Should team members be friends to get the most out of a shared mission or project?
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No, they don’t need to be friends. They do need to treat each other with respect and trust to get the most out of the mission / project.
It helps so there is mutual trust and sense of belonging to the mission/project goals, but its not always necessary, if the team has true professionals they should successfully finish the project/mission
I'm not a proponent of everyone needing to be best friends. I'm cherry picking these folks and it's not always the same group that's going with me to all these different companies. It was very enlightening when I worked at the Sharks, because on a sports team, it’s the general manager (GM), not the coach, who gets the players.
So I also saw my role as more of a GM as I go through my career: Am I putting the right people together so that we have an amazing team? I'm not there to ask if these folks are best friends who will work great together but won't accomplish anything. The question is, do I have the right people to execute and complete this task? Then I hope that they'll naturally get along because they're in the trenches together.
A team doesn't have to be made up of all the same people. One could be an outgoing soccer mom, another could be a deep technical person, and the other one could be somebody that's introverted, etc. But given the right dynamics, those people can create something that's greater than the individuals.
And it's really impressive to see and to watch, even though you know that at the end of the day, they'll walk out different doors of the building and go their separate ways. And almost never will they go drinking after work unless there's a specific celebration for a project or something. That's when you really know that you're successful at building and enabling teams when you see that behavior.
Indeed, plus the teamwork spirit