I don't know how else to say this, but building a team is hard.

I often like to talk with candidates in a room with multiple team members. This allows us to debrief more effectively (e.g., "What did you think he meant when he said . . . ?"). This also gives you a sense of how the candidate deals with multiple people at once, which is a critical skill on a team. Some people are much different one-on-one than they are in a group, and you need to know that.

To become more popular, you need to be constantly doing things that bring you close to other popular people, and nothing brings people closer than a common enemy.

If a writer rewrites an essay, people who read the new version are unlikely to complain that their thoughts have been broken by some newly introduced incompatibility.

But here there is another layer that tends to obscure the underlying reality. In a company, the work you do is averaged together with a lot of other people's.

Choose what information you listen to. Place a filter over your eyes and ears and only allow in things that won't bring you down, because we have our day-to-day life to do that. Do you think I don't get judged and criticized at work? Well, I do—a lot! But I've decided to hear only the things that encourage me to improve, the things that help me correct my mistakes. Otherwise, I will just pretend I can't hear the other stuff or block it out.

I find myself through my readers; I understand what I wrote when I see that others understand it too.

By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?

Attitude is greatly shaped by influence and association.

We can control a few things: our attitude, our effort, our focus and how we go about treating our teammates.

Profile of a winning team - They play to win. They have a winning attitude. They keep improving. They make their teammates more successful.

If you are building a culture where honest expectations are communicated and peer accountability is the norm, then the group will address poor performance and attitudes.