How Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
I work with a number of portfolio managers at hedge funds. Here are a few facts about them:
* All of them have a history of success in financial markets; that is why they are managing hundreds of millions of dollars or more.
* None of them discuss with me emotional, impulsive trading, FOMO, revenge trading, etc. The issues that trouble beginning traders are largely irrelevant to experienced, profitable market participants. Through their training, they have learned to operate by clearly defined processes.
* All of them work in teams. The best teams consist of members who have their own unique strengths. When everyone on a team is better than everyone else in some area, then everyone can make everyone better and the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.
* The best teams work as hard on their teamwork as on their markets. They constantly look to improve what each person looks at, how they look at it, and how they communicate. They work as hard on team goals as individual goals. They review team performance every bit as much as they review their own individual performance.
* The best teams work hard on maintaining a positive, supportive culture. They take time outside market hours to play and celebrate, as well as to meet and plan. The best team members support one another and motivate each other. When I have observed teams at hedge funds and prop firms like SMB, for example, I’ve invariably noticed that they enjoy their interactions.
Being part of a trading community is helpful, but it does not substitute for being part of a committed team that coordinates trading efforts day in and day out. Show me a performance field where people earn their livings from stellar performance and I’ll show you a field where performance is a function of teamwork. Even the Olympic athletes succeeding in individual events train as a team and benefit from the teamwork of mentoring and coaching.
Read this carefully: A lack of discipline in trading comes from a lack of teamwork in training. No one becomes a disciplined, elite soldier on their own. It takes teamwork to make our dreams work.
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