Teams @Work

In today's hyper-connected, always-changing environment, the majority of work requires collaboration. According to a study by Deloitte, nearly 90% of companies are reorganizing their structures to promote more team-based work. Whether it's a product launch, a marketing campaign, or a new software release, teams are now the backbone of organizational success. While many of these team members may be working asynchronously and in disparate locations, the days of isolated, individual work are fading as businesses increasingly rely on collective intelligence to innovate and stay competitive.? Harvard Business Review chose to tackle this topic by engaging the recently retired quarterback Tom Brady, as everyone loves a good sports-to-business analogy.? Nothing significant was ever achieved alone, and you don’t win seven Super Bowls without knowing a thing or two about teams.? So what did Tom choose to emphasize??

While the article highlighted the usual platitudes about leadership and teamwork you would expect, he mentioned a few things worth exploring in more detail.? First, he pointed out how different his leadership style was from the New England Patriot’s head coach, Bill Belichick.? Tom made it a point to connect with teammates on a personal level, asking about their families and what was happening in their lives off the football field.? In fact, he looked for opportunities to spend time with his teammate’s outside of Gillette Stadium, recognizing the importance of improving the quality of teammate’s relationships and enhancing them through shared experiences.? Belichick’s style was … a bit more militaristic and intense, but complimentary to Tom’s. And the results speak for themselves.

The literature on teamwork tells us that both diversity and alignment are crucial ingredients to building high performing teams.? Diversity of individual experiences, skills, backgrounds and demographics force teams to broaden their worldview and arrive at more innovative solutions than if everyone was cut from the same cloth.? In other words, the composition of a successful team frequently includes a wide variety of individuals with significant contrasts.? If an entire football team was comprised of players exactly like Tom, they would definitely be the slowest team in the NFL.? The magic is in the mix.

This is also why Tom made it a point to recognize his teammates’ individual personalities and the best ways to motivate them, treating Julian Edelman very differently than Randy Moss.? By understanding how a team functions and how its members work together, leaders can enhance team productivity and empower better decision-making. ?One of the other obvious qualities Tom demonstrated throughout his NFL career was to prioritize winning above individual accolades or earnings.? He restructured his contracts to ensure his teams could retain other talented players to give them the best chance of winning, something you see other quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes successfully emulating today.?

The HBR article suggested that “leadership comes down to two things: do you care about your teammates and their role on the team, and do you care about winning”.? In today’s dynamic work environment, success is often driven by the collective efforts of a well-functioning team. Recruiting individuals with distinct skills, putting them in a position to be successful and encouraging a culture of organizational success over individual honors are key factors in building winning teams at work.