The best measure of a functional team isn’t hitting goals or outperforming competitors — it’s that people genuinely want to be part of it. Joe argues this is more reliable than performance metrics because market conditions can mask dysfunction (“in strong enough winds, even turkeys can fly”) and being the best in a dysfunctional field still means you’re dysfunctional.
“The best way I know — the measures that people want to be a part of it. People like it. The people who are staying, who are consistently a part of that team, enjoy being a part of the team. They want to be a part of the team. They like performing as a part of that team. That’s functionality.”
A functional team also knows how to get the wrong people out quickly and the right people into the right positions. It’s not that everyone loves it — it’s that the people who stay genuinely choose to be there. This mirrors Joe’s broader teaching that enjoyment is the truest measure of alignment.
Related Concepts
- Enjoyment as the only metric
- Trust is the universal ingredient of functional teams
- Only work with great people
- Team functionality is an endless scale, not a binary