What Holds Complementarity Together Under Pressure

Complementarity is convincing enough when there is time for nuance, dissent and careful deliberation. It is precisely when pressure increases that a team's ability to carry difference is tested. In the previous article, we wrote that complementarity is not simply a matter of composition, but becomes visible through behaviour. This follow-up considers what sustains that behaviour when speed, tension and uncertainty increase.

It takes up the closing question of the previous article: what conditions does a team need not only to organise complementarity, but to hold onto it when it matters most.

The hidden tension beneath complementarity

Those who work on complementarity usually do so at the most visible level: knowledge, experience and capability. This is also what team composition tends to focus on, a good mix of expertise, background and thinking style. But there is a second layer that is more often overlooked: familiarity with, and acceptance of, the range of norms and values present within the team.

Team members need not agree on what constitutes acceptable behaviour, on how firmly something may be pursued, or on how ethical grey areas are handled. What the team does need is awareness of where those differences lie, and acknowledgement that they exist. Disagreement need not be a problem. Unfamiliarity and assumption are.

A clear example is an executive team well composed in terms of knowledge and capability: each member bringing distinct expertise, complementing one another in precisely the way one would hope. And yet the team falls apart. The expertise fitted. What was missing was insight into the range of one team member's position on ethical matters. No one knew how far that person would go, or would not go, until it mattered. The team had never made explicit where each person's compass stopped.

That distinction is precisely why complementarity requires more than good composition. A team can be perfectly complementary in substance and still falter, if it has never articulated, let alone tested, the range of norms and values it holds.

What pressure does to people

Under normal circumstances, such differences often remain invisible. It is pressure that exposes them. In times of uncertainty, attention shifts towards speed, control and results. Difference is then readily seen as delay. The tendency is to narrow: decide faster, discuss less, allow less room for friction.

A more basic dynamic adds to this. As teams come under real pressure, the capacity for perspective and empathy diminishes. Bias and assumption grow accordingly. In a relationship of interdependence, and a genuine team is exactly that, the other person also has an interest at stake. When that interest is not properly understood, difference is more quickly read as resistance or self-interest. A shared purpose and a known range of norms and values make a team more resilient under pressure, but they do not make it invulnerable.

The real test, then, lies in a team's ability to hold complementarity steady as pressure increases.

What holds a team steady

If pressure exposes where differences in norms, values and interests lie, the next question is what helps teams avoid becoming stuck there. In our conversations, three conditions recur. Not as isolated traits of a good team, but as conditions under which difference remains workable when things become tense.

The first condition is a shared purpose. When team members genuinely commit to a larger team purpose, one that is collectively internalised, there is more room to tolerate difference. A critical question is then less quickly read as resistance, and delay less quickly as obstruction. The team can place behaviour within the understanding that everyone contributes to the same goal. This makes a team more resilient under pressure, something we observed, for instance, in teams that came through the coronavirus period well. Where that purpose is less clearly defined, differences are more quickly experienced as noise. Suspicion increases and capacity to carry difference decreases.

The second condition is the ability not to resolve tension too quickly. Tension does not automatically signal that something is wrong. Often, it is a sign that genuinely different perspectives are on the table. The instinct to smooth over the conversation is understandable, but risks removing exactly what a team needs: dissent, minority views and the discomfort in which better decisions are formed. Tension is then quickly labelled as obstruction, as something delaying that must be cleared away. Yet the phrase "no shine without friction" comes from somewhere. Tolerating this requires self-awareness, vulnerability and the capacity to allow discomfort.

The third condition is external anchoring. Teams can do much on their own, but are often also part of their own patterns. Those within the dynamic find it hardest to see it. This is precisely why an independent party can add value: by legitimising tension, structuring conversations that would otherwise be avoided, and surfacing undercurrents that are difficult to raise internally. Not because the team falls short, but because no one within it is entirely without interest in the matter.

Mark Siezen described in our conversation how he deliberately sought out someone outside the formal structure to keep him sharp: someone unimpressed by his position, who regularly reflects back what could be done better. That challenge did not arise by chance. He organised it himself, deliberately building dissent outside the existing dynamic: someone alongside him who observes, holds no positional interest, and can therefore say what is harder to say internally. Under pressure, that is not a luxury. It is essential.

Complementarity asks something of everyone

Complementarity is, in the end, not a trait a team simply has or lacks. It becomes visible through behaviour, in how people seek each other out, question one another and speak up in disagreement. Especially when that creates friction. It is precisely then that it becomes clear whether difference is genuinely being used, or merely named.

Those who take complementarity seriously actively build and protect the conditions under which difference gains value, and hold those conditions steady as pressure increases.
It is not difference itself that strengthens a team, but what a team is willing to carry together.

At Odgers, we believe strong teams are not only carefully composed, but also deliberately guided in how they use difference when it matters most. Do these challenges sound familiar? Get in touch with Sebijn Bunt or Kristien Kaldewaij.