There’s been a change in how people organize in enterprise. But with flat hierarchies, and self-organizing teams, has the concept of leader or even team captains become obsolete and forbidden?
Here are just 4 reasons why, despite the levelling of roles within teams, we still have – and need – captains and leaders…at least at times.

Seeking perfection is a major source of wasted effort; particularly if you are seeking it BEFORE taking action.

There’s no such thins as perfect output, only perfect effort.

Perfection is sought literately over time.  Modern business requires that we move ideas from vision to backlog to executed Iteration One quickly.   In almost all cases, perfection is neither required nor desired out of the gate.  Holding back or being unwilling to try for fear of making mistakes is the only kind of true failure.   Remember this – there IS such a thing as starting a race so late that it is practically impossible to win.

Forget Sprints and Standups – Business agility is about travelling light so you can go faster.   One important way to do that is by taking small, frequent experimental risks, also known as placing small bets.

Do you take an existing team and ‘make’ them agile?  Or do you build teams of agile people – people who have, or are likely to have, the right mindsets and openness to new practices?

Here is where the rubber hits the road when it comes to executive support;  do we do the easiest, most convenient thing, and expect them to squeeze the square peg of legacy mindsets, rigid thinking, and antiquated practice, and jam it into the round hole of agile beliefs and actions, or do we take the hit and scramble a team of cross-functional, experimental minds?