Do Teams still win?
Teams still win , but only when leaders know how to build them
For all the talk about autonomy, flexibility, AI, distributed work and individual empowerment, it remains that teams still win. They are still the engine of performance, culture, innovation and delivery. But building a good team, let alone a high‑performance one, has arguably become significantly harder in the last five years.
COVID disrupted working patterns and relationships. It weakened informal communication, in many cases diluted team identity and created a generation of leaders who seem to be task rich and relationship poor. Hybrid working has added complexity, distance and fragmentation in people and teams, and distributed work has made it harder for leaders to sense what’s really happening inside their teams.
The result is that many teams today feel more like collections of individuals than cohesive units. They deliver tasks, but not always together, which in some cases is acceptable even desirable. I hear people say that we communicate but not always clearly, much can be 'lost in translation' online, and they do collaborate, but often inconsistently and not enough. A number of clients we work with note that they operate with friction that slows down performance, drains energy and is eroding culture they had.
So the question becomes then, what does a good team look like now, and how do leaders build one in this environment?
The TTI Model and why teams lose their balance
John Adair’s Task–Team–Individual (TTI) model remains one of the most useful ways to understand team needs and performance. It tells us that leaders must be aware of and balance three sets of needs: the needs of the task, the needs of the team and the needs of the individual(s).
Before COVID, many organisations were reasonably good at this. Leaders could sense when the team needed attention, eg relationships, workload, protecting, developing etc. They could see when individuals were struggling, wanted support, training, challenging and so forth. They could feel when task pressure was rising, and the proximity made leadership more intuitive.
Hybrid working changed some or all of this. Leaders seem to have doubled down on task needs because commercial and economic pressures have increased. Organisations have had periods of heavily investing in individual needs such as wellbeing, flexibility, personal circumstances and allowances because the world demanded it. But team needs have perhaps fallen through the cracks, and leaders would do well to rethink this.
Over the last few years with my work with clients on leadership, change, teamwork and such like, I have conversations about -
Team identity has weakened.
Shared purpose has diluted.
Informal communication (conversation / dialogue) has somewhat disappeared.
Teams think leaders have become more transactional because relationships are harder to maintain.
And the more subtle, human, relational glue (trust?) that holds teams together has begun to dissolve.
When team needs are ignored, it can affect so much in business: culture, energy, collaboration, trust, performance and retention, to name a few. Teams might become technically competent but relationally fragile. They deliver, but they don’t thrive.
Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions, a post-covid reality check
Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team is more relevant now than ever. The absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability and inattention to results are not abstract concepts, they are daily realities for many hybrid teams.
Trust is harder without proximity, and whilst virtual meetings are time/cost savers, people don’t build deep relationships through screens. We build our relationships through shared experiences, informal conversations and moments of human connection that hybrid work often removes.
Digital communication makes disagreement feel risky and having difficult conversations is tough enough for people - and a skill leaders simply must improve - conflict has grown in work and it is not something to avoid, more over, leaders are better to embrace it. A client recently moted that our people soften their language, avoid difficult conversations and default to politeness (false harmony) instead of productive challenge.
Commitment tends to weaken when people feel disconnected or isolated. Decisions made in virtual meetings often lack the emotional connection, understanding and weight, and often people miss out on shared ownership that more likely comes from being physically together.
Accountability blurs when leaders can’t 'see' performance. It becomes easier for standards to slip, for expectations to drift and for people to hide behind ambiguity.... and results suffer because teams are not aligned, energised or operating with the clarity and cohesion they once had and need to have.
None of this is really about capability,its about conditions. Teams don’t become dysfunctional because people are difficult, they become dysfunctional because leaders haven’t created the environment for psychological safety, purpose and collective brilliance.
What Good Teams are capable of
A good team - even before high performance - is capable of extraordinary things. They move with more momentum because they move together. They make better decisions because they challenge each other and coach each other. They innovate because they feel safe enough to experiment. They support each other through complexity, they reduce friction - not add to it - and increase flow of ideas, energy, information and such like. And they tend to create more commercial value.
Good teams create momentum and commercial value, not just do tasks. They don’t just solve problems they anticipate them and learn to navigate them. They don’t just collaborate, they elevate each others thinking, feeling and behaviours. And they don’t just protect culture, they shape the future desired culture helping them and the business be more relevant.
High performance teams multiply all of this and become engines of excellence. They are inevitably magnets for talent, and they become the difference between organisations that thrive and organisations that merely survive.
When to Team and when not to
One of the most overlooked leadership skills today is knowing when to team. Not every piece of work requires collaboration. Not every decision needs a group and not every project benefits from collective effort.
You team when the work is complex, when the stakes are high, when multiple perspectives matter, when alignment is essential, when culture is impacted or when speed requires shared ownership rather than individual heroics.
You don’t team when the work is simple, when the decision is clear, when collaboration would slow things down, or when a team is being used to dilute responsibility.
Team is a strategy, rather than a default setting. Leaders who understand this build teams that are more purposeful, not performative.
How Leaders build good Teams today
Building a good team in a hybrid world requires intentionality. Leaders need to build or rebuild team identity, not assume it exists or simply accept what is. This means creating clarity around expectations, priorities, values and behaviours. They must strengthen relationships deliberately, not hope they emerge, because the quality of your relationships can impact the quality of your life. Its a leadership responsibility to free people up to succeed, reduce friction by removing blockers, noise and confusion, and they must increase flow by simplifying communication, decision making process and collaboration.
Leaders will do well to review and rebalance the TTI model, ensuring that team needs are not overshadowed by task pressure or individual flexibility. Further, leaders must address dysfunctions early, not wait for them to become cultural problems.
Hybrid teams need connection before content, relationships before tasks, and trust before performance. Leaders who understand this create conditions where people can do their best work together.
Final thought.... Teams are still your greatest asset
In a world of AI, automation, distributed work and relentless change, teams remain the most powerful engine of performance, culture and commercial value. When teams work, almost everything works, and conversely when teams struggle, then many things struggle.
If you’re a leader, HRD, CEO or manager reading this, ask yourself: Are your teams connected? Are they clear? Are they supported? What is their level of psychological safety? Do they trust? Are they capable of collective brilliance?
If yes, then capture it, understanding it, celebrate and share it. If not, now is the moment to invest in your team(s).
Lets borrow Michael Jordan's 'Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.'
For further insights, read my article - the Business Case for Teambuilding
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