Are we a team or a family?
- mayadolgin
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
(June 16, 2026 Newsletter)
Why the choice between “team” and “family” is a false one — and what the 2026 Knicks can teach leaders about integrating both for sustained, high-trust performance.
Topics: team culture, family culture, leadership, Netflix culture memo, psychological safety, organizational culture, team dynamics, accountability, New York Knicks
This newsletter is for leaders who want to build cultures that are both high-performing and deeply human — and who are tired of being told to choose between one or the other.
You didn’t think I wasn’t going to have one last word about the Knicks after they actually won the championship, did you? (I’m only 37 years old but have been waiting 53 years.)
Following the game, Knicks President Leon Rose was asked, “Karl-Anthony Towns has said you have instilled a family atmosphere. How did you do that?”
His response: “Just by caring about each other and making sure that we all look out for one another, have each other’s back, sacrifice, and do it for the better good.”
Why it matters
Since the Netflix Culture Memo was first published in 2009, treating a workplace like a family has been given a bad rap. I’ve coached countless leaders who have been advised to focus more on accountability, outcomes, and metrics, and less on people’s feelings. But when they do, engagement scores drop, retention falters, and all with mixed results. They’re confused – will we be more successful if we act as a team or as a family?
Part of the problem with the Netflix model is the assumption that talent is purely individual. The memo focuses on finding “the best person for every role” – but ignores chemistry as a variable. A 9/10 player who elevates the people around them often outperforms a 10/10 who quietly erodes trust.
The family elements – care, safety, knowing someone has your back – are actually what make talent compound.
The Knicks’ answer is both. We act like a team AND a family. We focus on results AND each other. We can’t win a championship without integrating them.
The question for you is: what does it look like to weave the two together? There isn’t one right answer, so this newsletter offers four guidelines to help you make the best decision for you and your team.
What integration looks like in practice
The following four practices are drawn from research in organizational psychology and leadership development — and play out clearly in how the best-run teams actually operate.
Raise the bar AND lower the guard
High standards require psychological safety. When people fear being judged or cut for imperfection, they stop taking risks, hide problems, and avoid the candor that makes teams improve. The “family” element isn’t softness – it’s what makes accountability feel like support rather than a threat. You can’t have one without the other for long.
Find the best fit, not just the best resumé
“Best person for the role” needs to account for fit. Who will this person lift up? How will they act when things get hard? Great teams hire for character and chemistry alongside capability – because how you show up for each other determines what you can achieve together.
Hold people to the standard AND hold them through hard times
Real accountability isn’t just about outcomes. It means knowing what’s in the way. A leader who knows their team can distinguish between underperformance that needs a direct conversation and underperformance that needs a check-in. The family approach gives you that insight.
Celebrate the win AND the people
The best cultures recognize collective achievement AND honor the personal growth, sacrifice, and contributions that made it possible. While Jalen Brunson scored almost half of the Knicks’ points in the final game of the series, he still acknowledged his teammates’ contributions and they acknowledged his in their post-game interviews.
Where does your team sit?
Most teams are somewhere on this matrix. The goal isn’t perfection – it’s honest self-assessment about where you are, and intentional movement toward the top right quadrant.
Final thought
The team-vs-family debate is one example of a pattern that shows up everywhere in leadership: the false choice. Results or relationships. Standards or compassion. Candor or kindness. Direction or autonomy. The most effective leaders — and the best teams — refuse to choose. They find the creative "and" that most people miss because they're too busy picking a side.
The Knicks didn't win by choosing between accountability and care. They won because their coach and their culture refused to treat those things as opposites. It's a move available to any leader willing to stop asking "which one?" and start asking "how do we do both?"
Coaching Technique: The Team-Family Audit
Use this four-question reflection to assess where your team culture actually sits — and to identify one concrete thing to shift. It works as a personal exercise or as a structured team conversation.
On the matrix above, where would you place your team right now? What evidence supports that?
Which of the four integration points do you do well? Which is your biggest gap – and why?
Think of a time when your culture leaned too far in one direction – all team/no family, or all family/no team. What did it cost you?
Pick one integration point to experiment with this week. What’s one concrete thing you can do differently?
Recommendations
“What Companies Get Wrong About Decision Rights” – for everyone who struggles to actually use RACI and all its cousins, you’re not alone.
“Brené with Liz Wiseman on Impact Players” – whether you’ve picked Multipliers up or not, here’s a great podcast episode about Wiseman’s subsequent book in an old episode of Dare to Lead.
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