Greatness is not a solo effort

Greatness is never a solo effort. The self-made man does not exist. Synergy is the fulcrum of true success. Every significantly successful person is a product of a combination of efforts by various people and inputs into his life. Synergy is defined as the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, people or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. Simply put, synergy is synchronized energy that ensures that all of us working together will produce greater results than one of us and with less energy and time!

With the engine’s fan blades sucking in almost two tons of air every second, and a take-off thrust of 280,000 lbs. (the horsepower equivalent of 2,500 cars at 110 horsepower each), the Airbus A380 airplane is a marvel to behold both on the tarmac and in the skies. Coming with a cabin surface area of 550 square metres, it is a massive airplane configured to carry over eight hundred passengers! It is in the family of the Boeing 747 and the Dreamliner Boeing 787. Each time I have flown in any of these aircraft, I have always marveled at the grace of God and the wisdom He gave to man to keep such behemoth contraptions airborne safely for several hours. It is as good as having a flying house! Yet the aircraft comes with 99+% operational reliability!

Perhaps more astounding is the dynamics of synergistic interplays that make it possible for the aircraft to fly. The plane consists of about four million individual components (the Boeing 747 has six million!) with 2.5 million part numbers produced by about 1,500 companies from about 30 countries worldwide. In its fuselage are 19,000 bolts to attach each of the three main parts as well as four thousand bolts to attach its two wings to its body. A loose bolt anywhere in the fuselage could put the lives of several passengers at risk. A safe and smooth flight on any aircraft is not the sole achievement of a pilot, as pivotal as he is in the process. The pilot or flight captain is assisted by a co-pilot and a cabin crew who ensure the comfort and safety of passengers. On the ground, you have engineers, fuelers, air traffic control. No matter how good the pilot is or how well the plane is built, the moment he loses communication with air traffic control, disaster is imminent. The synergy between men and materials is what makes for safe journeys on the biggest aircraft.

Raking in 103 wins, Lewis Hamilton is said to be the best Formula 1 driver to have ever graced the race car driving circuit. With 4274.5 career points, he has won races in thirty countries with a win in almost every season he has competed in since he started his racing career in the Australian Grand Prix in 2007. Every time he stepped into the car or stepped on the podium to be recognized, his success is not due to his driving skill alone. Each race is a product of the synergy between him and his crew members located at various points on the racetrack. Each of them performs a strategic role where accuracy and precision are absolutely essential. At various points, the tyres need to be changed. That must be done at lightning speed with the deployment of appropriate technology. At some points, the race car would need to be fueled. Because of the level of precision required, the team would need to be on top of their game. So, like the race driver, they would need daily drills that involve a high level of discipline, passion and commitment as well as a high degree of concentration. This is because one micro-second can mean the difference between a win and a loss! So, when the world beams the spotlight on him each time he wins a trophy, he is actually standing there to receive on behalf of every person in the chain of function that made that possible.

Grammy award-winning musician Burna Boy from Nigeria is a rave of the moment in contemporary music. But how could he have become the global brand that he is without a music producer, a talented and committed set of instrumentalists, promoters who believed in him, his costumier and every other person who has been an integral part of his career trajectory?

When they step on the red carpet or when we stumble on them in our daily runs, we venerate our favorite movie stars and musicians and literally kiss the ground on which they walk. We almost immediately begin to recall the movies they acted in that we love or the song that made them popular. We simply cannot ignore them even when they ignore us! Sola Shobowale played the lead role in both parts of the hit movie, “KING OF BOYS”. She is literally the face of the movie. Her stellar performance in box-office record-breaking “THE WEDDING PARTY 1 &2” also stands out. However, if she steps out on the streets of Lagos with Kemi Adetiba who wrote the scripts for both movies and Mo Abudu, CEO of Ebony Films who conceived the idea of THE WEDDING PARTY and whose company produced the two movies, people will cast no more than a passing glance at Kemi and Mo. Their attention would be fixed on Sola! Yet without the scripts or the company to bankroll the movies, there would be no platform for Sola Shobowale to hit the big screen. Whenever we see Shobowale in the image of the soar-away success that she recorded in her interpretation of her roles in both movies, we see an embodiment of the combined efforts of the other actors in various supporting roles, the scriptwriter, the producer, the director, the costumier, the make-up artist, the production manager, the financier, the camera crew, the editors, the transport crew, the welfare and logistics crew and every other person whose professional and timely input produced both box-office successes and whose ineptitude could have marred the entire project.

Wisdom is the ability to recognize difference or uniqueness. Honour is the ability to celebrate and reward it. The story of impactful leadership is written in its ability to recognize, celebrate and reward the unique contributions of other people who bring their energies and unique talents to contribute to the design and weaving of the tapestry of the leader’s success story. We succeed only because others permit us to through the quantum and quality of their contribution of effort into the processes that made us who we have become or plan to become. To forget that is to become self-delusional and blatantly egocentric. The world never fails to rightfully note it as pride.

Great leaders think and operate in systems and not in silos. It takes a great team to actualize a great dream. True success is not just “my story”.

It is “OUR” story!

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!