Play action
Like an NFL football season, project success at Harmonic Design depends on a cohesive team playing to each other’s strengths. Teamwork, collaboration, and adaptation are at the core of both football teams and Harmonic’s approach to client work.
At Harmonic, we value different perspectives—including those who bring passion from outside the usual design world. As one of the few sports-watching enthusiasts at Harmonic (football and baseball are my go-to), it’s no wonder I would make an immediate connection between the tensions that occur when creating a teaming model for a client project and the ongoing tensions of the Carolina Panthers football team. For those that don’t know, they haven’t been doing so well for the last season and a half, leading them to bench their rookie quarterback several weeks ago. Just so we’re clear, I am NOT a Panthers fan; I hail from the land of the snowball fight, aka, the Philadelphia Eagles.
Watching the media’s reaction to the Carolina Panthers, I can’t help but connect the dots between the rigor of how a football team is formed and the rigor in how we approach teaming at Harmonic. Is it really just the quarterback that’s bringing the whole team down? Or the lead of a project that’s not connecting with others? How do we support new team members in growing with us? How much do we expect from them, and what do they expect from us?
Get ready for the blitz
As a relatively “small” quarterback standing at 5’10” and 204 pounds, Bryce Young’s stature doesn’t physically compare to most other NFL quarterbacks. For comparison, Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles is 6’1, 223 pounds, and can squat two and a half times his body weight. So, is Young’s lack of muscle and height the only downfall of the Panthers road to success?
When we take on a role on a project team at Harmonic, we try to anticipate the skills and expertise needed, and that includes our client team members. We work together, as one team, to achieve the desired outcomes. Sometimes, that means the Harmonicas need to flex, sometimes the client, and we are often flexing together through one-on-one and team coaching to help practitioners take ownership of their service design journey.
We do so by meeting the coachee(s) where they’re at by modeling best practices, showing up with intention, and celebrating growth along the way.
Flag on the play
So what are they doing over there in Charlotte at the Carolina Panthers? When they play a game, and they see the gaps (literal and metaphorical), what are the coaches doing to train, upskill, and adapt? How are they best utilizing their team to make creative, calculated, and sometimes spontaneous plays? Football teams, in general, anticipate the plays and the players of each match-up. Every week, they watch the other teams’ plays, they watch their own plays, and they try to course correct. That might look something like swapping out players or shifting their plays to accommodate for injuries, player rapport, skillset, etc.
We do something similar at Harmonic; we learn about team dynamics, strengths and weaknesses, areas of growth, etc, and we keep that in mind when forming teams and identifying coaching opportunities. We support each other and our clients when we flex in and out of roles to ensure that everyone succeeds. We come up with our own “plays” using various frameworks and co-creative work sessions to create a team that can best meet the needs, the desired outcomes, and the approach of the project. We perform retrospectives before, during, and after a project to create a safe, open, and productive environment. We take the outputs of those retros and make necessary changes, whether that’s changing how we work, who is working together, or what we’re trying to accomplish.
Something’s not quite working on the Panthers, and simply swapping the quarterback isn’t necessarily going to prove fruitful or successful. In fact, for a few games after, it seemed as though there was some momentum, heck, even multiple touchdowns (that’s scoring for those of you who don’t know the game of football) were being made. But, eventually, the excitement wore off, and it’s back to low-scoring games, interceptions, yardage lost, and now a return back to the rookie quarterback.
Maybe the Panthers could use a line or two out of Harmonic’s playbook.
Just like a successful football team, Harmonic thrives when each member supports, learns from, and adapts with one another, embodying our commitment to inclusive, human-centered service. Through our Mature Service Orientation offering, we help organizations stay ahead by fostering collaboration and aligning teams toward a service-driven culture—so you don’t lose ground to more value-driven, service-oriented competitors.
