You are on your horse in a path in the woods, far enough from home to be glad of the sword by your side. From around the next bend rides someone you don’t recognise. On which side do you pass?

Convention has it that in the ‘days of yore’, you would pass someone on the left. As 90% of people are right handed, you would then have your sword arm free to defend yourself, should the stranger turn out to be an attacker. And in those days, you assumed the worst or suffered the consequences of complacency.

(It’s the same reason that castles were built with staircases that spiral upwards in a clockwise direction. The person who built the castle is likely to defend it, and fight off attackers coming up the stairwell towards them. With this configuration, the defender can use his right arm to defend down the staircase, whist the attacker has to fight upwards somewhat awkwardly using his right arm).

So why doesn’t the world all drive on the left still, and instead, most countries drive on the right?

That’ll (mostly) be the fault of Napoleon Bonaparte.

When Napoleon came to power, he was keen to stamp his authority on revolutionary France and made many sweeping changes, including making everyone pass on the right – just for the sake of change and to be different from what went before. The countries that didn’t change were the ones he hadn’t conquered – Great Britain, Sweden, Portugal and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

These days, the countries that still drive on the left are Great Britain and mostly her former colonies in Australasia, South Asia and parts of Africa.

What does this have to do with teamwork?

OK history lesson over. Why is this relevant? I think there are three key things aspects of teamwork that come out of this story – and three killer questions you can ask yourselves as a result.

1. Move Your Team From Threat to Opportunity

Many businesses do SWOT analyses. What are your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats? Let’s take the last two. For most of human history, and certainly for you on your horse in the woods, you work on the basis of assume threat first. Approach a situation prepared to defend an attack. These days are thankfully long behind us, and yet we are still working with this hardwiring, despite living at a time when we don’t have to.

We all experience the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ instinct. Most men, upon entering a restaurant and faced with a choice of where to sit, will still place themselves where they can see as much of the room (and therefore potential threat) as possible. Some studies even claim that we assess our environment for threat on average every five seconds.

Wouldn’t it be better if your team was wired to look for opportunities, and not threats? Better still – when making an assessment that something is a threat, you then say ‘how can we turn this into an opportunity’? After all, these days swords aren’t going to be in play – well let’s hope note!

KILLER QUESTION: Are you working from a position of assumed threat, rather than seeking opportunity? How much more could you achieved if you looked for opportunity first?

2. Simplify Your Planning and Be More Efficient

 It’s such a simple idea. Let’s pass this guy coming towards us on the left. Let’s build our castle’s staircases spiraling clockwise, so the odds are stacked in our favour if we have to defend it from attack. There’s something so simple and obvious about this, and yet how many of us would have thought about it?

Sometimes, we need to un-complicate things. Our world is now so cluttered, so complex, that we need to take time to go back to basics. God forbid we end up building anti-clockwise staircases because we’ve been too busy focusing on minutiae like where the tapestries are going to hang on the walls.

Mark de Rond in his book ‘There is an I in Team’  tells a great story about the Cambridge University boat crew. The coach, Roger Stephens, has a great tactic to decide if people are being overcomplicated with an idea for improving what they do. He meets every suggestion with a simple question: ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ That’s it. Nothing else matters. If it doesn’t, then don’t bother with it.

KILLER QUESTION: What is your equivalent of the boat? And is everything you are thinking of doing going to make your boat go faster?

3. Look for the Hidden Strengths in Your Team

90% of people attacking castles in the old days would have been at a disadvantage, fighting with their right arm up a staircase that favoured left handers. As a left hander, in attacking the castle, I should have been thrust to the front of the queue, equipped as I am with a relatively unique ability to fight efficiently UP a castle stairwell.

The point is, look for the unique strengths on your teams. Who can do the unexpected things no one else can? What untapped and unexpected strengths can you unearth that are waiting to be harnessed to your benefit? Liz Wiseman, author of the excellent book on leadership, ‘Multipliers’, talks about the concept of ‘native genius’. This is:

‘…something that people do, not only exceptionally well, but absolutely naturally. They do it easily (without extra effort) and freely (without condition)…They get results that are head-and-shoulders above others but they do it without breaking a sweat’.

KILLER QUESTION: What native genius exists in your team? How can you unlock it and bring it to bear to help achieve your goals?