It was a cold winter. A group of hedgehogs, realizing the situation, decided to bunch together to keep warm. However, the quills from each hedgehog pierced their next-door neighbors, so they decided to move apart. But then they started to freeze and die alone, so they made the decision to cuddle back together and live with the little piercings caused by the close connection with their companions in order to receive the heat that came from the group. This allowed them to survive.

And that, my friends, is the perfect definition of teamwork.

No team is composed entirely of perfect people. Whether you’re a superstar or a benchwarmer, you are an important member of the team.

Individuals working together as a group make a team successful. The success of any team -- be it in sports or in business -- is dependent on every person working toward a common goal. The role of every team member, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is valuable to the team’s overall success. Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally; it comes from what you do consistently.

Andrew Carnegie, the business magnate and philanthropist who led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century, said: “Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision, the ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”

Do you think he knew about hedgehogs?

Helen Keller said, “Alone, we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

That’s hedgehog talk if I’ve ever heard it!

I always get a kick out of when a person refers to someone else as a self-made man or woman. Let me tell you, there is no such thing. No one reaches their goals without the help of many others.

As Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, said, “Great things in business are never done by one person. They are done by a team of people.”

Whether you’re forming a fully self-directed work team or leading a group that just needs to collaborate effectively, you must recruit the right people. Keep your eyes open for these abilities and traits:

-- Willingness to contribute. Is the person ready to put the team’s goals first? This doesn’t mean ignoring personal needs, but it does mean that team members must put their primary energy into contributing to the team so they can share in its success.

-- Acceptance of roles. People on a team have specific jobs, tasks and roles. Although they should be willing to stretch themselves, they won’t be effective or helpful if they insist on going outside the boundaries of what the team needs from them.

-- Eagerness to assist. On a team, no one can back off and say, “That’s not my job.” Look for people with a track record of pitching in to help wherever they’re needed as situations call for it.

-- Identification with the group. Effective team members take pride from their association with the group. Find out what other teams, task forces and committees a potential team member has worked on. How does he or she describe the experience?

-- Responsible attitude. Everyone’s eager to share credit. Is your team made up of people willing to accept responsibility for failure? Look for people who can be honest about their mistakes and willing to learn from experience.

Perhaps the best example of teamwork I’ve ever heard of is one I share with my audiences whenever I give a speech. It’s about mules, not hedgehogs, but the message is every bit as effective.

A salesman is driving on a two-lane country road in a rainstorm and gets stuck in a ditch. He asks a farmer for help. The farmer hitches up Elmo, his blind mule, to the salesman's car and hollers out, “Pull, Sam, pull!” Nothing happens. He then yells, “Pull, Bessie, pull.” Still nothing. “Pull, Jackson, pull.” Still nothing. Finally, he hollers, “Pull, Elmo, pull.” And Elmo rips the car right out of the ditch.

The driver is confused and says, “I don’t understand. Why did you have to call out all those different names?”

“Look, if he didn't think he had any help, he wouldn't even try!”

Mackay’s Moral: For a winning team, recruit hedgehogs, not attention hogs.

Germs can run rampant in a workplace, but so can another problem. Researchers at the University of Florida, presenting their findings in the Journal of Applied Psychology, say that rudeness can be contagious.

The researchers followed 90 graduate business students as they practiced negotiation techniques over seven weeks, switching partners several times. Students who described a partner as rude were more likely to be considered rude themselves by subsequent partners than those who negotiated with people they felt were polite. The researchers theorize that this suggests that experiencing rudeness may make people more inclined to engage in it themselves.

Do your best to stay polite and courteous all the times, and you may be able to stop an epidemic in your organization.

Workplace rudeness can be a serious problem. It can bring down morale and lead to lost productivity. Rudeness doesn’t just affect work; it can lead to lost customers.

A study by the University of North Carolina shows that 94 percent of the 775 people surveyed told someone else about their encounters with rude co-workers. Those “someone elses” included peers, supervisors and even people they managed.

What kind of encounters caused such loss in productivity? A few examples of rude behavior included nasty and demeaning notes, accusations about lacking knowledge, name-calling and challenging credibility in front of others.

The study concluded that employees spent more time disgruntled or worrying about the rude person and less time concentrating on their work. The stats from the survey are telling:

-- 28 percent lost work time avoiding the rude person.

-- 58 percent lost work time worrying about the encounter or possible future interactions.

-- 37 percent reduced their commitment to the organization.

-- 22 percent decreased their effort at work.

-- 10 percent decreased the amount of time they spent at work.

-- 46 percent contemplated changing jobs to avoid the rude person.

-- 12 percent changed jobs to avoid the rude person.

This is why it is essential to squash rude behavior the minute it rears its ugly head. Granted, the workplace is not always the easiest place in the world to get along with others. However, it is important to feel respected by others in the workplace. This kind of healthy atmosphere will almost always increase productivity.

Here are some tips from the Mayo Clinic on how to deal with a co-worker who is rude to you:

-- Hold your tongue. Take some time to cool off if someone is rude to you. Don’t spout off something you will be sorry to have said later. Don’t be sarcastic. When someone says something rude to you, repeat it back to them in your own words and ask the person if that is what he or she is trying to say.

-- Be direct. Very calmly tell the other person how his or her comments or behavior made you feel. Make your co-worker aware that it’s a problem for you.

-- Tell the person whose behavior is bothering you about it, instead of telling other people in the office. Directing your comments to the person is the mature, respectful way of handling the matter.

-- Find a solution. Ask the person who was rude to you to help you solve the problem. Ask for his or her ideas about the problem and what to do about it.

-- If you’ve truly run out of ideas or if your co-worker is uncooperative, let your supervisor know. He or she may know how to handle the situation or have experience dealing with similar problems in the past.

And speaking of supervisors, a study by the University of Florida found that even the best employees can become negative at work if they think their bosses have treated them with rudeness or are mean-spirited. That means gossiping, pilfering, backstabbing and long lunch breaks can become the norm.

Managers have to set the tone, starting with the way they treat employees. Management training needs to include an emphasis on treating employees with respect and refusing to accept rude behavior in the workplace.

Want to boil it down to a simple phrase? Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

Mackay’s Moral: Common courtesy should never be an uncommon practice.

I often use the expression, "One person can make all the difference in the world."

That adage certainly applied to my friend Bruce Halle, who recently passed away. Bruce was the founder of Discount Tire, the nation’s largest tire and wheel retailer, with 975 stores in 34 states and nearly 20,000 employees.

Bruce truly was a self-made man, working as a paperboy as I did, and even working as a gravedigger to support his family. He tried selling life insurance before he opened his first tire store in 1960 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was the sole employee. His original inventory consisted of two new tires and four retreads. Like many entrepreneurs, Bruce did everything from cleaning toilets to painting signs.

The company grew at record speed because of Bruce’s leadership and his three-pronged approach -- provide reasonable prices, tremendous customer service and guarantee satisfaction. He believed that happy employees make happy customers. He taught his employees to live by the credo "Treat others the way you would want to be treated."

I’d like to focus on one of Bruce’s quotes and provide you with my thoughts: “There are really just five simple lessons to life: Be honest, work hard, have fun, be grateful and pay it forward.”

Honesty

Tell the truth at all times to build solid relationships. Your word must be your bond. Complete honesty in little things is not a little thing at all.

Honesty, ethics, integrity, values, morals -- all mean more or less the same thing. In my estimation, you can interchange them, because they all convey the single attribute that determines whether a person or an organization can be trusted.

Work hard

The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. There is no magic formula for being a success. It takes hard work. Hard work is not a bad thing. Sure, natural talent can make a big difference. But show me a natural .300 hitter in Major League Baseball, and I'll show you someone who bangs the ball until their hands bleed trying to keep that stroke honed. Ask any surgeon about how much sleep they got for the eight to 10 years it took them to get through medical school, internship and residency. Ask any concert pianist how much practice it takes to perform a 40-minute piano concerto from memory. All these gigs take more than magic hands. It takes iron determination and lots of hard, hard work. The harder you work, the luckier you'll get.

Have fun

Business and fun are not polar opposites. In fact, another piece of advice that I share frequently is “Do what you love, love what you do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” Adopt a "TGIM" attitude: Thank God It’s Monday. A positive work environment encourages fun. Quite often, those are the most successful enterprises as well.

Be grateful

Gratitude should be a continuous attitude. It’s very disheartening to see a decline in the use of “thank you” by so many. When I hold doors open for people, I seldom hear "Thank you." When I go shopping and buy something, I’m usually the one saying "Thank you for serving me"!

For a while, I thought it was just me being overly sensitive. But a few years ago, I was watching the “Late Show With David Letterman” and heard about a man who went into a store looking for an item. He found no one to help him. The clerks were uninterested at best, rude at worst. After much searching, he finally found the item himself. At the checkout counter, he found a long line of people and a clerk who definitely worked only at her own speed. Finally, he paid for his item, and the clerk threw it into a plastic bag and shoved his change at him.

The man had to say something, so he asked the cashier, “Can't you even say 'Thank you'?”

And the cashier said, “It's printed on your receipt.”

Pay it forward

When you have the opportunity to do something kind or helpful for someone who doesn’t expect it, take it! It’s even better when the recipient doesn’t know who is responsible. We all have enough time and resources to lend a hand. You might even make someone’s day.

Thanks for sharing your lessons, Bruce. We will sorely miss you.

Mackay’s Moral: Never discount the importance of honesty and hard work.