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Once upon a time, in a now-fashionable inner-city district of Sydney, Australia, a business called O’Donnell’s Jelly Bean Company became the market leader in the confectionery industry.

Founded by brothers William and Walter O’Donnell on their return from the Second World War, O’Donnell’s Jelly Bean Company was enormously proud of its seventy-year-plus history, its role as an employer of people from the local community and its profitability. Most of all, however, the people of O’Donnell’s Jelly Bean Company were proud of its products.

It had been that way since William and Walter produced the first jelly beans in the kitchen of their home in Birchmore Street and sold them to children in the neighbouring streets. ‘O’Donnell’s’, as the business came to be affectionately known, produced the best-looking, best-tasting and best-value jelly beans that money could buy. Any kid who lived near Birchmore Street could tell you that money spent on those monster-sized O’Donnell’s jelly beans was a far superior investment to the bland fare at the local store, which carried all the ‘brand’ lollies. Importantly, an O’Donnell’s jelly bean commanded a greater price when on-sold at school. Many children doubled their pocket money by investing in a few of those precious jelly beans and then selling them for a handsome profit at recess. The fame and profitability of William and Walter’s jelly beans spread through the schools across the city and within a few months a small manufacturing plant was created at a site that has since grown to accommodate the nearly 500 employees of O’Donnell’s Jelly Bean Company.

When you bought ‘the real McCoy jelly bean’ (as Walter loved to call it), you could choose from the three colours (red, blue and black) that O’Donnell’s now manufactures in a gleaming, state-of-the-art factory. The enormous jelly beans (about the size of a bird’s egg) were sold in clear cellophane packs of five, ten or fifteen containing the one colour of the customer’s choice. The first jelly bean ever sold by William and Walter was red, so the teams on the red production line were suitably proud that not only did they produce the lowest cost jelly bean but also that theirs was the original ‘real McCoy jelly bean’. The blue jelly bean has always been the most attractive, with its sky-blue coating and light-blue inside, giving it what the blue production teams called ‘the sapphire look’. Last, but never least, was the black jelly bean, which, if you asked the black production teams, was the most popular choice of customers, the source of much media coverage and clearly a ‘better jelly bean’.

O’Donnell’s never sold a pack of jelly beans with the three colours combined.

Why? There were three simple reasons and they had all stood the test of time.

First, to sell them separately enticed customers to buy more than one pack, and the sales figures supported this view. Many a shopkeeper would tell the story of a mother and her children engaged in passionate debate over the need to buy ‘a packet of each’ so that the full range of O’Donnell’s taste sensations could be enjoyed.

Second, William and Walter always believed that the unique flavours of the three beans would be lost if you put them together in a sealed packet.

Finally, there was no need to put those jelly beans together because year on year the company grew in revenue, profits and employees.

Until, as they have a habit of doing, things changed.

g’day

They say that Sydney has the most beautiful harbour in the world and it sure looks like it from the left-side window seat as you fly into Kingsford Smith International Airport from the west. The Opera House and ‘Coat Hanger’ bridge are closer than I’d remembered, and more boats are now sprinkled across the sparkling bays and inlets.

As a part-time surfer I always think ‘sharks’ when I see that harbour. Did you know that more people have been attacked by sharks in Sydney Harbour than any other place in Australia? With nearly five million people living under our flight path I guess that’s a lot of potential swimmers and shark bait.

Five years on the road is a long time. Last year I flew the equivalent of twenty times around the planet – mostly New York to London return, spiced up with increasingly frequent trips to Shanghai and Dubai. Leading a consulting outfit is exciting, but it’s also high demand on everyone and everything.

My focus is big teams. Not those little departmental teams, but whole organisations and alliances: corporations, governments, universities, not-for-profits and even symphony orchestras. If they really want to unleash the phenomenal power that comes from being one big team, then my team can help to create the teamwork across boundaries that will make it happen.

Australia is home. Best place in the world to live. I’ll be spending six months there writing a new book and creating tools and collaborative software in readiness to take on the greatest of challenges – disrupting the way enterprises across the world implement change.

I’m Nick Fox. I love jelly beans, Indian food, beaches and the awesome power of big teams.

This story is my way of sharing a few insights from the road about what might just happen to you and your organisation when everyone from the boss to the newest employee lives and breathes the mantra ‘think one team’.