Treating energy as a valuable and renewable resource changes your view of your rhythm of the day. But let’s go a step further: you agree with me that there are people who „drain” energy from the environment, and there are also those who spread the energy around you, right?
Yes, the team also has an energy balance. And this balance is responsible for the success of the project, just as hard skills are. In the book „Good To Great,” Jim Collins describes the study in which he looks at companies that have achieved spectacular success in sectors where others are doing just OK. He was looking for common features of these companies and teams. What did he find?
CASE STUDY #1 – WHICH BUS WILL YOU TAKE?
Imagine two buses. One of them goes to a famous resort — you can enter it, but you do not know who else will ride with you. The second bus does not have a specific destination, but you know that you will travel with great people. Which bus will you take?
According to Collins, the people on the second bus form a team that will achieve above-average results. The people on it hopped in because of the other people, not because of the destination. And we all know that destinations change, right? „Everyone has a plan until they get in the snout.” This reminds me of the situation from one of the major projects that I implemented.
CASE STUDY #2 – A GROUP OF PEOPLE OR ONE TEAM?
The relationship with the client was on the knife’s edge. Why? Good question! The right design infrastructure, a strong team, so it would seem that everything should go smoothly. The reality was that I had a dissatisfied customer as well as a group who wanted to leave. My friend, Kamila, described spells and invocations that Piotr (PM) and she did to flip the coin (I recommend reading it, published as part of the PMI). The solution was to establish one common point of view, shared values, goals for the whole team. The ceremony of changing a group of people working together into a real team resulted in a radical improvement in customer and team satisfaction over the next few months. It cost an incredible amount of energy to the whole team but ultimately managed to succeed.
Interesting, right? The long and short of it is that if you don’t grow your team due to energy balance and cultural fit, the second bus will simply overtake you.
List of articles:
A work mug and a home mug — about zones separation
