The Power Of A Team by Jo Tongue
When I first considered setting up my own business my biggest fear was that I didn’t want to work alone. I was petrified of sitting at my kitchen table on my own with no one to inspire me, no one to bounce off, no one to laugh with, no one to celebrate successes with.
What people don’t acknowledge enough is that without your team you are nothing. Even in individual sports, there’s a team around you- supporting you, coaching you, mentoring you and inspiring you.
I needn’t have feared. I genuinely believe I am surrounded by the best in the business in Chloe, Carina, Sara, Harriet, Akiela, and Dan (who keeps us on the straight and narrow daily!). The blogs they have all written this week have again highlighted the talent I work with daily. Their words made me think about the strengths we all have as individuals, but also how much stronger we are when we work together.
Sometimes it’s hard to ask “Can you help me with this? What do you think about this?” when you have spent your whole career trying not to look vulnerable and proving that you’ve “got this”, but the transition I’ve made from feeling vulnerable to being OK asking these questions has been interesting. I may run a business, but as my friends and colleagues will confirm, I turn to them daily for help, reassurance, different viewpoints and contradiction. Maybe I should know the answers to everything- but I guarantee the answer generated by our team together will probably be a lot better or more robust!
Success rarely happens without a team, but success is also nothing without a team to share it with. What’s the first thing you do when something good happens? You look to your tribe to celebrate with. The minute something exciting happens to one of our clients we pop it in the Tongue Tied WhatsApp group and the high five/ all praise/ party popper emojis start flying around. It’s pretty much the same if someone messages to say they’ve managed to bring their own lunch in if we’re being honest.
Look around you and find strength in those who support you. Be they men or women. Some of my best advocates have been men. In fact, my first client who took a chance on me as an agent was a man (Thankyou Dion!), and my Mum and Dad who didn’t bat an eyelid when I decided I was going to work in football.
Sometimes, however, we follow the wrong tribe, or the wrong team (Oh hi red side of north London!), but that’s just about finding our way, and working out what we do and don’t want to stand for. That’s not to say we don’t have any Arsenal fans in the office just for the record (Carina). Once I’d worked out “my way” I could surround myself with those who had similar values, morals and work ethic.
But teams don’t just manifest in the office. We’ve all got WhatsApp groups which we mute or archive with glee…but we also have groups we just can’t live without. Mine are my school friend “goats” – a group of girls who met when we were 11 years old and were later labelled the goats because we bleated a lot and ate a lot and generally goated around. Serena Williams has essentially added a whole new meaning to the acronym now!
Another group which needs to be celebrated this IWD2019 is my PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) Crew – a group of women from Manchester brought together by my good friend Sarah Collins who lift and empower each other daily. We genuinely channel PMA to whoever needs it most that day.
And of course, there are my Women in Football team- An eclectic group of incredible women all brought together by our shared love of football and our desire to improve the industry for other women. I miss Vikki Orvice’s input into this every day and today, on IWD, I want us all to take a moment to remember Vikki and what she did for her team – that’s all of us trying to make our way in this football world!
A team is just a group of people working together to achieve a common goal. How more apt can that be for a woman working with groups of other amazing men and women on this International Women’s Day 2019? Let’s go and score some more common goals.
