John Donne said that “No man (or woman) is an island.”

That’s truer now than it was in his day.

No one, not even you, is indestructible.

Neither are you omniscient.

The total knowledge in the world today will have doubled by 2021 – a mere eight years from now.

And that’s all the more reason why you need to surround yourself with the smartest people you can work with.

There are two parts to that statement. Do you spot them?

You need to work with the smartest people you can find. These are colleagues who can contribute more value to your customers than anyone else on the planet.

Your customers come to you for help with their problems, and you have to make sure that you have the talent you need to meet their needs.

And that means that you have to be able to obtain the right people when you want them.

You have to be the hub towards which expertise flows.  

All roads lead to Rome.

The second part is often overlooked.

You need to be able to work with these people.

That may seem obvious, but if it was, there would be no reason to say anything about it.

You probably remember “all-star” athletic teams that really didn’t work very well. That’s because they couldn’t all be a prima donnas.

And some of the smartest people on the planet work alone for a reason, and it’s not because they like it that way.

It takes more than an abundance of little grey cells to make a team effective.

In the days before the Internet, teams were just thrown together, like sandlot football games.

You could only choose from what was available to you.

The best were picked first, and the least ended up on a team that preferred that they just went home.

Nowadays, you can draw from your online network. You don’t have to rely on the less than reliable psychometrics that tries to identify the magic combination of personalities.

Because you already know who you want to bring on board, and because so many people want to work with you, all you have to do is ask them.

That’s what teams are all about: a lot of business acumen and sheer brilliance that comes from collaboration. They do it, not just for the joint impact that they can have, but also for the individual returns that wouldn’t be attainable any other way.

Although face-to-face meetings are preferable, they are not as important as they once were. Quite often you can do a lot of preliminary work before having to travel anywhere, and much of what you do need to do in advance can be handled via email, Skype, or chat.

Your virtual team members can be fully briefed and up to speed by the time all of you meet the client.

The best teams consist of people who share these qualities: They are exceedingly bright, and they work well together because they respect the skills and abilities that each brings to the group.

And you already know everyone that you’ll need, because they’re in your network.