Team Capabilities: The Fevicol Skill That Unites Winners
Trait #22 of the Winning Kite is Team Capabilities — the Fevicol skill that turns a group of talented individuals into one team that wins. Stories of Sourav Ganguly, ISRO's Mars mission, Dr. Aditi Karad and more.
You can fill a room with talent and still lose. I have watched it happen — in cricket dressing rooms, in hospital corridors during COVID, in product-launch war rooms. The stars are there, but the team is not. Trait #22, Team Capabilities, is the skill that turns that room full of talent into one team that wins together. I call the person who does it best the one with the “Fevicol skill” — the glue that holds everyone together.
In short- Team Capabilities is Trait #22 on the EQ (left) side of your Winning Kite — building a cohesive team around a common goal.
- The core habits: respect, helpfulness, shared credit, and a strong sense of team identity.
- The “Fevicol skill” is the talent of uniting a team — the glue every high-functioning group depends on.
- Great teams disagree openly but never personally; emotional intelligence lets them argue hard and still align.
- From Sourav Ganguly to ISRO's Mars mission to Dr. Aditi Karad's hospital — when the team wins, everyone wins.
Where this sits on your Winning Kite
Team Capabilities lives on the EQ — the left — side of your The Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). It belongs to the fifth EQ cluster, Motivating Others. That placement is deliberate: uniting people is an emotional skill long before it is a technical one. Managing egos, sharing credit, holding a heated debate without it turning personal — none of that is a spreadsheet task. It is emotional intelligence in action. And remember the kite's core law: you rise on balance, not strength alone. A leader who is brilliant alone but cannot bind a team never gets the kite airborne.
What Team Capabilities really means
Team Capabilities is about building strong, effective teams that pull towards one common goal. People who have this competency carry three quiet traits — respect, helpfulness, and the instinct to work as a unit. They encourage and inspire everyone to take an active, enthusiastic part. They build a strong sense of team identity: that feeling of belonging to a cohesive group with a shared commitment.
Two behaviours give them away. First, they make sure team members work together efficiently, protecting the team and its reputation. Second — and this is the one most managers skip — they give credit to everyone for the team's successes. They know each person made a difference, and they say so out loud. This is what separates a boss from a leader, and it is essential whether you want to be a great leader or a great team member.
The cricketer who became a CEO: Vighnesh Shahane
A while ago I had the chance to interact with Vighnesh Shahane, the CEO of Ageas Federal Life Insurance. We never met in person, yet his journey — from a successful cricketer to a corporate leader — left a deep impression on me. What stood out most was his instinct about teamwork.
Vighnesh told me the secret to a successful team is simple: work together and support each other. That is not just a sports-field idea for him; he runs a company the same way. He works to make everyone on his team feel valued and appreciated, exactly like a well-coordinated cricket side. And here is the line I keep repeating in my workshops: you don't have to be in a high position to be a great team player. Whatever your title, you can contribute. It is about doing your best in your role and feeling proud of what the whole team achieves.
Vighnesh always shared credit. For him, every victory was a team victory — never one individual, always collective effort. His perspective reminded me that a good leader is not measured by personal accomplishments but by his ability to lift the entire team. So the takeaway is this: to truly excel at work, be a team player. Play for the team, because when the team wins, everyone wins.
Sourav Ganguly: turning talent into a team
The clearest proof I know sits in Indian cricket. In 2003 the Indian team was struggling to win despite having several genuinely talented individuals. Then Sourav Ganguly took over as captain, and instead of chasing individual brilliance he focused on building a cohesive team that worked well together. He pushed his players to support and help each other, and he gave credit to everyone for the wins — recognising that each player mattered.
Under Ganguly, a side featuring Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Anil Kumble grew into one of the best in the world, winning tournaments such as the 2002 NatWest Trophy. He wasn't captain during the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, but the team culture he had nurtured — now carrying stars like Yuvraj Singh, M.S. Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh — played a huge part in that victory. That is the mark of Team Capabilities: the team keeps winning even after you have moved on, because you built something bigger than yourself.
Bollywood: a thousand films, one shared goal
Bollywood produces over 1,000 movies a year, and its success is a masterclass in collaboration. Direction, production, cinematography, music, choreography — each department works to bring the director's vision to life, and each member knows their role. The director works with the cinematographer on the look and feel; the music director works with the lyricist on songs that carry the story. The industry also adapts — from celluloid to digital, from formula films to socially conscious cinema on gender, caste and communal harmony.
Look at how Bollywood rewards this. The Filmfare Awards honour not just individual performances but the collective effort — Best Film, Best Director, Best Music Director, and categories across departments. That recognition of shared achievement is the Team Capabilities competency made visible. Teamwork, collaboration, adaptability and shared values — the same recipe works in any industry, not just the movies.
ISRO's Mars mission: the achievement drive of a team
When a team's capabilities combine with a shared achievement drive, the impossible becomes routine. ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is my favourite example. Launched in November 2013 and inserted into Martian orbit in September 2014, it was led by figures like Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, then ISRO Chairman, and Dr. M. Annadurai, the Project Director.
The constraints were brutal: a very tight budget and just 15 months to design, build and launch the spacecraft. Communication delays between Earth and Mars meant the craft had to run largely on its own. The team held a clear vision and worked arduously — frequently 18-hour days — to meet the highest standards. Then came a critical glitch: the liquid engine wouldn't start, so the spacecraft couldn't perform the trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM) it needed to enter Mars' orbit. The team developed and uploaded a software patch within 48 hours. It worked flawlessly, and the craft entered orbit as planned.
When MOM slipped into Martian orbit, the team — under Dr. Radhakrishnan — erupted in cheers and hugs. That celebration mattered as much as the engineering. A team that shares the struggle and shares the joy is a team that will attempt the impossible again. Working toward common goals, teams achieve far more than individuals working alone.
Disagree hard, decide well: the EQ inside teamwork
One of the hardest parts of teamwork is making good decisions together. Here is the paradox: open disagreement leads to better decisions, but it can also damage a team's ability to work together. Smart people with different viewpoints improve the outcome — provided the conversation stays healthy and emotionally intelligent.
Finding the balance between agreement and disagreement is tricky and emotional. Emotional intelligence lets a team argue heatedly without wrecking its capacity to align. When arguments turn personal, decisions get worse. The best calls come from positive, fair, open debate focused on the organisation's shared interest. The skills that decide whether your team argues well — self-awareness, empathy and communication — are pure EQ. That is why this trait cannot be separated from emotional intelligence.
The Fevicol skill: the glue that holds a team together
The ability to keep a group working effectively together is a valuable talent in its own right. Every high-functioning group almost certainly has at least one member with this skill — the one I call the “Fevicol skill,” for the way they act as the glue that holds everyone together. The more complex the task, the more critical these people become. It is most visible wherever the goal is to create something new.
Let me introduce you to Dr. Aditi Karad, Executive Director of MAEER MIT's VishwaRaj Superspeciality Hospital — a leader with a remarkable vision to provide quality, affordable healthcare to all. From the very beginning she has been the driving force behind the hospital's success, involved in every step from construction to the peak performance it delivers today. That involvement has earned her genuine respect from everyone who works with her.
During the COVID-19 pandemic I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Karad when she called me to train her team of doctors, nurses and staff. Their capabilities and seamless teamwork were truly impressive. She had built a culture where everyone worked towards a common goal with each person's contribution valued — respect, helpfulness and unity, exactly the traits at the heart of this competency. Even the hospital's HR head, Harsha Palwe, spoke highly of her abilities during our discussions. Dr. Karad is a living example of Team Capabilities: she brings out the best in everyone.
The Fevicol skill shows up everywhere once you learn to see it. In Bollywood, a film's success rests on the director and production team managing egos so that actors, technicians and crew work as one. In Indian politics, strategists like Suresh Narayan describe how essential it is to unite different factions during a campaign. In the corporate world it is the project manager who binds marketing, sales and R&D for a large product launch. In IT it is the team lead coordinating programmers, designers and testers to ship on time. In hospitality it is the general manager aligning the front desk, housekeeping and food-and-beverage into one seamless guest experience.
Shrinivas: the glue since our engineering days
The Fevicol skill isn't reserved for CEOs and captains. During my engineering days I had a friend, Mr. Shrinivas, who had a rare ability to bring people together. He was the glue that held our group of friends intact — the natural leader who planned our trips and made sure every detail was executed perfectly. His magnetic personality and organisational skill kept everyone in sync.
Shrinivas is now an entrepreneur, and he still shows those skills — not just with friends but with his professional team. His instinct to lead, inspire and unite has helped him build a successful business. He creates camaraderie and collaboration, encourages his people to voice their opinions and contribute their unique talents, and the result is innovation, productivity and a real sense of belonging. His story is my reminder that the Fevicol skill travels: it works in college hostels, in start-ups, and in boardrooms alike.
How to build Team Capabilities at work
| Do this | Why it builds the team |
|---|---|
| Share credit out loud, every win | Makes the team, not the boss, the hero — people give more |
| Value contribution over job title | Everyone plays for the team, whatever their rank |
| Set one clear common goal | Builds team identity and shared commitment |
| Argue on ideas, never on people | Open, emotionally intelligent debate = better decisions |
| Celebrate together | Shared joy binds a team for the next hard challenge |
These are the exact habits I take into my corporate training programs, and they anchor the team-building modules inside my Signature Programs. Carol Dweck's research on the growth mindset offers a useful piece of supporting colour here: teams that believe ability can grow keep learning together instead of protecting individual egos. But the frameworks that carry my work are my own — the Winning Kite and its 25 traits.
How this connects to the rest of the kite
Team Capabilities never stands alone. It sits beside Trait #23, Collaboration and Cooperation, its natural partner in the Motivating Others cluster, and it draws on the whole EQ side you build earlier in the book. When you unite a team well, you set up every result at the top of the kite. To see how all four sides work together, start with The Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework).
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Avinash Chate TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc. Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs. |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Team Capabilities in the Winning Kite framework?
Team Capabilities is Trait #22 on the EQ side of the Winning Kite. It is the ability to build a strong, cohesive team that works towards a common goal — through respect, helpfulness, shared credit and a sense of team identity.
What is the Fevicol skill?
The Fevicol skill is the talent of uniting a team — acting as the glue that holds a group of talented people together. Every high-functioning team has at least one person with this skill, and the more complex the task, the more critical they become.
How can a leader build team capabilities at work?
Make everyone feel valued regardless of title, share credit for every win, build a clear common goal, and use emotional intelligence — self-awareness, empathy and communication — so the team can disagree openly without breaking apart.
Why does Team Capabilities sit on the EQ side of the kite?
Because uniting people is an emotional skill before it is a technical one. Managing egos, sharing credit and holding heated debates without tension all depend on emotional intelligence, which is why Team Capabilities lives on the EQ arm of the Winning Kite.
Related Articles by Avinash Chate
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- Bollywood teamwork & Filmfare Awards
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By Avinash Chate — Maharashtra’s #1 Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker. .