What your favourite TV dramas can teach you about teamwork
Criminal Minds, Blindspot, Scandal and Conviction: these Sky Living shows aren’t just gripping dramas with quality casts and thrilling plot twists, they also showcase the best teamwork on TV. Here’s what every office can learn from the uber-professionals
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Sometimes the scale of a work project can be overwhelming. When we step back and look at the big picture we’re all just tiny cogs in a giant machine. The solution? Don’t step back and look. Instead, take it one case at a time — or one tattoo at a time, in the case of Blindspot. In that show, the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, led by Special Agent Kurt Weller (Sullivan Stapleton), must unravel the small truth behind each of Jane Doe’s mysterious body markings, in order to get at the big truth that lays beyond.
Keep your flirting functional
The workplaces on Criminal Minds, Conviction, Scandal and Blindspot are all sexual harassment lawsuits waiting to happen: any HR exec would be horri ed. But at least this flirtatious banter has a noble purpose. Stephen Finch (Henry Ian Cusick) in Scandal used his personal history with DC coroner Lisa to gain access to a top secret autopsy report and, yes, Hayes Morrison (Hayley Atwell) strips down to her underwear during a Conviction team meeting, but only because she doesn’t want to waste her team’s precious time, so multitasks with a dress fitting.
Look the part
Dress down Friday’ isn’t a concept that’s familiar to Scandal’s Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington, right) or Conviction’s Hayes Morrison. Those statement wardrobe items are a crucial part of their success. After all, colleagues may let you down, but a tailored trouser suit never will.
Leadership is smart delegation
No one rocks a statement coat like Olivia Pope, the dynamic head of crisis management team Olivia Pope & Associates in Scandal, but she also has another key leadership skill for which she gets less credit: smart delegation. Every episode includes a scene where Olivia thinks for a moment then starts shouting instructions — “Quinn, locate the ambassador’s briefcase!”, “Huck, hack into the mainframe!”, “Abby, manage the optics!” — as her team scurry o to do her bidding.
Bring your baggage to work
Most workplaces discourage obsessive behaviour or fiery arguments and expect employees to work through any deep-rooted emotional trauma they may have on their own time. Things are a bit different in Blindspot, however. Here the childhood tragedy that befell Agent Kurt Weller (right) may hold the secret to the conspiracy they’re all hoping to unravel. On Criminal Minds, members of the Behavioural Analysis Unit do try to have a life outside work, but stalkerish ‘un-subs’ can make it rather difficult.
Value the tech guy
They may not always get involved in the frontline action, but techies can do an impressive amount with a few welltargeted swipes at a keyboard. Having someone to triangulate cell phone signals to locate a suspect — or just get your desktop to turn on in the morning (ahem) — is invaluable. So respect where respect is due, especially if that ‘tech guy’ is a girl, such as Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) in Criminal Minds. Or an ex-CIA assassin such as Huck (Guillermo Díaz) in Scandal.
Celebrate you accomplishments
Conviction’s Hayes Morrison may now be the venerable head of the Conviction Integrity Unit, but this former first daughter and party girl still knows how to cut loose. At the end of a long day exoner ating the wrongly convicted, she’s often to be found kicking o her heels at a fundraising gala, local dive bar, or wherever else there’s cold beers and hot men. Next time, she might even remember to invite her colleagues along too.
Use cool nicknames for each other
Using your own, given name is so uncool. In Scandal, Olivia Pope & Associates boost team morale by referring to themselves as “Gladiators in suits”, while in Criminal Minds, Garcia and Morgan exchange a variety of blush-making monikers including “dollface”, “hotstu ” and, on one memorable occasion, “statuesque god of sculpted chocolate thunder”. Some pseudonyms are more sinister, however — for instance, why can’t Jane Doe in Blindspot remember her own real name?