Your Organization’s Greatest Asset to Generate Growth: Breakthrough Teams

The authors, longtime leaders at Korn Ferry, generate new thinking on teams, a concept that can be thought of as so familiar that it easily be misunderstood. They write: “Teams can no longer succeed by leaning on sameness or suppressing difference. Instead, they need a multiplicity of approaches fueled by the full spectrum of talent, where diversity of thought, style, and background is activated rather than sidelined.” They outline “five inclusive disciplines (depicted in Figure 1) that enable teams to unlock, rather than suppress, the full potential of each member, and in doing so, achieve extraordinary performance and impact.” In their words, the disciplines are Connecting, Caring, Synchronizing, Cultural Dexterity, and Powersharing. Of the latter: “We intentionally spell it as one word—Powersharing—to emphasize it as a unified, proactive practice rather than a passive or fragmented concept.” They also outline five growth challenges, which in their words are (1) breaking down organizational silos (2) developing and retaining talent (3) driving innovation (4) making better decisions, and (5) optimizing operations. Too often, they conclude, “teams have been held back by outdated assumptions that prioritized cultural ‘fit,’ rewarded conformity, and pushed difference into suppression or even rejection.”