Task or Team?
Take a moment, right now. In your own work or life, what’s more important: completing the task or building the team?
Now imagine this…You and four friends are launching a small, local business. The dream? To be the best in your field. The vibe is exciting and full of promise—until it’s not. Two friends are arguing about who should lead, another is frustrated that no decisions are being made, and two others are quietly combing through documents, desperate to move things forward.
By the end of the day, your business feels more chaotic than complete. You look around and see other teams making progress while yours is still stuck. So, what matters more: pushing forward with the checklist or slowing down to find your team rhythm?
Plot twist! Suddenly, you have tech issues. You can’t log in, can’t submit forms, can’t get paid, can’t move your business forward. You’re completely stuck and no one is offering to help. Do you give up? Blame your teammates? Take on all the work yourself? Or do you rally the group and problem-solve together?
This isn’t a hypothetical—it’s the real-life experience of our youngest heroes in Spark Land during the opening week of our Build a Business Quest. Each team of learners began building a real-life lemonade and snack business. The Quest is packed with steps, systems, and entrepreneurship lingo, but its goals are simple:
Learn how to contribute to a team.
Learn basic principles of entrepreneurship by doing.
That tech issue? It was learners navigating our tool called Journey Tracker—Acton’s system for self-paced progress and communication. Logging in isn’t inherently hard…unless you’re just learning to type, don’t know how to find the @ symbol, or think “academy” has a K.
During Week 1, our Guides felt it. Watching teams struggle to log in, sometimes for the entire Quest time, pulled at their heart strings. It was hard not to jump in, not to grab the keyboard, not to fix the friction. Guides approached me with concern “They haven’t completed a single challenge” “It’s taking them forever to just log in” “Does it really need to be this hard?” I took a breath, smiled, and asked “Are they practicing the Quest goals? Are they learning to work together, are they learning about building a business?”
At Acton, we build on questions. And that answer, that YES, mattered more than any checkbox on a task list. Learners were practicing leadership, collaboration, and creative problem-solving skills that no program can teach on its own. I shared resolve with Guides but on the ride home I had doubt. Then, my 6 year old son began talking from the back seat. He was buzzing about his job as “money guy” and proud to tell me about his teammate, the boss. “He couldn’t login all Quest! He missed a letter and it took forever Mom! Guess what? He didn’t give up and then…we got it right at the end of the Quest time. That’s why he’s in charge!” My son’s excitement said it all and my doubt and all adult worry melted away. The process was right.
When I asked learners the same question from this top line—What’s more important: task or team?––they shared mixed results. Some said task first, others team first, a few shared a little of both. There isn’t one right process yet there is one promise at Acton that we guard fiercely — trust the learners to try!
What would you do in this scenario? What role would you play in the business and what role do you play as a parent? However you choose, we have proof that growth happens in the trying! What action of yours will invite your child to be more willing to try to grow?