Collaborative working is the secret sauce.
If we work together and play to our individual strengths, we will get a better result. We will cook a bigger goose.
That image, the bigger goose, is one I keep returning to. Not because it is grand or theoretical, but because it is accurate. Two people working genuinely well together, each doing what they do best, consistently produce something larger and better than either would have managed alone. That is not sentiment. It is arithmetic.
Why Lencioni’s observation still startles #
Patrick Lencioni opened The Five Dysfunctions of a Team with one of the most quoted observations in modern business literature:
“Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”
The startling word is rare. Not difficult, not undervalued: rare. After decades of team-building programmes, collaborative software, and open-plan offices designed to encourage interaction, genuine teamwork remains genuinely uncommon in most organisations.
Lencioni notes that genuine teamwork is elusive in most organisations, and that lack of teamwork is a primary reason why initiatives fail. His research identified five interconnected dysfunctions that prevent teams from performing as well as their individual talent would suggest: an absence of trust at the foundation, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. Each dysfunction builds on the one below it. Address the foundation and the rest becomes possible. Ignore it and no amount of strategy, technology, or finance compensates.
What collaborative working means #
It is not about everyone doing everything together. That is not collaboration: that is chaos.
Real collaborative working recognises that different people bring different strengths, and that the art lies in understanding and orchestrating those differences rather than flattening them. Meredith Belbin’s foundational research on team roles, which we explored in the Swashbuckling Maverick piece elsewhere in the Hub, demonstrates that a well-functioning team needs a range of complementary roles, from the ideas-generating “Plant” to the detail-checking “Completer Finisher.” A team missing even one of those roles will, over time, dip in performance regardless of how capable its individual members are.
The practical question, for most of us running small businesses or working within small teams, is not “how do we restructure the organisation?” It is something simpler and more immediate: who does what well, and are we letting them do it?
Some people are natural relationship builders: they find genuine energy in conversation, connection, and the slow cultivation of trust that brings clients back. Others are natural analysts, pattern-spotters, or implementers who turn a good idea into a working system. Neither is more valuable than the other. The problem arises when we expect everyone to be everything, or when we quietly assign the most visible work to the most confident person rather than the most capable one.
The solo operator’s version #
For those of us working largely alone, this might seem like a conversation for other people. But even the most independent practitioner is collaborating; with suppliers, trusted partners, clients, professional advisers, and the occasional well-chosen collaborator on a specific project.
The question is whether we are doing it well. Are we drawing on the right people for the right things? Are we letting go of the work that someone else would do better, or holding onto it because letting go feels like admitting a limitation?
Collaborative working, at this scale, is less about team dynamics and more about honest self-knowledge: understanding where we add genuine value and building the relationships that cover the rest. The bigger goose gets cooked not by one person doing more, but by the right people each doing what they do best.
The competitive advantage hiding right in front of us #
Precisely because genuine teamwork is rare, it is extraordinarily valuable. The business that figures out how to harness it, whether through a formal team, a network of trusted partners, or a handful of well-chosen collaborations, immediately differentiates itself from the majority that have talked about teamwork for years without quite achieving it.
It is, as Lencioni says, the ultimate competitive advantage. Not because it sounds good in a values statement, but because when it works, almost nothing else can match it.
Cook a bigger goose.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
