The one requirement of winning teams: chemistry

It is hard to be an football fan these days, especially if your favorite team started its season on a bad note. It is especially hard for someone knowledgeable about teamwork and leadership to be a fan of teams when key elements of both are so obviously missing. As frustrating as it is to watch on a football field, it is equally frustrating to be along the sidelines of a leadership team, creative team, or project team suffering losses because of teamwork or leadership.

When a football team is full of four- and five-star recruits or highly paid professionals, the team should be able to compete well with other teams with similar skills. Why, then, do teams with equivalent talent get pummeled by opponents? Why do teams with better talent get badly beaten by opponents with less talent? Once a team is full of skilled players, what makes the difference in its success?

What makes the difference is team chemistry. Team chemistry includes:

• Respect for teammates' ability to perform their role
• Reliance on the teammate's performance for one's own performance 
• Trust that the teammates will perform their role
• Expectation that the teammates will perform their role
• Recognition when teammates perform in difficult situations

Have you been on unsuccessful teams at work? If you think about those teams, you could undoubtedly identify which of the five elements of chemistry were missing. 

The impact of teams without chemistry is time. And, usually, time equals money. 

Teams without chemistry...

• Take too long to make decisions
• Miss opportunities because they are not flexible or nimble
• Spend too much time in meetings
• Duplicate work 
• Create extra work for themselves and others

Bottom Line: Team chemistry is the key to a winning team.

There are many parallels between football and business management. From hiring to managing to performing to motivating:  both sides could learn by watching each other. As a fan of one and a player in the other, the parallels hit me between the eyes every weekend during the fall. The pain of failures stings all week but the joy of victory makes both exciting.