How do you build a great team? Accretion!

Let's play a game.

It's the end of the year. You are at an awards ceremony. Everyone is festive and joyous. You are beside yourself as you receive a reward on behalf of your team for Best Team of the Year.

In your speech you talk about the things that have happened over the past year that transformed the team into what it is today.

What will you say in your speech?

This is a great little exercise that I often use with clients to reflect on what needs changing in their team. It gives them a sense of what they do today that will lead to tremendous returns down the road.

Having heard many answers to this question, here's what I can tell you.

It's never just one thing that moves the needle.

It's never just one behaviour that changes everything.

Instead, it's accretion that delivers greatness. The accumulation of small and intentional behaviours and decisions.

Every new mental model that the team adopts, every new behaviour that becomes habitual, slowly nudges a team towards its true potential.

We should not be looking for spikes of greatness. Those will come. But they are unsustainable as primary motivation.

Instead, you want a team that can sustain the squeeze.

A team that's incrementally and consistently becoming better and better.

My squash coach told me this about playing against an opponent:

"Focus on building the pressure with every single point. Don't worry about hitting winners. They will come. Your only focus should be to continue the squeeze. To keep the pressure building, all the time."

Will your competitors, the market, and your goals, feel the squeeze through your team's slow but persistent evolution?

Erik//