Working at JETPUBS has its perks. For instance, every Friday during the lunch hour, the team gathers into the office conference room to watch the witty crime show Leverage. It’s not just any crime show, however; it actively captures a range of audiences by eliminating gory crime scenes, heightening witty banter amongst characters, and focusing on restoring integrity to victims while administering underhanded justice to the perpetrators. Leverage follows a skilled team of redeemed criminals as they use their hacking, thieving, grifting, and fighting talents to take down corporate monsters for injustices committed on ordinary people. The team works seamlessly together by relying on each person’s strengths, communicating with one another, and remaining flexible and confident under pressing deadlines that concern people’s well-being and very lives. Though the JETPUBS team enjoys this bonding time and a short break from office work, watching Leverage has provided an example of successful teamwork for all in the office to emulate.
In each episode, the team meets their “client,” an ordinary person recently fallen victim to corporate greed or political egoism. They begin by gathering all relevant information on the case, discussing the possibilities for action, and formulating a plan—always with an end goal in mind—with the team’s leader quickly delegating tasks to each group member. All members fully embrace their role in the job, because each person is confident in their ability to carry it out based on their experience and strengths. In the instance where a team member is unhappy with her role in the “project,” she continues fulfilling the task as a given responsibility required to keep the system flowing smoothly. Similarly, when a team member adamantly doubts his ability to carry out the given assignment because of the risks involved, the other team members confirm—with equal strength and fervor—how crucial the hesitant person is to the team. In all cases, the team trusts one another deeply, and is required to do so to carry out the job to completion.
In the same way, team members within an operation in any industry must rely on each person’s strengths and commitment to carrying out their portion of the project for the sake of the entire team. Surely, in the episodes of Leverage, the failure of one means the failure of the entire five-person team, and thus, each person is responsible for the entire team’s success and well-being. For many in today’s workforce, operations are large enough for multiple people to take the fall for a mistake, but even so, each member of the team must apply his/her strengths, experiences, and expertise to each project, all the while affirming the necessity of each team member’s role in the system, to experience true and fulfilling success.
The Leverage characters also exhibit commendable problem solving and decision making skills, usually under stringent restrictions and amidst erratic variables. In last Friday’s episode, the team’s plan to mentally influence its “mark” through a fabricated trance went horribly wrong when its target awoke and walked in on the team’s observation room. On a moment’s notice, the team was forced to improvise and fully trust its skilled team member to make the right decision. They typically leave personal biases aside and focus on the facts in front of them. At times when personal opinions do cloud decisions, other team members step in to question the accuracy of thought and speech. In all instances, communicating all details, even the mistakes, lapses in judgment, and unforeseen events, is crucial to the success of the job, as it requires the team to move together in a different direction and quickly improvise.
These qualities and traits appear natural to those in Leverage, perhaps because the story is fictional. Still, however natural or unnatural it may be, the teamwork exhibited in Leverage points to how teams should function in today’s operations. Effective communication, confidence in ability and strengths, prompt and logical decision-making, and trust in the entire team contributes greatly to the overall success of a project. Watching Leverage causes those at JETPUBS to consider whether they are “teamworthy” in their actions in and attitudes towards work. Are those in your operation living up to Leverage’s standard of successful teamwork?
– Rochelle Johnson, JETPUBS Inc.