I'm not talking about football, I don't know anything about that. I'm talking about teams that want to build products that customers love.
More than once I've seen top-class teams made up of alpha males fail miserably. Individually, they might have succeeded. But as a team? Tunnel vision coupled with strong opinions can quickly become a problem.
With us knowledge workers, mixed teams are simply better. Young, old, man, woman, diverse, different cultures, colourful: this enriches perspectives, experiences and talents. The team can draw on all this. And it is precisely this that strengthens creativity, imagination and ability as a source of ideas, approaches and solutions.
Working in self-organised teams is always an imposition and demands a lot from the team members: openness, courage, respect, commitment and focus. We all know how exhausting the storming phase in the team is. But even in this phase, a diverse team can draw on its many strengths, complement each other and thus be superior.
Honestly, I (as a man) have no desire to work in an all-male team anymore. For me, that has the mustiness of a losers' locker room. Quite selfishly, I would like to see: more women in the teams!
So men: #SheCodedAlly
Top comments (2)
I agree, whenever I work in teams that are comprised of only males, there tends to be a dip in productivity than there would be if any one of us would work by ourselves. Me and anyone in my group would have a hard time coming up with ideas, let alone settling on one.
I can confirm that it is very similar here in the northwest hemisphere.