At Novavi, we use a rather demanding definition of the word “team”. As a team we are a group of people that:
- Share a common purpose that is meaningful to each team member;
- Are committed to working ever better together – we practice kaizen;
- Is relatively small, from three to less than a dozen people or so;
- Practice curiosity, empathy, courage and kindness;
- Keep each other accountable, without blame for individuals;
- Care more about the value of the service we deliver than about profit, or personal or team benefit or comfort;
- Celebrate successes and learn from failures together;
- Engage in deliberate practice and training together;
- Regularly experience psychological flow in the work;
- Cultivate personal and collective professional excellence;
- Value joyful work, struggle and laugh together;
What are some of the benefits of teams?
Working in a team like this is amazing. We can accomplish so much more together than each one of us could have achieved on their own.
We’re delighting customers regularly. We’re enjoying our work every day. We’re embracing struggles and delight in overcoming them.
We get so much more satisfaction from learning from one another and achieving well together rather than just seeking to stoke individual egos.
Is such a team even possible?
Yes. Watch us at work in Novavi, and you’ll see that’s how we work. We also regularly see our clients thrive and witness groups morph into such teams. That’s part of our purpose: inspiring other teams to share in the joy of excellence through service.
What if we’re not quite there yet?
What if your current “team” isn’t quite living up to this definition just yet? Not to worry. You can always reset how you work with each other through a chartering experience, and then keep improving over time.
At Novavi, we’ve also started our own work with a chartering experience, and every three months or so we’re renewing our chartering details.