Choosing Teams and Creating Clone Armies
Sometimes you get to choose your team.
And sometimes teams happen.
And there’s nothing you can do about it. You start a job and have to work with whoever’s already there. The boss asks you to be a part of a team to brainstorm marketing ideas for a new project (this is actually a committee). You’re picked (maybe first, maybe last) like an elementary student for the kickball team.
There are times when you have very little agency when it comes to team. You must exercise a certain set of social, emotional, and leadership skills when you find yourself in this situation.
But we often have more agency than we think.
Choose your team well. Before committing time, energy, and attention into a project I care about, I want the right team.
Here are two factors to carefully consider:
1. Are we playing the same sport by the same rules?
This takes time to discern. Having worked with enough teams over the years, it gets easier to sense whether this team is going to suit my style — and to know that we’re actually playing the same game. You have to figure this out. It will save you a ton of heartache and grief. Here are the factors I look for (Teams that do these things are playing my sport):
- Does the team leadership actually want and encourage creative thinking?
- Is there a good balance of nonjudgmental free thought and action/execution?
- Does the team leadership encourage (or even require) participation from everyone, or just a select favorite (usually vocal) few?
The answers to these questions determine if we’re even playing the same game in the same arena.
2. Is there a great mix of strengths?
If a team is created in the image of the leader you don’t have a team. You have a clone army. And nothing good ever comes from a clone army. Know your strengths. Good leadership will make sure everyone on the team knows their strengths — and she will develop teams based on this.
Embrace your agency. Choose your team.
When you ask these questions and you don’t sense a good fit, find the team where you do fit.
Life is much too short to spend your days playing on the wrong team.
