Rules – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

The frame that keeps talent from turning into a tribe

I’m rereading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. It’s no book about organizations or high-performance teams, yet it captures with unsettling accuracy what happens when a group of capable people loses the structure that holds it together. Its lessons are organizational as much as literary, and they’re especially useful for anyone who leads or belongs to a team trying to sustain demanding results over time.

High performance doesn’t come naturally to a group. It’s a fragile achievement, built and maintained through deliberate effort. When a team brings capable people together, it’s tempting to assume talent will carry the day. Without a clear framework, though, talent splinters, takes sides or ends up serving more primitive dynamics (watch out for this one). Rules are no enemy of agility. They’re what keep agility from sliding into chaos.

A shared purpose gives direction, but it can’t sustain itself. It has to be actively protected from the most immediate temptations: internal status, turf wars, belonging to the powerful clique or ducking discomfort. When the bigger purpose weakens, other motivators step in, closer to home and more emotional. The team keeps running, but it’s no longer heading toward the same goal. It starts orbiting around personal loyalties and power balances.

Working rules (how people take the floor, how decisions get made, how feedback is given, how disagreement is handled and who is accountable, for example) are the fabric that keeps day-to-day civility intact. As long as they’re respected, even sharp differences can be worked through. When they’re applied selectively, or dropped because "we’re all grown-ups" or "we trust each other here," power shifts to whoever shouts loudest, intimidates best or inspires the strongest sense of belonging. Judgment gives way to raw relative strength.

Charismatic leadership without accountability is especially dangerous in this setting. It creates energy, belonging and a sense of momentum. If it isn’t bound by clear rules and a willingness to answer for results and consequences, it turns fear and uncertainty into tools of control. The team stops steering by shared standards and starts steering by the central figure. High performance comes to hinge on one person when it should rest on a system.

Ignoring or silencing the voices that bring reason, data or dissent is costly. Those voices tend to be less charismatic and more uncomfortable to hear. When a group slips into survival mode or euphoria, it tends to push them to the margins, and in doing so it loses its ability to course-correct. A high-performance team needs both the energy that pushes forward and the clear head that hits the brakes. Without both, speed turns into recklessness.

Sustaining a high-performance team takes ongoing work on that framework: a purpose that’s protected, rules applied equally to everyone and real accountability, especially for those with the most influence. When any of these weakens, the team gets no freer or more creative. It gets more tribal, and talent stops multiplying and starts serving internal survival.

Which working rules on your team are being applied selectively, or have grown fuzzy?

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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