My fitness instructor makes constant reference to team… ‘Come on team – we’re nearly there!’, ‘go team’, ‘you’re doing so well this morning team’ etc.

We are not a team!

Real teams:

• Share goal(s) and accountability to reach them
• Have a clear purpose
• Trust each other and the team
• Communicate clearly and openly
• Produce results

So at the gym, do we have a shared goal? Arguably we probably have some common goals – we are there for our own personal fitness, right?

Or are we? One person might be there for fitness, another for ‘me time’ away from the family, and yet another might be justifying an annual gym membership. There are many reasons we’re there – there is no agreed shared goal.

I could work down the list… but I won’t.  The gym instructor is using ‘team’ as a turn of phrase. At the gym we are a group – by design we are working alone, together.

But what about in the workplace? This happens in organisations too. It might be divisional heads who call themselves an executive leadership team, and yet are operating without a clear purpose and shared goals, lacking in trust, not communicating openly. And their results…

Where might you be confusing a group of people doing something alone – together – as a team?

Go fearlessly