There is a big difference between a team of champions and a championship team. That difference is very hard to pin down, let alone create, but I think it has to do with these 3 things – symbiosis, fusion and interconnectedness.
The dictionary defines symbiosis as ‘a mutually beneficial relationship between different people or groups’; and fusion as ‘the process or result of joining two or more things together to form a single entity’. The definition for interconnectedness is that it is the noun for interconnect which means ‘to connect with each other’.
All three of these things live in the soft skills arena and are often related to as something that only happens when the right people come together in the right circumstances. But soft skills can be learned, ergo it is possible to create a championship team. With that created it is then possible to have the team take what it has learnt as a unit and expand that learning and the key principles that have been identified out to a way of working in the whole of their organisation and with the stakeholders it interfaces with.
The work involved in this process is not necessarily onerous, but it can definitely be intense and therefore requires that there be a strong case for undertaking it. In some cases the need is obvious such as poor business results, falling workforce engagement scores or other dire needs for change. But in others it may not be so clear. If there is a silo mentality in your business, a sense of everyone is only in it for themselves and a disconnect between what the company says and what it does but your team is generally meeting its targets, growth is happening, and your churn is low – what’s the case for action then?
That question is an interesting one because it leads to an exploration away from ordinary into extraordinary.
As Jim Collins said – Good is the enemy of Great.