Forget the dream;
it’s all about the seam
Making the team work—stitching together an unstoppable team for a bold new venture
22 LABS x
17 EXECUTIVES
= 1 UNSTOPPABLE
TEAM
The Situation
In the National Football League, teams played 16-game seasons from 1978–2020 (minus two strike-shortened seasons). And in those 34 seasons, two teams won a grand total of zero games in a single season: the Cleveland Browns in 2017 and the Detroit Lions in 2008. (Since the shift three years ago to a 17-game season, no team has gone 0 for 17.)
To be clear: these were teams comprising some of the best athletes on the planet, players who had advanced to the very top of the profession. And yet, as teams, they struggled—catastrophically.
The question of what makes some teams excel (and some teams not) has vexed coaches, teachers, directors, conductors . . . and business leaders ever since we have had teams. And it was a question that was very much on the mind of the CEO who would be taking the wheel of a carve-out from an extremely large, global, and complex public company. The CEO knew the success of the newly independent, soon-to-be publicly traded, enterprise depended in part upon his executive team’s ability to come together as a unified, aligned, and trusting team that could operate as more than the sum of its parts. But how to get there?
THE SOLVE
STITCHING TOGETHER
A TEAM
WITH TRUST
AT ITS CENTER
The Impact
In the months since these labs were delivered, the company has completed its carve-out and transitioned tens of thousands of employees as it has begun operating as its own independent, publicly traded company. And in the process, the Executive Leadership team has deftly prepared for analyst calls and built its operating and reporting structure—daunting tasks all, and each executed cohesively as a unified team.
The individual:
Looking at the impact on individual relationships, one particular unhealthy and disjointed reporting relationship within the team was rightsized through the labs and work via a reorienting of objectives and focus on avoiding unforced errors. The relationship was greatly improved—with the reporting executive in the pair now leading a major region!
The team:
Looking at a specific team success, the Executive Leadership team has been able to tackle a cost and operating model transformation of a sort that is typically quite fraught in complex organizations like this one. Here, the team has completed the project in nearly half the time originally allotted for the transformation!