A highly successful basketball coach took over as coach of a struggling university team. During the first day of practice, the coach sat all the players down and asked them how close they were with their teammates.

They all said, “Oh, we’re real close.” Then the coach proceeded to ask each player about his teammates. Do you know what their fathers and mothers do? How about brothers and sisters?

And not one person knew a thing about their fellow team members’ families.

Many business leaders preach, “Know your customer.” How about “Know your team”?

At MackayMitchell Envelope Company, we often utilize a questionnaire called the Mackay 33 for Managers. It’s designed to provide a personal profile of the likes, dislikes and unique individual needs and qualities of each of our employees.

It is based on observation, not investigation, and is intended to motivate people and design individual career paths. We want to know their goals and aspirations. What motivates them? What are they most proud of achieving? What are their strengths/weaknesses? Do they have proper role models? Are they team players?

Your success as a leader -- and your organization’s success, as well -- depends on your ability to get the best from your employees. Often, you spend more time with your workforce than you do with any other group, even your family. Isn’t it important to get to know them as people and not just co-workers?

You can’t expect it to come automatically, though. You have to search carefully for each person’s exceptional talents. For every person you lead, see how thoroughly you can answer the questions below:

1. How well do you really know the employee? What can you quickly recall of the employee’s family, personal goals, hobbies or other outside interests?

2. What do you know specifically about his or her career goals, both short-term and in the long run?

3. What single word best describes the person’s job performance?

4. If this person resigned today, what would you miss most?

5. Can you name the person’s greatest strength or skill?

6. Can you think of the last time you discussed this person’s skills or talents directly with him or her?

7. What have you done recently to make the person feel like an important member of your team?

8. How recently have you asked for this person’s ideas or input?

9. What specific, positive comment about this person’s talents or contributions could you make today?

10. After looking at the answers to the previous questions, what could you do right now to get more from this employee?

Leadership in any organization with more than one employee needs to understand the importance of fostering an environment where teamwork is paramount. A really helpful feature of the Mackay 33 is that it provides guidance for assembling a team based on each employee’s strengths.

It doesn’t stop with managers knowing something about employees. Co-workers must also get to know enough about each other to be able to relate well. Offering ice-breaking opportunities helps promote a sense of team.

I came across a rather novel approach recently -- the toilet-paper challenge. Gather employees around a table or stand in a circle and pass a roll of toilet paper around. Each person may take as many or as few squares as they wish.

Then, each participant has to state a tidbit about themself for each square they took -- “I play pickleball,” “My first job was at a radio station,” “I show Siamese cats” -- you get the idea. Nothing more than what they are comfortable sharing with the group -- just a little glimpse of their outside or interior lives.

Seeing people from another perspective also exposes hidden strengths and shared interests. And the fun factor is an added benefit for any workplace.

On the website of Scoro, the software business service, Merily Leis offers a fascinating example of teamwork: The Rolling Stones.

“Each of the band’s members is a talent in his own right, but it is the chemistry the band has with each of them that works best," Leis writes. "Being part of the Rolling Stones remains the best way for each member to achieve their individual goals.”

Mackay’s Moral: Teams work best when they are in tune with each other.

(Harvey Mackay is the author of the New York Times best-seller "Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive." He can be reached through his website, www.harveymackay.com, by emailing harvey@mackay.com or by writing him at MackayMitchell Envelope Co., 2100 Elm St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.)

“You learn something new every day,” or so the saying goes. But how many of us actually do?

That phrase usually is uttered when someone learns a lesson by accident. That’s an OK way to improve your knowledge base, but it's not very reliable in terms of being able to really learn a new skill or set of facts. You’re at the mercy of circumstance.

I have always preached the virtues of lifelong learning, and I mean intentional learning. If I want to learn a new language, software or hobby, or improve my golf swing or my knowledge of a country I’d like to visit, I forge ahead with purpose. I want to know more. I work at getting the best information available and then put it into practice. That is intentional learning.

Living in the information age makes lifelong learning easier than ever. Online classes, TEDtalks, YouTube instructional videos -- you name it, the opportunities to soak up knowledge are unlimited on your own schedule anywhere you have WiFi.

You can quite literally learn something new every day. And then what do you do with it?

I recently came across a wonderful book that takes things a step further, teaching how to read faster, remember more and become a “superlearner.” Author Jonathan Levi shares some useful methods in “The Only Skill That Matters.”

Levi explains: “Whereas it used to be only doctors and programmers who struggled to keep up with the pace of their field, today it’s almost everybody. Professionals in every industry who want to take their career to the next level are struggling to keep up with the work they already have -- much less make time for ‘leisure’ learning like foreign languages, musical instruments, new skills or pleasure reading.”

He quotes Alvin Toffler, author of “Future Shock,” who said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”

That’s a lot to absorb. For those who have practiced a skill for so long and need to retool, the challenges are considerable. But they are not insurmountable if you reprogram your brain to learn a new system.

As Levi puts it, “As a 21st-century human, you need to know how to navigate social relationships, get along with technology, stay informed about politics, obey laws, balance your finances, make smart career decisions, choose a healthy diet and about a million other little skills that help you thrive in today’s world.”

Take those components one at a time and consider how many changes you have witnessed -- and perhaps had to unlearn/relearn -- in a decade. That’s a tremendous amount of information to process.

Levi recommends you first answer a series of questions to help you plan before you dive into any learning project, because he cautions that learning something the wrong way can have permanent consequences. Among those nine questions are:

-- Why am I learning this information, and how and when will I actually use it?

-- What level of understanding do I need?

-- How can the information be broken down into small parts, and then recombined into broader categories?

-- What are the most important things to learn based on my personal goals?

Knowing that learning as an adult is radically different from learning as a child, I encourage you to explore these concepts and see how they change the way you approach a new topic. Levi’s methods just might make your next pursuit much more effective. He also has helpful advice on remembering what you have learned.

I am so grateful that starting with my mother -- a teacher -- I have been encouraged to keep learning even after my formal classroom education ended. It has a value that I cannot put a price on. So many times, a little knowledge about a topic has been a conversation starter or led to a sale. Other times, it just prepares me for unexpected opportunities.

So I have a challenge for you! In this new year, resolve to learn something new, if not every day, then every week or every month. Develop your memory so that all your new knowledge doesn’t get filed in a far corner of your brain. Just keep learning.

Mackay’s Moral: As the saying goes, use it or lose it. As long as you’ve got it, use it!

I love creativity, and one of the most fruitful uses of creativity is landing a job. You have to set yourself apart from the crowd.

Over the years I’ve encountered some very creative ways that people have found jobs, and I would like to share some of my favorites with you.

Social media is a great way not only to meet potential employers, but also a place to post some of your work or start a blog. How about creating your own website?

Enhance your resume by adding images, graphs, color and design. Make a video. One person even wrote a song.

Send some extra special items with your cover letter and resume, such as cupcakes, cookies, a box of chocolates or doughnuts that spell out your name. As hokey as that may sound, it can work.

I really get a kick out of crazy stunts. Like sending a potential employer a shoe with a resume and a note, “Just wanted to get my foot in the door.” One guy took out a billboard touting his qualifications. I’ve heard people doing radio ads and creating an imaginative brochure or direct-mail piece. Still another sent a singing telegram praising her skills.

One reader shared with me that when she was looking for a job, she went to the Atlanta airport and passed her resume out to dozens and dozens of business travelers. She thought this would be a good idea, since a high percentage of travelers during the week are on business. As she passed out her resumes, she told the recipient to please give it to a decision-maker.

“It was incredible how many phone calls I received!” she said. She had several interviews and got a “great job in medical sales.”

Another individual I personally counseled was zero for 100 in trying to crack the advertising ranks right out of college. She went to one of the top ad agencies in Minneapolis and offered to work for free for six months to get her foot in the door. It ended up in a permanent job.

One woman who had been out of work for four months saw an ad for her dream job with a local TV station. The standard tactic -- a cover letter and her resume -- netted absolutely nothing. So she launched a more imaginative campaign, which included letters from the fellow she was dating, from her lawyer, from her 80-year-old mother, even from her priest, who wrote, “I’m enclosing this in hopes that you will hire" the woman. "It’s depressing to look at her sad face, and besides, we haven’t had a donation from her in months.” She got the job.

Steve Schussler, founder of Rainforest Cafe and a good friend, had a dream of working in sales for a radio station in Miami. He went to a container company and purchased a wooden barrel large enough for him to fit in. Then he went to a costume shop and rented a Superman outfit, complete with blue tights, red shoes and cape. He paid two friends to deliver him in the crate to the radio station manager’s office. As it turned out, the manager was in a board meeting, but they insisted he come out, which he did with the entire board. When they finally slid the lid away, Steve flew out of the crate like a jack-in-the-box, gasping for breath. He smiled at everyone and announced, “I’m your new super salesman.” One of the board members said, “Son, you are the sickest person we’ve ever met. You’re hired.”

One of my all-time favorite job stories happened years ago, when my youngest daughter was graduating from the University of Michigan. Seated up in the rafters, I watched thousands of graduates parade across the stage collecting their sheepskins. Suddenly, a roar went up from the crowd. A female student was walking across the stage with a placard on top of her graduation cap. In huge white letters were the words, “I need a job.” After the program ended, businesspeople were falling all over themselves to give her their cards.

Did she land a job because of her creativity? I don’t know, but I do know that 8,333 graduates without jobs sure wished they had thought of it first.

Mackay’s Moral: Creativity has no script; it is inspired ad-libbing.