Hi y'all. It’s been a minute. (Is that something we only say in New York? If you say that and you’re not from New York, please let me know. I’m genuinely curious.)
Anyway.
I guess I’m a real blogger now because this is my first "whoops, I disappeared and now I’m back" post. A lot has happened - I made a trip out to SF, took an interesting online course, and started new job in a different (adjacent) function. I have posts I still want to write about all of it, but this first one back is about dream teams.
This topic has been bouncing around in my head for a while. But yesterday, after referring to a past team as a "dream team" in a comment, I was hit by a wave of nostalgic warm-and-fuzzy dream-team feelings. A small comment that made me stop and think about what "dream team" actually means to me.
I've been luck to work at companies that genuinely supported their employees, alongside pretty incredible folks. That combination has led to some dreamy teams. But over my career, I've learned that smart people and supportive companies are great *and* are still not enough.
So what is it that actually gives me that magical dream-team feeling?
For me, it just comes down honesty and trust.
Dream teams trust each other enough to disagree without it getting personal or political. They have candid conversations and can disagree loudly while still fully committing. They call each other out when someone crosses a line. They can stand by their opinions against a majority while having enough humility to really hear their team and maybe change their minds.
I know those conversations are hard, and having them early on in my career genuinely terrified me. But they're necessary if you want to develop and maintain the kind of culture where people feel heard and seen and valued - regardless of whether they're "winning" that particular argument.
The dream teams I've been part of didn't always feel comfortable but they felt real. Caring about someone enough to be honest even when it was hard? How awesome is that?
I've always been on the lookout for teams like that because I wanted to work with people who were smart and kind and candid, and who I could have fun with while building cool shit together. And I found them (multiple times!) which is more luck than some folks get.
Now, though, I'm not only looking for dream teams - I'm looking to help grow them. I want to nurture the kind of culture in a place where those teams can naturally develop and last.
I've found one of those places (more on that soon, there's a lot to catch up on). For now, though, I’m holding a lot of gratitude for the teams that shaped me and feeling so excited about what comes next.