The development of our "sustainable teams" approach was based on the observation that teams need new, integrated, pragmatic and concrete tools to manage the complexity of their current work context and develop and maintain effective teamwork over the long term.

These new approaches to support have become necessary because today's teams evolve in a work environment that is increasingly Volatile, Complex, Uncertain and Ambiguous, and we speak of the VUCA environment to represent this reality.

In fact, organizations are themselves complex systems. If we compare them by analogy with living systems, the proper functioning of the organization as a whole (the organism) will depend on the good health of its various organs (departments) and, ultimately, on the proper functioning of the whole. ultimately each little cell (teams and individuals) that make up the organization.

This visual represents the team as a cell surrounded by a semi-permeable membrane, and its main challenge will be to constantly manage the bi-directional interactions with its environment, the numerous incoming/outgoing factors and all their interconnections and interdependencies between these factors and the people involved inside and outside the team.

We realize that it is impossible to "control" such a complex system, and for this reason old hierarchical management methods are gradually being replaced by new, more distributed and participative organizational models that follow a systemic logic.

For the same reasons, we can observe that project management is no longer carried out in a sequential, linear fashion, but rather with agile methods adapted to a more "circular" mode of operation.

A question I'm often asked: how can we succeed in developing "sustainable" teams when we're being asked to be increasingly "agile" and responsive to rapid changes in our environment?

In fact, a sustainable team will put in place a series of practices that will enable it to reconcile the challenges of short time (agility) and long time (sustainability) by making what we call "conscious choices". 

The team will use these 18 drivers to reduce complexity and make conscious choices in an agile way.

These "conscious choices" will enable your team to find a form of coherence and alignment between the short and long term, enabling it to navigate through this complexity in order to adapt to its environment and evolve in a sustainable way.

And this is precisely what characterizes and differentiates sustainable teams: their ability to constantly "pivot" in the present to adapt rapidly to changes in their environment, while avoiding making overly short-termist decisions that could be counter-productive in the long term.

Here are 3 key points to remember about sustainable teams:

1. Sustainable teams act in the long term, in line with their intentions and core values.
2. Sustainable teams consciously choose to co-create value with their stakeholders and their entire ecosystem.
3. Sustainable teams are always aware of the long-term effect of their choices on the health and performance of the organization.

To access the complete online training program "Sustainable teams and the 18 factors", click here: