While scrolling YouTube late one evening, I found myself in unfamiliar territory. The algorithm—which reliably fed me videos of contact sports like rugby, soccer, hockey and football—had taken a left turn and offered up synchronized swimming instead. Now, I have never been drawn to swimming, where the contact is with water, not people, and where I consider the drama level (rightly or wrongly) to be low.

My first instinct was to scroll past the video. What possible relevance, I thought, could this video have to me? Then I watched it. And within a minute, something interesting happened: I stopped seeing swimming and began seeing a system.

What quickly became clear was synchronized swimming is significantly more unforgiving than team sports. In basketball or soccer, one exceptional player can sometimes compensate for others who are off their game. Synchronized swimmers have no such luxury. One athlete who is out of time by milliseconds can collapse the entire illusion—first the judges notice, then the audiences.

Yet, when the swimmers are in sync—when timing, intention and execution align—the result is extraordinary: It no longer looks like eight individuals performing a routine but one organism moving through the water.

That is what we miss when we talk about teamwork.

Most organizations say they value collaboration, but fewer organizations design for collaboration and still fewer understand its fragility. Silos are often treated as a cultural nuisance, or an inconvenience to be managed. Synchronized swimmers would disagree; they would see a silo as a fatal flaw.

For me, that YouTube video triggered a memory of when I was in my early 20s and running an (objectively) average health club. Trust me when I say that nothing stood out about the club. The equipment was ordinary. The market? Unforgiving. Yet something remarkable was happening: The team was in sync.

By in sync, I don’t mean in a motivational-poster sense but in an operational sense. We anticipated one another’s decisions. Sales aligned with programming. Programming aligned with operations. Operations aligned with policy. Everyone knew the goal, and more importantly, we each understood our role in achieving it. There were no competing agendas. No quiet resistance. No departmental friction.

Today, I’m still close with many of that team. The 45 years of friendship we share is the remainder of something rare: shared purpose executed collectively. Looking back, I realize why that experience felt so powerful. Talent alone didn’t drive the team’s excellence; rather, the team’s alignment drove excellence.

Ultimately, synchronized swimmers win not because they are strong swimmers but because they move together seamlessly. Organizations are no different. When alignment replaces silos, performance stops feeling forced and starts to look effortless. That might be the real lesson hiding in that YouTube video. Excellence isn’t about adding more effort but about getting everyone in the water moving to the same rhythm.

In this Journal on Active Aging® issue, two articles discuss insights and strategic priorities from ICAA Think Tanks that took place last fall, and which highlighted the need to integrate teams as part of creating ecosystems that reinforce vitality and wellness in daily life. 

JAA’s nutrition columnist Sandy Todd Webster, MSFS, writes about the inaugural ICAA Culinary, Nutrition and Hospitality (ICNH) Think Tank in her article, “From service line to strategic center,” on pages xx–xx. Webster also writes from her perspective as the new Director of Global Strategic Initiatives for the recently launched ICNH Network—welcome, Sandy. And my impressions of the ICAA Wellness Think Tank discussions appear in the article “Is senior living ready for the modern longevity era?” on pages xx–xx.

Both groups reframed key factors to provide a starting point for the fresh thinking and approaches the realities of today, coupled with the promise of tomorrow, require. Not only are we at “a pivotal moment in the history of aging,” as I noted in my article, but “we are at a defining moment” as an industry as well. “Modern longevity requires a modern response.” 

At the start of 2026, ICAA’s 25th anniversary year, let’s embrace this moment. Let’s allow it to inspire and invigorate us, so we can embed wellness into daily life and provide a pathway that helps society fulfill the promise of living better, longer.

Colin Milner, CEO

International Council on Active Aging®

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