Unlock Your Team's Genius

"Every team has genius.
Have you unlocked yours'?"

We believe in better.

Better ways of team work. Better ways of product work. Better ways of delighting our customers. Better ways of serving our users. Better ways of working. Better leadership. Better ways of improving our organisations.

We believe in better.

We believe every team has the birthright to become a dream team.

For a team to become a dream team, the team's genius needs to do its work. Nowadays some people have forgotten about where the term genius comes from. Nowadays we often associate some (few) individuals with 'being a genius'. Genius was seen as a separate entity to the individuals. 'When genius struck' a writer would be in flow and creativity would bring wonderful work out of the writer.

Team Genius is already in every team. The great sculptor Michelangelo said that each piece of marble already had the statue inside it; he simply freed it. Just like this, team genius is already in every team. It is up to us to free it; unlock it.

Unlocking team genius requires deliberate practice on three sides ...

Team Craft

The work we do in service of the team, to develop it, to enable it do fulfil its potential, to help it grow, ... that is team craft.

There is a lot of know-how involved. There are several key skills involved. There are certain qualities involved. There is deliberate practice involved. All of these combined make this work a craft.

Annual team building events aren't doing the trick to support the team's genius in being unlocked. Team Craft means an ongoing pursuit of better for the team; always better.

Product Craft

The work we do in the name of the product, in service of the user, to discover the product, to develop it, to enable it do fulfil its potential, to delight the customer, ... that is product craft.

Much like with the team, there is a lot of know-how involved. There are several key skills involved. There are certain qualities involved. There is deliberate practice involved. All of these combined make also this work a craft.

Every product has a lifecycle, and each stage of the lifecycle is different. Each resonates with a different Product Craft Folk Persona. While each persona is different, the great ones have at least one thing in common; they seek what's better for the user, always better.

Leadership

A team often flung around nowadays with little reflection on how profound it is, and what it actually means. Leadership is a quality that every single individual can cultivate. It is an act that is enabled through the willingness of others to take one's lead.

While Product Craft Folk and Team Craft Folk can, and ought to, develop this body of skills and qualities, the expectation is on managers, leaders, and teams thereof, to truly immerse themselves in this area.

Nowadays people often see a set of managers, leaders, or teams thereof, as 'the leadership'. While the world of work has changed significantly over the last decades, the practices of many leaders, managers, and teams thereof, ... has not. ... Unless they too believe in better.

Why better is better than best

Pursuit of 'best' is like chasing after perfection. As a continually recovering clinical perfectionist myself, believe me when I say, perfection can be debilitating. It is also an illusion. When one reaches that which was defined as perfection, from the new perspective we can immediately discover even better ways. Ergo perfection is an illusion. That is what the expression "continuous improvement towards perfection" means.

Also, 'best' suggests that there is 'a best way', which is just not reality in the modern world of work. The modern world of work is filled with creativity, complexity, and change. It is a world where there is no one best way to do things. There are some rather bad ways of doing things, some rather good ways of doing things, a few worst ways of doing things, but no one best way of doing things.

Striving for better, always better, appreciates these two important considerations. So in a way, better is best.

Where it is most needed, and challenging

Much of my practice was in and with digital agencies, come digital product studios. The dynamics at this wonderful kind of organisation are as fierce as they are fulfilling. The work is very fast-paced. The clients are usually very demanding, often even in a good way. The people are almost always super dedicated.

Some digital agencies still work in traditional ways with projects staffed with proportions of people. If you happen to be with or engage with such an organisation, I created an email programme to support the evolution towards a digital product studio. Some might describe it as a transformation guide for digital agencies. While it's packed with value, it's on the house; enjoy. You can get it here.

The trinity of change agency

Each of the three corners contributes collaboratively to the development of the organisation too.

Team Craft includes the removal of organisational challenges to the teams' ability to create value. It also includes growing the appreciation of the value of cross-functional teams that overcome organisational silos.

Product Craft includes the spreading of appreciation for products over projects. It includes cultivating a healthy obsession with customer-centricity across the organisation. It of course includes the development of a focus on true value.

Leadership is required amongst all of us who believe in better to support the organisation's ongoing pursuit of its own betterment. "The Leadership" is often the set of people who can change the scaffolding of the organisation.

Together we can achieve better, always better.

If you share this belief and conviction, welcome. I'm at your service.

To "always better"!

- Georg Fasching