Pattern #7
Committing to Your Team
The team is the primary unit of productivity in the knowledge economy. And in order for that unit to thrive, individuals must commit to their team.
The New Zealand rugby team performing the Haka, a traditional Maori war dance, at the Hong Kong sevens in 2014.
Cameron Spencer/Getty Images Sport via Getty Images
Sports metaphors abound in business. But what sort of game do we imagine we’re playing? With its hyper-specialized roles and rehearsed set plays, the sport of the industrial era was American football. Today’s game is a lot more like rugby.
Superficially related to football, rugby is in reality a very different game. Set plays exist, but fluid, open play dominates the game. Teams improvise to move the ball up the field, adjusting for the situation and the strengths of the opponent. Rugby inspired an influential Harvard Business Review article in 1986 on the need for speed and flexibility in product development. The world’s most popular project-management framework for software development is called scrum, named after a rugby set play.
To play rugby is to experience what it means and feels like to commit yourself to a team. Individual players have specialized roles. But team goals and team priorities dominate the play of any individual. The best rugby teams play with a passion and intensity that is hard to find in any other sport. Why can’t we build teams that bring these qualities to the way we work?