Please bear with me while I brag about my kids – I promise it will connect with work and your teams.
If you’ve been reading Building Bridges Leadership’s posts for a while, you might remember that my oldest child co-founded a high school robotics team a few years ago. Or perhaps you remember the term “coopertition” that was such a foundational component of their team’s success. Now that child is in college, but his younger brother is part of the robotics team’s leadership during its third year. For context, the third year of a new team is often talked about as being their worst year – the founders have usually graduated (true!) and the team no longer receives bonus points for being a “new” team to help them make it further into the season. Typically, the third year of a team ends in disappointment, and it can take time to rebuild with a stronger foundation.
The setup of the game they compete in is different each year, and this year involves building a robot that shoots balls into a central hub (watch this game play simulation to get a sense of how it works). Each match is played on an alliance of three teams against an opposing alliance of three teams. In regular (pre-playoff) matches, the alliances are randomized, so over the course of a tournament each team gets to play alongside every other team, and in different matches against those same teams. So the teams get to learn about each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and how to work best together rather than getting in each others’ way. In playoffs, the most successful teams get to pick their second and third teams to build their alliances for success. (You might be able to see a connection to your own work teams.)
This past weekend, my son’s team competed in the New England District Championships, alongside 99 other teams from five different states. Their team was ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack – over the course of the season they learned they were far from the most competitive scoring team, but they are well-rounded and can do everything expected of them.
In the weeks running up to the championships, they realized that being well-rounded would bring them moderate success, but not get them as far as they wanted. And they wanted to go all the way to the World Championships!
To do that, they decided they needed to specialize; to become the best supporting team they can be for high-scoring teams. They would actively avoid scoring; instead they would prevent the opposing teams from scoring, and pass balls back to their own alliance partners who could score more effectively than them. This meant that they would have no chance of being an alliance captain (the winning team who selects other teams to join them in the playoffs), and they would not end up with a high ranking. They wouldn’t be appealing to alliance captains who needed other high-scoring teams to join them; they would only be appealing to the highest-scoring teams out there – Alliance 1 and Alliance 2.
When my son explained the strategy to me a few weeks ago, I laughed. That’s an incredibly small needle to thread, I said. They were making themselves less appealing to the majority of teams, and if they didn’t get picked by one of the top 2 alliances, they wouldn’t be in the playoffs at all (again, if the specifics of this are confusing, don’t worry about it – or watch the video above if you’re interested).
Regardless of my scoffing, the team stuck to its strategy – they were unappealing to most teams, and when it came time for Alliance 2 to make its second pick, they did not get picked. Their last chance was Alliance 1… and after a few moments that felt like hours, my son’s team was invited to join their alliance!
And then, throughout their playoff run, the two high-scoring teams scored, and my son’s team played incredible defense, preventing the opposing alliance from scoring their usual amount, and passing balls back to the Alliance 1 teammates to support them best. Not only did this Alliance go on to win the entire division of 50 teams, they also defeated the previously-undefeated alliance winners of the other division of 50 teams, winning the entire New England District Championship – banners, medals and all!
They had threaded the needle perfectly. They focused on what they could do best, and how it could complement the strengths of others. And they communicated that to other teams in a way that was an undeniable selling point for those who were the best scorers. They didn’t need to be the best at what everyone else was trying to be the best at; instead they were the best at being themselves, and in doing so they strengthened their wider community. And defying the legendary third-year slump, they have earned a place at the World Championships taking place next week!
So what might this offer our own teams this week?
This Week’s Tip:
Take some time to reflect and write down your unique strengths – What do you bring to your team that no one else does, and how does that help others? – and sew into those strengths this week? Perhaps you don’t know what those unique strengths are, but you might be able to identify them in others you work with; try jotting down notes about what everyone else on your team brings to the table. You could also open it up to ask for the team’s thoughts – take time in a meeting to ask the group to call out unique strengths others’ bring, or do so asynchronously through a team chat platform. Consider ways your strengths support others, and the ways their strengths support yours. Do you see any new interactions of strengths that might be helpful to explore. If so, take action on that this week!
Try this out this week and let us know how it goes – we’d love to hear what you learn about yourself and others as you do.
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