Why You Should Strive to be a Team Player (by Daniel M. Wood)

Most people are always trying to get ahead by looking out for number one. What often happens is that they alienate important contacts and actually end up hurting their chances of success instead of improving.

If you are to succeed you need the help of others.

Contacts open doors
Whatever industry you are in, contacts open doors. It can either be to new possibilities, potential clients, more responsibility or something completely different.

You need to nurture your relationships and help others, you need to make them want to help you back.

The law of reciprocity says that whatever you do for others they will feel inclined to do for you. So if you go out of your way to introduce two people who you think could benefit from each other, they will probably do the same for you down the line, meaning that you got 2 new useful contacts because you helped with 1 connection.

By giving others credit people will want to help you
Most of are also very bad at giving others credit.
We rather take the credit for others ideas, so that we seem smarter. But if we instead give the credit to others for their good ideas, everyone will know that they can trust you to hold their backs.

They know that if they pitch you an idea, they will get the credit. If they work with you on a project you will tell others that it was a team effort.

This will make them more inclined to bring you into important projects, to pitch ideas to you and all of a sudden you will have your fingers in all the important happenings at the company.

By giving others credit you can make yourself an indispensable part of your company. Someone everyone trusts and wants to work with.

People want to good guy to win (and the bad guy to loose)
There is an universal truth in this saying, everyone wants the people they like to win. If you make many friends at the company and open doors for them, they will be rooting for others to open doors for you.

Even if they do not have direct influence on your future, they might be able to positively influence the decision makers to give you a chance.

Conclusion
Try being the good guy, the helpful one. Try giving others credit for what they do well. Before long you will start to see the positive effects this has on your situation. You will be entrusted with more responsibility, more opportunities and people will want to help you succeed.

You need contacts if you are to reach your full potential, make sure to make the best of them.