R&D Team

1 · The team's signature

This R&D team is above all a machine for organising: Tenacity marks all six members, a rare phenomenon that defines its whole identity. It thinks in flows, in moving parts, in optimal configurations of resources: it is a system that loves to reassemble the puzzle. Its dominant family, Achieve at 40 %, gives it the ability to see things through, to structure, to keep the operational promise. Imagine, at 27.8 %, carried by Curiosity and Vision, brings the oxygen that R&D needs: generating ideas, learning continuously, exploring the new. Radiate (17.8 %) and Connect (14.4 %) remain in the background, which sketches a team more turned towards doing and thinking than towards persuading and connecting.

Rapport, its second collective anchor, creates a cohesion made of deep and lasting relationships between peers rather than of social expansion. Boldness and Presence, carried by Karine and Nicolas, inject conviction and the capacity to decide. The Vision of Thomas and Nicolas gives the team its function of anticipation and invention. But the central signature, six Tenacities in the same room, is both its superpower and its first vulnerability: a team that excels at reorganising what already exists risks multiplying configurations without ever fixing a lasting course, and converging too quickly on "how to do it" before having settled "why" and "for whom". The threefold value it brings is clear: organisation, inventiveness, learning.

2 · The visible tensions

The first friction is that of the six Tenacities in the same room. Each has an optimal way of reconfiguring resources, and when everyone wants to rearrange the plan, people tread on one another. This tension belongs to no one: it is information the system expresses, too many hands on the same organisational lever producing a silent struggle over whose arrangement carries authority.

The second tension pits rhythms against one another. Julien and Nicolas, carried by Boldness, push to start and to decide immediately; Marc (Rigour) and Claire (the depth of Imagine) need to weigh things up, to anticipate risks, to reflect first. In R&D, this friction is healthy: once named, it prevents the quick from reading caution as a brake and the reflective from experiencing momentum as haste.

Finally, two leadership reflexes coexist: the Boldness and Presence of Nicolas and Karine create a double source of assertion that can, in meetings, compete with the calm but more discreet authority of Claire, whose conviction and depth express themselves differently. The system has several strong voices that occupy the space in different ways.

3 · The invisible tensions

The phantom role of this team is Rigour: almost absent. Nobody, or hardly anyone, structurally carries the voice that asks "where is the data?" and "what has the past taught us?". In an R&D team, that is dizzying: it imagines (Curiosity), it anticipates (Vision), it organises (Tenacity), but the rigour of proof and the memory of earlier attempts speak mainly through the mistakes that are repeated. Marc, alone, tries to hold this role and risks being overwhelmed.

A second invisible tension: Vision struggles to settle. The team has plenty of organising energy and plenty of ideas, but little natural mechanism for choosing ONE direction among several and sticking to it. It can mistake organisational agitation for progress.

A third invisible tension: Connect, weak (14.4 %) and centred on Rapport (bonds between close peers), masks the retreat of Attunement. Cohesion exists but remains selective; fundamental disagreement can go unspoken, not out of genuine harmony, but because no one has the reflex to defuse it or to include minority voices.

The major systemic risk: a team that endlessly reorganises without ever settling on a course, for want of the Rigour and the fixed Vision that would arbitrate among its many possible configurations.

4 · Synergy and antagonism — the team's sociodynamics (Fauvet)

Let us recall Fauvet's principle: synergy and antagonism combine to create the dynamics of the team. Antagonism remains distinct from conflict: it is the energy of differentiation, of autonomy and of openness to the outside; synergy is the energy of cohesion, of belonging and of shared culture. A living team needs both, strong together.

The figures are clear: the team leans decisively towards antagonism. It is autonomous, carried by assertive individuals, open to challenge; but its cohesion remains fragile and, more striking still, nearly half of its energy is latent, engaged neither in the bond nor in active differentiation. It is a team that still has to choose how to be together.

The strengths that pull towards synergy are few: Rapport (Claire, Karine, Marc) and the depth of conviction of Claire and Marc. Those that pull towards antagonism are denser and more visible: assertive Tenacity, Boldness, Presence, abundant Vision. Fauvet's optimal developmental zone — synergy AND antagonism both high, producing the "golden triangles" of committed actors who challenge without breaking the bond — is still to be reached: the team has the energy for challenge, it lacks the foundation of cohesion to make it productive. It must therefore raise its synergy while keeping its antagonism.

The movement to trigger: convert the 47.8 % of latent energy into commitment, by building an explicit foundation of cohesion that turns scattered antagonism into fruitful tension.

5 · Hawkins's five disciplines, examined closely

6 · How this team is perceived from the outside

At first contact, this team impresses: it appears responsive, inventive, able to organise quickly around any problem. Stakeholders see people who are sure of themselves (Boldness, Presence), full of ideas (Curiosity, Vision) and fiendishly operational (Tenacity). It projects an image of agile competence.

With time or under pressure, the same strengths produce other readings. Management may find the team hard to frame: many reconfigurations, a course still to be held (a Vision to fix). Internal clients may perceive it as more turned in on itself (Connect weak, Presence and Attunement to be carried): brilliant, and would gain from listening. The compelling solidity of its proposals strengthens as Rigour finds its place.

The organisation's silent question: "This team is brilliant, but does it know where it is going, and is it taking us with it?"

7 · The leader–team relationship

Claire brings together Curiosity, Tenacity, Rapport and a reflective depth: she amplifies the organising and learning signature of her team, and embodies the synergy pole (bond and conviction) the system needs. Her authority is reflective and composed, where Nicolas and Karine assert themselves louder and faster.

The posture to adopt: explicitly occupy the role of guardian of meaning and cohesion, insist on the moments of course-clarification that her depth calls for, rather than entering the competition of energy. Her conviction gives her the legitimacy to say "why", precisely where the team is fragile.

8 · Five concrete actions

1. Give substance to the phantom role of Rigour. Institute, at every major R&D decision, a "proof moment" where the team forces itself to answer "what data, what precedent?". For want of Rigour internally, appoint an external reference or a tool that embodies this voice: a conscious choice, not a reproach.
2. Protect Marc, the sole bearer of Rigour. He alone holds the vigilance over risks. Rather than making him the "designated brake", formalise caution as a collective step in the process, so that it does not weigh on a single person.
3. Regulate the coexistence of the six Tenacities. On each project, explicitly name WHO holds the authority to arrange, rotating the role. This turns a latent rivalry into a clear, shared role.
4. Build the foundation of cohesion to reach Fauvet's developmental zone. With 47.8 % of latent energy and synergy at 18.9 %, establish a short, regular ritual of mutual recognition and genuinely shared decisions: this is what will convert scattered challenge into fruitful tension, while keeping the team's precious antagonism.
5. Strengthen the weakest discipline, Connecting. Choose one external stakeholder per quarter and co-build with them: map their needs, bring them into a meeting. A deliberate choice to develop outward-facing Presence and Attunement, and to open the team beyond its inventiveness.