When you work with Jeff Williams, you’ll be part of a team.
Your opinion will matter. Your role will be defined. You will know why your job is important.
The former Arlington mayor, who was responsible for helping some of the city’s most important endeavors – like keeping the Rangers in Arlington, bringing the headquarters of Fortune 500 company D.R. Horton to town, and landing the National Medal of Honor Museum – believes that is the way to get things done.
Teamwork makes the dream work, in other words, as he lays out in his book, The Unity Blueprint: Aligning People & Purpose for Lifelong Success, due to be released by Forbes Books on Sept. 9. It is No. 1 on Amazon’s New Release and Best Seller lists according to presale figures.
“I believe you get things done faster when you bring people together, you value them, you foster trust – and then you’re able to go forward with a better plan and are able to accomplish more,” he said.
Sounds simple enough, but the longtime Arlington civil engineer and business owner who spearheaded the drive to secure the National Medal of Honor Museum says it is not so easy. Teamwork and partnership are traits that must be practiced and championed.
A construction worker who is grading a road on the National Medal of Honor Museum site, for example, benefits by seeing a bigger picture.
“There’s no ‘I’m just doing the grading on this project,’” Williams said. “No, what you are doing is doing the grading on this project, so the National Medal of Honor can open and be able to spread its mission of inspiring America.”
Project members from top to bottom thus know their role. Just like on a football team, someone carries the ball, others block, and still others catch it or throw it. Everyone’s goal is to get to the end zone for six points.
“The way we work together on sports teams is the way we ought to be working together in our families, in our businesses,” Williams said. “In business, Type A managers are out. We’ve got to be treating our employees the way we in non-profits have been treating our volunteers. We include them in the decision-making. We are cognizant of making sure we utilize their time and make sure they understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. We’re answering the why.”
Williams illustrates other examples of the blueprint for unity in the book, which he began writing last year after Forbes contacted him at the suggestion of New York University, which had interviewed him for ideas to teach in its sports management courses – specifically, how, in his time as mayor, Arlington became an accomplished sports city, even building an Esports arena.
“One goal for this book is we want the stories we’ve had in Arlington to be known, because literally thousands of people worked together on so many initiatives and throughout Texas on the Medal of Honor Museum project,” he said. “We wanted those stories to come alive. But we also wanted these principles of unity to come out.
“People are growing tired of conflicts and dissension. We want to start a movement toward unity. That’s what Forbes really got excited about, because when they polled Americans, unity was one of the top things that Americans wanted. They saw this book as a tool to move forward to unity.”
Like everyone who has worked with Williams, they were on board.
