The mathematics of team chemistry
I've been into chemistry lately. Team chemistry, that is. The stuff that makes teams just, well, work. And on top of that, i've been into the mathematics of said chemistry (who am i?). Here's what i mean:
Great chemistry can make or break a project
Especially when the going gets tough (it inevitably will)
But when you combine the right people, you get more than the sum of parts
In other words, a team or collaboration with great chemistry is more than 1+1=2. It's more like 1+1=11. It's not additive, it's multiplicative, and it doesn't even make mathematical sense. And yet... when it works, it definitely feels like magic.
A piece i read a while ago sparked this line of thinking. It argued advertising and marketing should think more like The Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The argument is very simple: at Fringe, people are more than a single role. Because they have to! They're writer, producer, director, performer, runner and sandwich person.
In industry parlance, they're multi-hyphenate people, who combine various skills in one go. So what happens when they mingle with other multi-hyphenates? Multiplicative chemistry, that's what.
Now imagine that, but in a marketing situation. A strategist-who-also-writes meets a creative-who-also-directs... you get alchemy. More than individuals coming together, it's a uniquely efficient set of creative skills. And yes, creativity and efficiency can live in the same sentence, chill out.
So having gone indie, and now seeing others doing the same, i start wondering. Where do we get diminishing returns for adding more comms layers to a team? Where does scale end and slowness begins when it comes to deliver a client project? And what happens when you lose previous shackles and double down on what interests you, even if those are not ‘things people like you tend to do’?
I understand this creates new sets of tensions around valuing specialisms. But when done right, it can mean you get far more than you bargained for. This isn't about everyone pretending they can do strategy, or writing, or ideas. It's about not defaulting to throwing the most people possible at a problem.
Instead, ask yourself: how can i solve this with the least people possible? As Sophie Devonshire writes in Superfast:
“Creating ‘jet-skis’ on the side of your supertanker, creating smaller, more agile ‘mini companies’, is a smart speed structural tool if you want things to happen fast.”
Post-agency life seems to thrive on jet skis, not jumbo tankers.
