In the season finale, we go beyond rumor and speculation to answer: what really grounded Concorde for good? Aided by insights from an aviation journalist, we explore Concorde's legacy, its impact on the world, and the new projects it inspired that might return supersonic passenger aircraft to the skies.
Teamistry is the chemistry of unsung teams that achieve the impossible
Award-winning
Season 4 is the untold story of Concorde. It begins Nov. 21st, with new episodes every other Monday. Teamistry is hosted by journalist, radio, podcast and TV host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far.
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What do photographing a black hole, reimagining car design, and containing a nuclear meltdown have in common?
Teamwork. It’s time to bust the myth of the lone genius once and for all because the truth is, we’re in this together.
Listen to Teamistry, an Atlassian podcast that looks past the front page headlines to discover the incredible untold stories of teams behind the scenes who joined together to do what could never be done alone.
On July 25th, 2000, Concorde suffers its worst nightmare. Minutes after take off, an Air France flight crashes into a hotel near Charles de Gaulle airport, killing all passengers and crew. It’s now up to the team of engineers to study the aftermath and piece together the final moments of the aircraft. They hope to explain the cause to the world and restore faith in supersonic flight.
Concorde is an instant hit with celebrities. Mick Jagger, Sting, and Princess Diana are all frequent flyers – for the fast travel and the high-class atmosphere. Concorde itself becomes a pop star, with its own (horrible) feature film. But on the ground, politics and protests force it to alter its course.
Concorde makes aviation history when the first prototype plane takes to the skies. But solving complex engineering problems is only the beginning. At almost every turn throughout the 1970s, Concorde faced existential threats. The Oil Crisis, environmental protests, and allegations of "Aviation Colonialism" could ground the plane and end the supersonic dream forever.
As engineers in the U.K. and France struggle to get a prototype of Concorde in the air, they respond by creating a new way of working together. America enters the supersonic race, spies are disguised as priests, and Soviet Russia’s haste in flying supersonic ends in a tragedy.
In episode one, host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and Producer Pedro Mendes set the stage for our six-part story of the people and teams that made supersonic flight a reality. The team travels to the Brooklands Museum in the U.K, where Nastaran sees a Concorde up close for the first time. Also in episode one, you’ll hear about the monumental 1956 meeting of the Supersonic Transport Aircraft Committee (STAC) that set in motion a complex network of teams from the U.K. and France to execute this ambitious project.
Imagine flying between New York and London in half the time it takes today. Celebrities sit nearby, champagne and caviar are served. Fantasy? Not long ago, this was a reality – made possible by Concorde. An airplane faster than a bullet, faster than the speed of sound. An airplane that seemed impossible to make. In Season 4 of Teamistry, new host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far and lead producer Pedro Mendes travel to the U.K. and France to speak with the designers and engineers who dreamed the same dream, worked and failed together, and built the fastest passenger plane ever.
When the pandemic halted film and TV productions in early 2020, Westbrook Media, the fledgling production company of actor Will Smith, didn't fold. They changed the game. Seeing an opportunity for a new kind of project, and using new ways of working, they pivoted to produce a hit variety show for Snapchat ... in Will Smith's garage.
By 2001, abysmal employee morale and unsafe working conditions had soured the reputation of the Campbell Soup Company. The century-old colossus, whose iconic cans appear in 90% of American households, had the lowest employee engagement of any Fortune 500 company. Enter a new CEO who forms a truly engaged leadership team and turns the toxic workplace around – in just three years.
Across the globe, many communities remain offline. In the U.S., digital redlining has kept certain communities isolated even more. At a time when equal access to the internet should be considered a basic human right, a team of "digital stewards" in Detroit is working to connect families, one home and one neighborhood at a time.
Can you fix a toy that isn't broken? That's what a team at Mattel Inc. set out to do with Hot Wheels™. But the digital update they introduced to future-proof the best-selling toy on the planet bombed. The risky decision, however, benefitted the venerable company – just not the way they expected.
The Indian Premier League (IPL) promised to transform cricket in India until a series of scandals rocked the league – and threatened the integrity of the sport itself. But a leadership team unites to save the IPL and winds up navigating it through an even bigger crisis: the pandemic.
During the 1994 Winter Olympics, an employee of IBM, that held exclusive rights to the telecast, went looking for the results on the brand-new World Wide Web. But he didn't find them on IBM's website – they didn't have one. He found them on a rival company's website. This is the story of the forward-thinking team that convinced decision-makers to wake up to the Internet, which influenced a tectonic shift in everything about IBM as an organization.
Teamistry is an original podcast from Atlassian about the chemistry of teams, proving that when people work together they can achieve more than they ever thought possible.
Before corporate social responsibility was a popular concept, Patagonia declared its commitment to better outcomes for their workers, and the planet. They soon discovered that commitment would include major pitfalls, but it seems the more Patagonia doubles down on its values, the better it performs.
In the West African country of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, an 18-year-old boy is killed in the road. Why? A case of meningitis. The meningitis epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa spurred a global race to find a vaccine, led by the founding of the Meningitis Vaccine Project. This network of doctors, vaccine developers, public health officials, and UN workers converged to develop an inexpensive vaccine – without Big Pharma. Instead, they built teams as an ecosystem of thriving partnerships.
In the desert plains of Northern Kenya, hundreds of people from around the world and different walks of life have gathered. The photographs they take with their GPS-enabled cameras might be humanity's best shot at saving an entire species. This is the story of a shared mission, with the help of Wildbook, an artificial intelligence (AI) software program, that is saving animals – and the biodiversity of the planet.
Twelve Thai teenagers and their young soccer coach got stuck deep inside the labyrinthine Tham Luang caves of Thailand. Feared dead after a week, they were discovered alive by a British cave diver. Learn about the leadership and teamwork that enabled disparate groups to remain synchronized, overcome cultural barriers, and make life-or-death decisions during the rescue.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Iceland had become the worst-hit country in Scandinavia. But it reversed its fate, without a full lockdown. And to date, Iceland has seen very few deaths. How? Largely because of the harmonious collaboration of "The Trinity" – Iceland’s chief epidemiologist, Director of Health, and Superintendent of Police – who implemented the "pandemic plan": a framework for working together and saving lives.
In the aftermath of World War II, Japan must rebuild its economy. Certain products become vital exports in the revitalization effort, including the wristwatch. Seiko leaps to the forefront of the recovery, but there's a problem: their watches aren't good. The company decides to bring R&D in-house to take advantage of constructive competition between its factories, and winds up going from industry failure to time-honored player on the world stage.
About the hosts
Teamistry is hosted by award-winning film director Gabriela Cowperthwaite. Her films, including the documentary “Blackfish,” deal with social, cultural, and environmental issues relating to real life events, and through her work she is intimately familiar with the power and importance of teamwork.
Teamistry is hosted by journalist, radio, podcast and TV host Nastaran Tavakoli-Far. She was educated at the London School of Economics and Columbia University, and has received awards from the Foreign Press Association of New York and the Shorty Awards.