Most leaders think of team functionality as binary — either “we’re functional” or “we’re not.” Joe asked a group of YPO CEOs (companies worth $300M-$3B) what their group needed to go to the next level, and almost all said “nothing.” Yet if asked the same question about their companies, they’d all have answers.
This reveals the artificial ceiling people place on team development. Revenue, marketing, product — these are seen as infinite games with endless room for improvement. But teamwork is treated as a finite game: you either have it or you don’t. The shift that unlocks creative growth is seeing team functionality as an endless scale, just like the spiritual or transformational journey. There’s always a way to get more functional, and recognizing that is when “really creative and cool stuff happens.”
“There’s always room for growth. There’s always a way to take the team to the next level. There’s always a place to get more functional.”