Rome, High-Performing Teams and Elite Sport

Average reading time: 1 minute 25 seconds

“Rome wasn’t built in a day” is the widely used adage attesting to the need for time to create great things.

I’ve worked with many teams and organisations over the past ten years, who wanted to create great, high-performing teams. And whilst none have wanted to do it in a day, many have asked me to facilitate a two-day, team development offsite.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor are high-performing teams.

I blame the books about highly successful businesses and elite sports teams myself. You know the ones:

• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Winning by Clive Woodward
• Will it Make the Boat Go Faster? by Ben Hunt-Davies and Harriet Beveridge
• Winning by Jack and Suzy Welch

…and the list goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all truly fantastic books.

The issue is they are the retrospective narrative of a journey that these teams and organisations went on over many years. They are not the agenda for our next two-day, team development offsite.

Rome wasn’t even built in two-days, and nor are high-performing teams.

Time and again teams try to build a high-performing team with short term tactics and interventions.

Building a great team isn’t a tactical activity. It’s a strategic activity.

I’d go one step further and say that it is a strategic imperative if you want your business to succeed in the volatile and uncertain future that we are facing.

You will always be faced with competition on price. Your competitors will always be able to replicate your products and services to varying degrees of success.

But competing against a high-performing, closely aligned team is much, much harder.

So where next?

Grab a copy of my Team Development Roadmap to see what your team development journey could look like.

#LeadOn