🚀 A non-standard thing that I rarely see in action, that can help move your team from a low-performing to a high-performing one.

Kite festival. Bali, Indonesia. © Marcin Konkel . All rights reserved

Here's the story. I worked with 70+ teams, and the most high-performing weren't those that delivered the most or were the fastest.

Why? If a team delivers crap, it will become a high-performing crap factory. 💩

Thus, apart from excellent teamwork, trust, a safe environment, and great colleagues with high communication skills, there needs to be something added to the equation.

This thing is 👉 DISCIPLINE 👈 and below are 5 arguments WHY.

WHAT kind of discipline?

The courage and stamina to uphold and exercise decisions against all odds.

It's not blindly following a set path or persisting when you should be adapting.

It's:

• following up on your experiments

• building a habit

• holding yourself accountable

#1 "Discipline equals freedom" (Jocko Willink)

Building and upholding long-term habits save your energy from the need to make constant decisions and fight the odds each time.

For a team, it means less friction and more space to do the important work.

Two examples:

1/ A team always following up if they solved a problem from a retrospective about reducing the number of critical bugs produced.

2/ A team having purposeful meetings where they all remind themselves when the topic goes off course.

#2 You build empirical evidence

I've seen countless teams that started something new with their process, product or tech but did not have the discipline to take it from A to B. 

Discipline helps maintain course and gather necessary data to know what works and doesn't. 

Think:

How often does your team stick to their improvements?

Do they change them as it suits the moment? Do they really care?

If a team agrees on something yet people are sloppy to implement it than everyone has wasted their time discussing it.

#3 It builds resilience

When team members can rely on each other through a disciplined approach, they are more resilient to external disruptions.

Discipline helps in things the team has influence over but not control. 

With persistence, they can influence those areas long-term and create the change they seek. 

Those teams have their code of conduct and rules that make them antifragile. 

#4 Eases decision making

A disciplined team can focus on the important conversations and work when they build a habit in, e.g. having hard conversations or concentrate on the strategy.

They don't need to experience friction in some areas again and again. It has become the new normal.

#5 Builds character of a team

A disciplined team is focused and not afraid to do the hard work. It has more ease with changing course due to a well-trained skill of changing a habit. 

When you meet such a team, you see it's not just a group of people. 

Discipline creates the base for many things to flourish:

• craftmanship, 

• focused work,

• delivery,

• ownership, 

• resilience,

• impact,

• improvements that actually change something, 

• ...

Canggu, Bali. Indonesia, Sep 2022

Today’s essay resonates quite a bit with what I’ve seen frequently during kite festivals in Bali, Indonesia. There are 4-5 different kites. One of them is the largest and can weight up to 350 kilograms (yes!) with length up to 50+ meters, at times, covering the whole beach.

I counted around 20-25 people needed to make it fly and land safely. Quite frankly, there is not that much coordination happening as I would expect. To me they are disciplined in a way to follow a plan but also be vigilant on how the circumstances change. Inspecting & adapting but also knowing what’s their role, responsibility and that they need to consistently work towards the end goal - keeping it in the air, making sure it does not crash into another one or into the water.

It’s truly magical and inspiring spectacle. Just see for yourself.

BONUS

A short video from Jocko Willink about the different shades of discipline, both individual and team.