‘Effective teams eat culture for lunch.’ Many organisations now seek a universal “high-performing culture,” defined by accountability, creativity, collaboration, integrity, respect, adaptability and resilience — the very same values found in high performing teams. By enabling teams to work exceptionally well together, the cultures we desire are far more quickly realised.

Teams today are working in more extreme circumstances than at any time in their history. Skippers in stormy seas rely on GPS, dashboards and instinct; similarly, workplace teams use data, judgement and experience to make the best calls under pressure. Excellent decision making is useless without coordinated delivery, and extreme teams show us how cohesion, trust, efficiency and adaptability are created when it matters most.