – Pat Summitt
Think of yourself as an athlete. I guarantee you it will change the way you walk, the way you work, and the decisions you make about leadership, teamwork, and success. – Mariah Nelson
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships. – Michael Jordan
To me, teamwork is a lot like being part of a family. It comes with obligations, entanglements, headaches, and quarrels. But the rewards are worth the cost. – Pat Summitt
The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication. – Malcolm Gladwell
Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare. – Patrick Lencioni
Teamwork is neither “good” nor “desirable.” It is a fact. Wherever people work together or play together, they do so as a team. Which team to use for what purpose is a crucial, difficult, and risky decision that is even harder to unmake. – Peter Drucker
Trust is the foundation of real teamwork (there is nothing touchy-feely about this). – Patrick Lencioni
The truth is that teamwork is at the heart of great achievement. – John Maxwell
Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success. – Ted Sundquist
When indeed shall we learn that we are all related one to the other, that we are all members of one body? – Helen Keller
There is a tremendous strength that is growing in the world through sharing together, praying together, suffering together, and working together. – Mother Teresa
We cannot win in team situations or in relationships by ourselves. It is like trying to pick up a pencil with only one finger. … Teamwork is a bit like using all of your fingers. Each one is unique and contributes something different, but they unite in pursuit of a common goal. – Terry Orlick
Teamwork does not come naturally. Let’s face it. We are born with certain inclinations, but sharing isn’t one of them. – Pat Summitt
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 individual, is the ultimate champion. – Mia Hamm
How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns? – Desmond Tutu
Leaders have to search for the heart on a team, because the person who has it can bring out the best in everybody else. – Mike Krzyzewski
The first step is, if you don’t believe it yourself, your team darn sure won’t. – Rex Ryan
Each player on this team whether he shines in the spotlight or eats dirt on the line, must be an All-American. – Omar Bradley
When everyone is united in purpose, a positive purpose that serves not only the organization but also, hopefully, the world beyond it, you have a winning team. – Colin Powell
Extraordinary potential exists in all of us. With the right environment, resources, skills and knowledge, “ordinary” people can produce extraordinary results. – Kevin Eikenberry
Extraordinary results happen only when you give the best you have to become the best you can be at your most important work. – Gary Keller
The only way we can get by in this world is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are. – Amy Poehler
Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, What’s in it for me? – Brian Tracy
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead
Players that learn the value of hard work, commitment, teamwork, and sacrifice are the ones that make their teams great. – Tom Crean
A player has to be selfish in the pursuit of the development of his skills, but he cannot be selfish when it comes time to blend them in with what’s good for his team. – Pete Carril
Look for the good in every person and every situation. You’ll almost always find it. – Brian Tracy
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed. – Charles Darwin
Define your goals in terms of the activities necessary to achieve them, and concentrate on those activities. – Brian Tracy
When you agree to collaborate, you agree to jump off a cliff holding hands with everyone, hoping the resourcefulness of each will insure that you all land on your feet. – Frank Gehry
I’m empowered to stand here thanks to the ensemble of actors, men and women, who I shared the screen with and who in ways they will never understand made me a better actor. – Tom Hanks
I think I have learned that the best way to lift one’s self up is to help someone else. – Booker T. Washington
A common vision can unite people of very different temperaments. – Tim Keller
Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police. – Albert Einstein
Besides each one of us working individually, all of us have got to work together. We cannot possibly do our best work as a nation unless all of us know how to act in combination as well as how to act each individually for himself. – Theodore Roosevelt
The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least. – Booker T. Washington
We must seek, above all, a world of peace; a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard. – John F. Kennedy
And your work reflects a tradition that runs through our history—a belief that we’re greater together than we are on our own. – Barack Obama
Men work together, I told him from the heart; Whether they work together or apart. – Robert Frost
It is that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. – Barack Obama
We are plunged in a long and grievous struggle. But all will come right if we all work together to the end. – Winston Churchill
The efficiency of a group working together is directly related to the homogeneity of the work they are performing. – Luther Gulick
Your team will get stronger when you begin to build yourself. Teams are made up of individuals who work together … and get their own job done. – Jeffrey Gitomer
To lead a successful life, then, it’s a good idea to work out what you really want. Then get together some plans. Then set some goals. – John C. Parkin
I collaborate with my wife on the songs, and every aspect of it, really—composing, and arranging, and recording, all that business. We have a rhythm and a way of working it. It’s kind of like borrowing the same ten bucks from somebody over and over again. – Tom Waits
I can’t change you and you can’t change me, but together we can work to change the world. – Germany Kent
Men of thought seldom work well together, whereas between men of action there is usually an easy camaraderie. – Eric Hoffer
Winning is what happens when commitment, desire, talent, preparation, hard work, and leadership all come together. – Tom Coughlin
“The shouts of triumph become infectious, and I lift my voice to join in, running toward my teammates. Christina holds the flag up high, and everyone clusters around her, grabbing her arm to lift the flag even higher.” – Veronica Roth from Divergent
If we use our technological imagination, if we can work together to harness the light of the Sun, the power of the wind, and the strength of rushing streams, then we will succeed. – Jimmy Carter
It is not usual to speak of an employee as a partner, and yet what else is he? – Henry Ford
Golden hours of vision come to us in this present life, when we are at our best, and our faculties work together in harmony. – Charles Fletcher Dole
There’s something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. … It’s really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it’s all for one purpose. – Keith Richards
Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. – Hillary Clinton
… a moral consideration of the utmost importance for us: we must respect individual differences, yet we must coordinate, work together, and act as one. – Norman Lamm
When many work together for a goal, great things may be accomplished. It is said a lion cub was killed by a single colony of ants. – Sakya Pandita
Tapestries are made by many artisans working together. The contributions of separate workers cannot be discerned in the completed work, and the loose and false threads have been covered over. – Sheldon Lee Glashow
Teamwork Quotes About Failure
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure. – Colin Powell
Good attitudes among players do not guarantee a team’s success, but bad attitudes guarantee its failure. – John Maxwell
A leader has to be positive about all things that happen to his team. Look at nothing in the past as failure. – Mike Krzyzewski
Teamwork Quotes About Learning
Learning is a result of listening, which in turn leads to even better listening and attentiveness to the other person. – Alice Miller
When teams are truly learning, not only are they producing extraordinary results, but the individual members are growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise. – Peter Senge
Collaboration is important not just because it’s a better way to learn … learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem-solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy. – Don Tapscott
Like these teamwork quotes? Try these awesome team-building games and activities for kids.