Synergy. It’s an amazing thing. We usually view it a narrow context: synergy among members of a development team, for example but here’s a story about synergy between two very diverse groups.
The first group is a team performing pediatric heart surgery. It turns out that the journey from the OR to the ICU was itself dangerous despite the best efforts of the surgery team. One day after a two-day sprint of operations the surgeons collapsed exhausted in front of a TV and watched a Formula 1 race. One of the surgeons, Martin Elliott, was struck by the precision and teamwork of the pit crews.
That precision is something to behold. I wrote about it 11 years ago. Watch the video and be amazed. A car comes in and the car goes out two seconds later with four new tires. The action is so fast that it’s hard to follow.
Elliot wondered if those pit crews might have something to teach his team so he approached Ferrari. The Ferrari team tried to be polite but basically laughed at the hospital’s procedures. They were doing everything wrong. One example from the story is that if a critical wire came loose while transporting the baby to the ICU, the whole team would react and try to fix the problem. In contrast, each member of a pit stop crew has a well defined area of responsibility and doesn’t concern himself with anything else. The team members trust the responsible person to take care of any problem in his purview.
Together, the two teams were able to refine the surgical team’s procedures to greatly reduce the number of serious problems. Since then other hospitals have also adopted those procedures. Apparently, they always approach Ferrari skeptically but come away convinced. Read the story. It’s really interesting and inspiring. And if you haven’t seen it, watch that video of a pit crew at work. You’ll be awestruck.