Ice, water or steam: what powers the engine in your team?
From dependence to independence to interdependence.
Ice.
Water.
Steam.
They’re all the same substance.
But they behave very differently.
And if you’re trying to power an engine, you’d rather have one than the others.
Years ago, that struck me as a useful metaphor for something I’d been observing in people and teams throughout my career.
Some people are dependent.
Some become independent.
And the strongest teams eventually become interdependent.
The difference isn’t intelligence.
It isn’t necessarily experience.
It’s about responsibility and capability.
DEPENDENCE: ICE
Ice is solid.
It doesn’t move unless something acts upon it.
In organisations, dependency can look remarkably similar.
Tell me what to do.
Give me the answer.
Make the decision.
Solve the problem.
Whose fault is it?
A dependent person looks outside themselves for direction, solutions or responsibility.
That doesn’t necessarily make them lazy or incapable.
Sometimes organisations create dependency themselves.
Managers make every decision.
Leaders provide every answer.
People are rewarded for following instructions rather than exercising judgement.
Eventually, everybody learns to wait.
And the organisation becomes difficult to move.
INDEPENDENCE: WATER
Add energy to ice and something changes.
It becomes water.
Now it moves.
It finds its way.
It flows around obstacles.
That’s a useful metaphor for independence.
An independent person increasingly asks:
What can I do?
What do I think?
What do I recommend?
What responsibility can I take?
They don’t need somebody standing over them.
They develop judgement.
Initiative.
Confidence.
Responsibility.
Capability.
And that releases energy into an organisation.
BUT INDEPENDENCE ISN’T THE DESTINATION
This is something I’ve come to understand more clearly over the years.
A team full of fiercely independent individuals isn’t necessarily a great team.
They may all be capable.
They may all take responsibility.
They may all perform exceptionally well individually.
But if everybody operates independently of everybody else, you haven’t created a team.
You’ve created a collection of capable individuals.
The next transition matters.
INTERDEPENDENCE: STEAM
Add more energy and water becomes steam.
Now it can generate power.
That’s where the metaphor becomes particularly useful.
Interdependence happens when capable, independent people recognise that they can achieve more together.
I bring something you don’t.
You see something I can’t.
Your strengths complement mine.
We trust one another sufficiently to challenge, contribute and rely upon each other.
Nobody abdicates responsibility.
Everybody brings theirs.
That’s a very different form of dependence.
Dependence says: Do it for me.
Independence says: I can do it myself.
Interdependence says: We can do more together.
That’s the foundation of a high-performing team.
RESPONSIBILITY RELEASES ENERGY
One of the observations I’ve made throughout my career is that dependency consumes enormous amounts of organisational energy.
A leader surrounded by dependent people becomes the answer to every question.
The decision-maker for every problem.
The bottleneck through which everything has to pass.
Eventually, the leader becomes exhausted and the organisation stops scaling.
I’ve seen this particularly clearly in founder-led businesses.
The founder thinks:
Why can’t anybody take responsibility?
Meanwhile, the team has learned:
Ask the founder.
Both sides reinforce the system.
Moving people towards independence changes it.
Decisions move outwards.
Initiative increases.
People begin solving problems.
Leaders gain space to lead.
Capability creates capacity.
YOU CAN’T SCALE DEPENDENCY
This has implications far beyond team development.
Imagine doubling the size of a business in which everybody depends upon the founder.
You’ve doubled the problem.
Triple it and you’ve tripled the problem.
Growth simply puts more pressure on the same point of dependency.
That’s why organisations don’t scale simply by adding more people.
They scale by developing greater capability throughout the system.
People capable of making decisions.
People capable of leading others.
People capable of exercising judgement.
People capable of taking responsibility.
And ultimately, teams capable of operating interdependently.
INVEST IN THE PEOPLE WHO CAN MOVE THE SYSTEM
Back in 2021, we were working with the founders of a business facing exactly this problem.
They felt too many people depended upon them.
They wanted more people capable of taking responsibility and leading.
Our approach involved three broad steps.
First, invest in the team.
Second, identify the people capable of helping move the organisation forward.
Third, develop their capability to take greater responsibility and lead others.
This wasn’t theoretical.
I’d seen the same process work decades earlier.
THE INVESTMENT THAT KEPT PAYING BACK
More than twenty years before that conversation, I’d coached an up-and-coming employee in another organisation.
His employer saw potential in him and decided to invest.
We worked on his relationships, communication and ability to present himself effectively.
Years later, we spoke again.
He was now an executive in the same organisation.
But what interested me most was what he wanted to discuss.
His people.
He had identified individuals in his own team whom he wanted to develop.
The investment made in one person decades earlier hadn’t simply produced a more capable individual.
It had created somebody who now wanted to develop capability in others.
That’s how capability spreads.
FROM INDIVIDUAL CAPABILITY TO ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITY
This is the progression that matters:
Dependent people require capability around them.
Independent people develop capability within themselves.
Interdependent teams combine their capability.
And organisations begin to scale when that capability spreads throughout the system.
That is why investing in people isn’t simply an HR initiative.
It can become organisational infrastructure.
The leader no longer has to provide all the energy.
The system begins generating its own.
SO, WHAT POWERS YOUR TEAM?
Ice?
Water?
Or steam?
Look at the people around you.
Are they waiting for answers?
Are they capable of acting independently?
Or have they reached the point where independent people combine their different strengths to achieve more together?
Because the goal isn’t simply to employ more capable individuals.
It’s to build capable, responsible, interdependent teams.
That’s where the power is.
Nobody is perfect.
But your team can be.
You can’t download capability.™
Is your organisation developing independence — or dependency?
Perfect Teams® helps leaders understand the people within their organisation, identify capability gaps and build stronger, more interdependent teams.
Originally published 9 November 2021. Updated August 2026.
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