Just one cyclist stands on the winner’s podium with the Tour de France trophy, but it took a whole team to get him there. That’s especially true of the “domestique”— the team cyclist who functions as an all-purpose helper. The domestique does everything from ride in front of the team leader to buffer him from the wind (and other riders) to bringing supplies of water or food from the team car. As one CNN headline says about them, “Domestiques prove there is no ‘I’ in team.”
Just like in the Tour De France, every team is made up of individuals – the indispensable cogs in the overall machine – that work toward achieving goals. However, it’s important to remember that those goals are shared goals that ultimately must be attained together, as a team.
All that comes down to having a strategy that overarches the project and details what each team member needs to do to make the project successful – just like the domestiques fully know their role as a team member in helping their cyclist get to the finish line in the Tour de France.
Although the strengths of individual team members are crucial to project success, remember that everyone on the team should be working in tandem with each other to achieve all the goals targeted in the strategic plan.
Key Takeaways
- Encourage the team to work together on a strategy they all can agree on
- Select the role that each team member performs in pursuit of the grand strategy
- Realize that ultimately, the project and process is about the team working toward achieving one unified goal – their primary objective