Does your team have chemistry?

You know, that “thing” that many of us look for in our personal relationships, with our friends, or even where we work.

In our personal relationships, it’s what we look for to know that we’ve met someone special. It’s often more of a happenstance – we meet someone and it’s there - or it’s not. We can tell. It’s almost instantaneous.  We have chemistry with them. We’re on the same page; it’s as if our minds are connected. There’s a certain ease.

However, chemistry is much more difficult to achieve at work.  

We’re on the lookout for it. That’s because people don’t want to be on just any team, they want to be on a team that has chemistry.

Why? Because having chemistry between team members allows special things - things that surpass the ordinary - to happen. These are the things that get you excited about going to work everyday.

Having chemistry on your team is like having a team on steroids.  You know it will be successful. You can conquer anything. 

But it’s elusive, hiding somewhere.  Can you make it happen?

Maybe.  Just maybe…

I have spent a lifetime on teams --except I never called them teams.

The word “team” has a bit of a sports feel to it, and I was in the music world.  So the “teams” I worked with were bands, ensembles, orchestras, theatre companies, quartets, and quintets.

Same idea though - they were groups – groups of people working towards a common goal.

Bosses, coaches, managers go to great lengths to assemble “teams” of people that they think will win, i.e. bring in the most profits, make sales, solve a problem, help them reach a goal.

But we know that despite the best efforts of those folks, not all teams are created equal.

 So whenever I come across one that is working really well, I like to explore how they do it.

Recently I came across a team that did do what they were supposed to do in a very unlikely part of the world and in a very challenging situation.