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Teamwork Quote by David Leslie

"The team's aims are do to the best we can basically"

About this Quote

“The team’s aims are do to the best we can basically” reads like a sentence caught mid-jog: earnest, a little winded, and trying not to trip over its own shoelaces. David Leslie isn’t delivering a manifesto; he’s performing a familiar public ritual - the safe, noncommittal pledge that protects both morale and future headlines. The charm is in its clumsiness. “Aims” suggests strategy and ambition, but it’s immediately undercut by “basically,” a verbal shrug that collapses grand planning into plain survival: show up, try hard, don’t promise miracles.

The subtext is reputational self-defense. In modern team environments - sports, startups, politics, any arena with scoreboards and scrutiny - specificity is dangerous. Say you’re aiming to win the league, crush the quarter, transform the culture, and you’ve handed critics a ruler. “Do the best we can” is unfalsifiable; it preemptively reframes outcomes as effort rather than results. If they succeed, it sounds humble. If they fail, it sounds honest.

Even the grammar (“are do”) hints at pressure: a person speaking live, likely to media, trying to avoid the accidental hot take. It’s a quote engineered for low volatility. That’s not nothing. In a culture addicted to bold predictions and instant accountability, the most strategic move can be to offer a sentiment so generic it becomes armor - a soft-focus promise that keeps the team’s internal stakes intact while giving the outside world a line to print.

Quote Details

TopicTeamwork
More Quotes by David Add to List
Doing the Best We Can: Team Discipline and Modest Ambition
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About the Author

David Leslie is a notable figure.

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