John Doerr, who introduced OKR at Google says, “we need teams of missionaries, not teams of mercenaries.” This point captures so much, and gets right to the heart of the most important trait of strong leaders, strong organizations, and strong product teams.
A mercenary team is one that is really an order taker, they are told to build something specific and they just build exactly what they were asked to build. A missionary team is tasked with a mission of an objective to reach and they join the team, buy into the mission and deliver high quality outcomes. Really what every business wants is to drive for missionary teams.
This is not hard to spot, either way. Teams of missionaries are engaged, motivated, have a deep understanding of the business context, and tangible empathy for the customer. Teams of mercenaries feel no real sense of empowerment or accountability, no passion for the problem to be solved, and little real connection with the actual users and customers.
Global Agility Consortium enables leaders, organizations, product teams in embracing missionary mindset
