Building a truly winning team

For most companies, people really represent the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. More than all your brands, technologies, patents, buildings or equipment, your team is the one factor that can truly make a difference and get your company ahead.

Recent business history is full of companies that, despite an impressive technological edge, a favorable cost position or a solid product portfolio, fail miserably in favor of supposedly weaker competitors. Conversely, small, resources-poor entrepreneurial structures sometimes achieve extraordinary results. The difference between the two? An extraordinary ability to leverage and mobilize their human resources and talents.

Building a winning team is not about hiring the best and the brightest or offering the highest salaries and the sexiest titles. We, at Synthesix, believe it has to do with just one fundamental question: Is there a meaning to what we do here?

Yes, fundamentally, people work to make a living. But ultimately, we all need our work to have a meaning. The time and passion that we dedicate to our professional lives is far too important for most of us to accept meaningless work. We all need our job to be a source of pride and fulfillment, to give us the ability to participate in something bigger and more meaningful. And if it doesn’t, well, we’ll just jump on the next opportunity that passes by.

And still, in many companies, meaning seems to be in short supply. Unclear strategic direction, clumsy communication, conflictual priorities, unmanageable pressure on results… All these issues combine to raise doubts, create a blurred vision and contribute to removing whatever meaning employees could still find in their position.

To restore meaning to the job: this should be the first priority and prime source of concern of a leader. This is because, when work has a meaning, energy flows, priorities align themselves magically and collaboration flourishes.

An interest in discussing meaning with experts? Make an appointment. Talk to us. We do know a thing or two about restoring meaning in an organization…