Our Story

Finding Greatness

Team Concepts, Inc. was founded by Dan Lyons in 1995. An accomplished athlete, coach, naval officer, and budding entrepreneur, Lyons believed that the same principles of excellence, leadership, and noble purpose that propelled him to the Olympic Games could be applied to business. The organizations he sought to help were those looking to build leadership capacity toward managing high performing teams. He believed the best way to do this was through experiential learning programs.

Lyons assembled several fellow coaches who really understood what drove high performance teams. He didn’t hire them simply because they could coach. He hired them because they were champions in various fields who really knew how to connect and engage people. They were tested leaders. They could both walk the walk and talk the talk.

Each coach was practiced in a metaphorical teaching style. Dan wanted to use experiential metaphors that could be applied directly to business. He supplied the coaches with the foundations for the Eight Secrets of Inspirational Leadership curriculum. Together, they made learning exciting and fun. The training events truly became story-worthy.

Word spread of Team Concepts’ corporate success. Within five years, business schools began to take notice. The popularity of Team Concepts’ corporate programs was being recognized within academic circles. Consistently rated at the top of clients’ training programs for overall experience and effectiveness, why shouldn’t Team Concepts partner with business schools?

In 2000, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business signed on to partner with Team Concepts. Since then, Team Concepts has been contracted to provide executive education programs at 15 US business schools including Harvard, Booth (Chicago), Darden (Virginia), Kenan-Flagler (North Carolina), McDonough (Georgetown) and Columbia. Our business school partnerships allow Team Concepts to utilize academic faculty to cover a wide range of business-related subject matter topics. In 2003, Team Concepts served its first federal government client, the US Army. This was followed by work with NASA, the State Department, and the Department of Energy.

With three decades in business, Team Concepts has a well-established track record. Over 57,000 individuals have participated in our programs. We have served a few hundred Fortune 1000 companies and a number of federal government agencies. We have delivered leadership development and team formation and empowerment programs to audience members from 62 different countries at venues in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.