Work with Purpose Conference | Collaboration | Sept. 2025

excited to be up here to get to talk to

you guys today um about collaboration.

Um honestly, this is an area that I’ve

grown a ton in. And so sometimes when

you grow a lot in an area, they ask you

to speak about it. Um so that’s why I’m

up here. But I’m going to share a few

stories. Um hopefully you resonate with

some of these. Um just I feel like

there’s a few powerful lessons in this.

Um the first one I’m going to start off

with, I got to give credit to um a book

called Hidden Potential by Adam Grant.

Um and Adam Grant is a professor of

psychology at the School of Wharton. And

he is giving this exam to his class. Uh

and he’s done it many times before. It’s

it’s a final exam. And he notices that

his class is super nervous. this time

super anxious. They’re all asking him

about it. And so he’s like, “You know

what? I’m going to throw them a bone.”

He’s like, “I’m going to give them one

freebie question. I’m going to let I’m

going to let them if they don’t know the

answer to the question or if they get it

wrong, they can on one question write

the name of a classmate.” And so they

can if they write the name of this

classmate, if that classmate gets the

question right, then it doesn’t matter

whether they got it right or wrong.

They’re going to be it’s going to be

counted right. And so this was a really

cool thing. He inadvertently discovered

kind of a powerful lesson on

collaboration he wasn’t really trying to

do because he got the scores back and

the scores were like 15 to 20% higher

and he’s sitting here thinking how is it

that they scored 15 to 20% higher. I

only gave him one question for free. And

so he did it again. He thought nothing

of it. He did it again the next

semester. He’s like, you know, I’m going

to keep doing this. He did it again the

next semester. He did it for four or

five semesters in a row. and the scores

were consistently 15 to 20% higher every

time. And so he’s like, “What’s going

on? I got I’m a professor of psychology

researcher. I got to figure this out.”

So he started interviewing students. He

started trying to learn about what were

they doing differently. And what he

learned was that they had started to

study together because in order to take

advantage of this, you had to know in

your class who knew what. You couldn’t

just write any old student’s name down,

right? like you needed to know, dang, I

don’t know this, but I know that Joe

knows this. So, I’m going to write Joe’s

name down. And so, by studying together,

they actually started learning more

together and they improved their scores

together. And it turns out that by

studying together, what he learned is

that it raises the tide of all the

ships, right? And we shouldn’t be

surprised by this because this is how

God has actually designed us. God has

designed us to accomplish more together

than we could on our own. And this was

from the very beginning. If we go to

Genesis chapter 2 verse 18, and the Lord

God said, “It is not good that man

should be alone. I will make him a

helper comparable to him.” And so God

created Eve so that Adam wouldn’t be

alone, but also so that they could work

the garden together, so that they could

accomplish more together than Adam could

on his own. And so if you write nothing

else down for my talk today, um God

wants you to work together with others.

It’s actually how he’s designed you from

the very beginning. Um,

he’s actively put people in your life,

on your teams, in your church, in your

families. He’s specifically and

intentionally put people around you so

that together you guys could actually

accomplish more than you could on your

own.

And I know if I was sitting in this

audience 15 years ago, I know what I

would be thinking. So, I’m just going to

say it out loud. I think I would be

thinking that, yeah, but you don’t know

Ted.

Ted is on my team and he is kind of

incapable of tying his own shoes. Um, so

I’m not sure he’s really going to bring

anything to the equation here if we

start working together. But I will tell

you after years of experience and lots

of teams that I’ve been on that actually

Ted does have unique gifts, unique

God-given gifts. and together you guys

will accomplish more if you invite him

in. Um, when I came into the marketplace

15 years ago, I saw this quote for the

first time. To go fast, go alone. To go

far, go together. It’s an old African

proverb. Um, and honestly, when I first

saw this quote, I thought, you know

what? I think I’d rather just go fast.

You know, we don’t need to go far. we

can just go fast wherever we go. Um, and

honestly that was partly due to my

experiences growing up. Anytime I was on

a team, you know, it just always felt

like I was like, you know, pulling the

weight of everyone. Like, dang, like I’m

on a group project in school and it just

seemed like I was doing the majority of

the work or I had all the ideas that I

was bringing to the table and it just

didn’t really feel like others were

contributing as much. And so I think I I

learned over time that I just rather do

stuff on my own. But you know what that

was? It was actually pride.

It was actually me thinking that I was

better than others, which is a

completely

um

just untrue thought in every way. And

it’s taken me years. And if I’m honest,

like even still today, I have to fight

this off. this pride wells up in us and

it just makes us think that our ideas

are better or that we could do this

faster because sometimes collaboration

is hard. It’s not easy. And so, let me

share I’ve got a bunch of different

stories I could share of teams I’ve been

on, but I’m going to share one really

powerful one. Um, and it is I’m going to

take you back to COVID. Okay? Um, if you

remember in COVID, right after CO, this

is in 2021 is when this story happened

and everybody and their brother wanted a

new home. They were stuck inside their

house and they realized their house was

kind of terrible. And so they wanted a

new home, right? And so working for a

home builder, you might think, “Dude,

that’s awesome. High five. Y’all got to

build a bunch of homes.” And yeah, it

was pretty awesome. Um, but being the

senior leader over the pursing

department, which is responsible for

keeping costs down and getting materials

to the job site, is actually really

stressful. Um, every day we were

fighting off material shortages. We

would get calls like we’re we ran out of

windows, we ran out of trim, we ran out

of anything and everything. There was a

shortage because there was a nationwide

shortage of all of these materials due

to the housing boom. And so I’m going to

tell you about one of them, which was

our brick shortage. Um, so we most of

our homes are mostly brick. So we have a

lot of brick on our homes. They look

beautiful. Um, but brick became a big

problem. We were over 150 homes behind

at one point on brick. And so we were

actually starting to finish up the

inside of the home and the brick wasn’t

even done yet. Our houses looked like

this blue house up there. Um, and so we

needed to figure out what to do because

honestly, we were going to have to start

pushing closings. And for our company,

that meant a lot. For our customers who

are really counting on us to close on

time, they’ve already scheduled movers.

Maybe they’ve sold another house and

that house is closing. And so for our

customers, it meant a lot for our

trades. If we couldn’t get brick to the

job site, that trade, like, what is he

going to go do? He’d have to maybe go to

another job. Maybe he wouldn’t get

another job. Maybe he’d have to sit at

home and not get paid. And so this

started to become a big deal. Like we we

needed to find this brick. And we

actually sat down with our leadership

team and we said, “What can we do to get

caught up? We have to do anything and

everything we can.” And oh by the way,

we had already been trying. We we had

been getting behind over time. We had

been calling our supplier. And our

supplier had told us like there is no

brick. Like it is all the factories are

doing as much as they can. They’re doing

three shifts. Like we’re it’s all going

to these bigger builders in Dallas and

like Lick is just not getting as much

brick. we’re giving you every brick that

comes to our job site or comes to our uh

warehouse.

And so we met and we said, you know

what, we’re going to deliver 2 million

brick in two weeks, otherwise we’re

going to have to stop the train. And I

remember walking out of that meeting

like, wow, I’m not sure this is even

going to be possible. Um 2 million brick

in two weeks is insane. We’ve never done

that in the history of our company when

brick was readily available. And our

suppliers have already told us there is

no brick available. But I’m going to cut

to the chase and tell you that we did

deliver 2 million brick in two weeks.

Um, and it actually had it was because

of our team. Um, I’m going to show you

as I’m talking about our team. This is

the first delivery of brick that we have

out of that 2 million brick. And it

turns out that actually getting the

brick wasn’t really the biggest

challenge. We had a guy on our team

named Sawyer. He was a connector. He was

the type of guy that like if you met

him, you’re instantly friends with him.

And he immediately like knew nothing

about brick, called factories across the

country and found 20 million brick

within 24 hours that was for sale. And

so we’re like, well, dang, I guess our

suppliers have been lying to us. Um, and

so Sawyer got this brick, but then we

had to get it to the job site. There

were shortages. There were um, turns out

trucking shortages, brick fork

shortages, all kinds of specialized

stuff. And so we had to overcome all of

these obstacles.

And it was because of this team. It was

Sawyer who was connecting, finding this

stuff. It was Brad. You just got to hear

Brad, but if you don’t know anything

about Brad, Brad is an innovator. There

is no problem hill, mountain, uh, that

he cannot climb. We had Trey on our

team. He was a challenger. He was the

guy that’s like, “Are you sure that’s

going to work? If you’re going to

deliver 2 million brick in two weeks,

you can’t wait to find out if

something’s going to work. You got to

have plan A, B, and C lined up.” And

that’s what Trade did. Kendra and

Jennifer, super detailed and organized.

They were able to make sure we get the

right brick to the right homes. And then

Mitch was the encourager. He was our new

pery manager on the team. If you’ve ever

been around Mitch, you can’t walk away

without smiling. And in a high stress

season, that might be the most important

role. And then you got finally Randy the

Charger. If you ever walk behind Randy,

you actually can’t keep up with him

because he’s walking so fast, but he’s

the one going. He’s he’s plowing plowing

forward and leading the team. And so it

was because of this team that we were

able to accomplish this.

And it when I look back on it and I

start to think of my old self that you

know would have wanted to go fast and go

alone.

There’s no way we could have delivered 2

million brick if it was just me. In

fact, I would have just been like it’s

not possible and I would have just

stopped right then.

But we shouldn’t be surprised by this

because it’s actually biblical as well.

So, I’m going to tell one I, you know, I

actually told a different Bible story

last time I did this talk, but there’s

actually hundreds of Bible stories that

show the example of working together.

And so, I’m going to go to Exodus

chapter 17. Um, this is when the

Israelites are in a war with the

Amalachites

and they’re fighting this war and Moses,

he’s obviously praying about how to win

and he he goes up to the top of the hill

and as long as Moses held his hands up,

the Israelites were winning.

But whenever he lowered his hands, the

Amalachites started winning.

And so he’s he’s trying his hardest, but

he’s getting tired. And so when Moses

grew tired, the Bible says they took a

stone and put it under him and he sat on

it. Aaron and her held his hands up, one

on one side and one on the other, and

they remained steady until sunset, so

that Joshua and and the Israelite army

could overcome the Amalachites.

So, they had to do this together. Okay,

let’s stop and think about this for a

second.

If you’re like me, you’re thinking,

“Okay,

God could destroy the Amalachite army

with a snap of a finger. Why did he even

need Moses? Like, isn’t this kind of

silly? Like, we’re going to make Moses

like hold his hands up. Like, couldn’t

God just like go wipe out the army and

we could all be done with this thing?”

No, it’s because God actually wants to

work through us.

God has designed it so that he

accomplishes his will through our

obedience. And so it took Moses’s

obedience. And God wanted it. And in

fact, if Moses wouldn’t have been

obedient, they would have lost the war.

God actually put this opportunity out

there for Moses to take. Okay, let’s

take it a step further. Couldn’t God

have given Moses the strength to hold

his own arms up? I mean, he beat the

whole army through this. Why couldn’t

God just like give Moses some extra

strength that day? Why did he make Mo uh

Aaron and her hold his arms up? It’s

because God has actually designed us to

accomplish things together. Once again,

if Aaron and her had not taken up the

challenge and saw that Moses was getting

tired and been willing to help, then

they would have lost the battle. Moses

would have been too tired. And so God

puts these opportunities for us to

accomplish more together

than we can on our own.

And so I’m going to give you one

challenge. When you go back to your

team, could be your church, could be

your family, could be your team.

I want you to pick a project that’s been

assigned to you. A project that you

really probably could do on your own.

And I want you to ask a peer to help you

with it.

Notice I didn’t say your boss or leader,

okay? Right? Because that’s kind of

expected for you to involve your leader.

Ask a peer. Involve someone else in it.

Okay? I’m going to take it one step

further. Don’t wait till it’s all done

and I say, “Hey, I typed up this whole,

you know, essay. What do you think of

it?”

Invite them in early on. Invite them in

when it’s a halfbaked idea. whenever it

might be embarrassing to show it to him

because you’re going to be surprised

what God can do through the people that

he has put around you.

Okay, I’m going to go

to end this one last time through this

this quote that I saw. And when I think

about this, to go fast, go alone. To go

far, go together.

I don’t think this is quite right.

Actually, it’s an old African proverb.

And so, I’m actually going to change it.

I’m going to create my own proverb. I’m

not sure if that’s legal. I’m not sure

if I can create a proverb, but I’m going

to try it. I’m going to call it Tai’s

proverb. To go fast, go together. To go

far again, it still needs to be get

together because actually, we can’t

accomplish

anything alone that we couldn’t do

better together. It’s how God has

designed it.

Okay. Um, we’ve got a couple reflection

questions, but before I step off, we’ve

got one more talk and I want to tell you

that this talk is actually they saved

the best for last. It’s Lauren Hayes, my

good friend, and she is going to be

amazing. So, do not walk out for this

last talk. I swear you’re uh you’re

going to regret it if you do. Um,

reflection questions though as I walk

off. What is one obstacle in the way of

you having the power of collaboration in

your work?

Has pride caused you to have a cynical

view of working with others?

Thank you guys.