Grounded, Anchored, Balanced

My kids love to build towers with their legos: little lego squares, one on top of the next, over and over again until they run out of pieces.  The click-together design of legos helps to keep the tower intact even around little wobbly hands, but there always comes a point when the tower itself falls over.  It’s a moment of crisis, always– nevermind that it happens every day, often multiple times a day.  I watch them and see the problem immediately: the base of the tower is as narrow as the tower itself.  And not only that, but the narrow base is “grounded” onto a half-inch deep piece of soft carpeting, or “anchored” onto a not-entirely-stable-itself lego piece with wheels.  Of course the tower is going to fall over!  The foundation isn’t sound!

As a consultant, I look at some groups and see the same kind of problem: teams that are too large and unwieldy for the length of time they are together, teams without the shared experience or institutional stability to anchor their work, teams that are expected to “reach high” without being taught or allowed to “go deep” and develop a foundation of interpersonal relations and authentic, organic working practices.

Evaluating your group’s structural integrity depends on a clear-eyed estimation of the scope and scale of your group’s work.  Think of this as the visible, above-ground part of the structure: is it a shed or a skyscraper?  A convention hall or a bridge?  The scope, scale, and purpose of your team will tell you a lot about what you need to consider, provide, and maintain to ensure its structural integrity. Usually what we see of a given structure is only part of it.  Below it, around it, inside it, or intrinsic to it are the things that keep it stable, anchored, grounded, or balanced.  The larger or higher the structure– in other words, the higher your or your team’s aspirations for its work– the deeper and broader its “below ground,” invisible foundation must be.

What grounds your team?  Is it built on the proverbial rock or on the proverbial sand?  Simply having a deep or broad foundational frame is not enough– it must also be laid into material that is solid and stable– strong, but not brittle, because it has to be pliable enough to accept the laying of a foundation.  Many teams are “grounded” in their institutional context (a company, a church, a civic organization).   Others are grounded in team members’ loyalty to a leader or mentor.  Still others are grounded in an ethical, spiritual, or political set of values.  Whatever grounds your team (and different people on and leading the team may have different answers), it’s worth giving your team the opportunity to learn about the context in which the team is embedded.  Encourage them to learn about the company, acknowledge personal loyalties, study or clarify values.  Reflect on how these things may seem “outside” the scope of the work the team is doing, but shape and color that work nonetheless.

What anchors your team?  If the institutional context or a shared set of values grounds your team, it will be anchored by something more concrete and specific: a charge or mission, perhaps, or a shared history leading to a well-established group identity, or maybe depth and breadth of the team members’ expertise.  Different teams are anchored by different kinds of things, and that’s okay– as long as whatever it is is deep enough and broad enough to stabilize the team “above ground.”  Is your team adrift or unstable?  Start by looking at what comprises the foundation: Is it clear what the team has been convened to do?  Are the team members invested in the value and success of that work?  Have the team members had opportunity to observe one another and themselves in the context of the team, and to develop the skills and resources that allow them to collaborate, communicate, problem-solve, and adapt? Is there enough diversity on the team to provide a broad cultural, technical, personal, and emotional base?

Or maybe the metaphor of foundation isn’t resonating with you, because you see your team as being more nimble than stable, more vehicle than building.  In that case, the question is: What keeps your team in balance?  Assuming that your team moves forward at a rapid pace (whatever that metaphor means in your literal context), what keeps it intact, upright, forward-facing, or on track?  These, too, are questions of structural integrity: a freestanding structure may not be anchored in the ground, but it still must be held together internally and it exists within an environment that can both support or strain the structure’s internal stability.  A “freestanding” team must have the capacity within itself to hold itself together and to stay in balance and on track without an “external” anchor to guide it or restrain it when it starts to wander off course.  If this is you, how well are your team’s strengths distributed?  Does your team propel itself or is it relying on inertia?  Are different parts of your team “pulling in different directions” and, if so, it is disruptive to the team or is that how it keeps moving?  What would happen if one of your team members left the team or changed her style?

And finally, there is the lesson I wish more than anything my preschool lego-builders would learn: how will you handle that moment when some external or internal force strains your structure’s integrity?  How capable is your team of righting itself or putting itself back together?  In other words, how resilient is your team?  How resilient are you?

Expected Loads and Stresses

When we renovated our kitchen, we took out a wall.  It opened up the space wonderfully– made the whole area more useful and more welcoming– but, before we could begin, we had to answer a question that will likely be familiar to many renovators: is this a load-bearing wall?  Fortunately for us, it was not, but when we opened up the kitchen walls, we discovered other weaknesses that required reinforcement.  You can’t see any of it now, of course, but I sleep better at night (and cook more comfortably in the kitchen!) knowing it was done.

Structural engineers think in terms of loads that a building must bear– how many people or cars or shipping containers or bricks will be held up by this structure? How much do the upper levels of the building itself contribute to the load?  How is the load distributed throughout the structure– which parts of the building bear more of the load or bear it for longer periods of time?  Will the loads move or change, and what kind of stresses will be created during those transitions?

We don’t always think these things through when we are forming or supporting our teams.  When I consult with team leaders who are dealing with unhappy team members, it is not unusual for us to trace the problem back to the support the team is (or is not) getting.  Are team members supported financially, creatively, institutionally, professionally? Are there enough people on the team with enough work hours available to do the work the team is expected to do?  Are the team members trained to do the team’s work, or are they supported in their efforts to learn new skills (supported in performance reviews, in monetary incentives, in time and recognition)?

Or, to consider it another way, are the members of the team “redundant,” with the same sets of skills, interests, and responsibilities, when the team is expected to complete work that is varied and complex?  (Are all your supports located in the same place, or are they spread out to share the load more effectively?)

Ensuring your team’s structural integrity does not necessarily mean ensuring that every member of the team always shoulders an exactly equal load, but rather it means planning what kinds of loads will require what kinds of support at what times, and preparing– sometimes equipping– your team members for the kinds of “carrying” they will be expected to do.  For example, one team member may be a “stabilizer,” responsible for what may seem, in quantitative terms, a lesser share of the work, but also responsible for doing it every day, reliably and on time.  Another team member may be a “mover,” responsible for relatively greater or more complicated tasks but with more flexibility in how and when the work gets done.  Still another may be a “crisis support,” only called upon a fraction of the time but constantly in a state of readiness, which is its own kind of load to bear.  And, it should be noted, the entire team must be ready to handle stresses that exceed its normal, and possibly even its peak, loads.

Another insight from structural engineering: a structure must first be able to support its own weight.  Consider the “compression strength” (sometimes called “crushing strength”) of the team as a whole: the bigger your team, the more resources you will need to devote to building and maintaining that team. At what point will the effort and resources required to facilitate collaboration and communication among a large number of people exceed the work the group is actually supposed to do?  When does a very large team end up crushing itself simply by trying to “be” a team?

One more thing to consider: perhaps the most difficult question of all for team leaders… is your team really designed to be supported by anyone or anything other than you?  If not, is that really a sustainable, stable structure?

Is Your Team Up to Code?

I’ve been invited recently to reflect on the idea of integrity.  When groups of reflective, earnest people get together to consider integrity, they usually mean it as a synonym for morality or as a kind of courage to do what’s right in the face of opposition.  If they push deeper than that, they might consider “integrity” as wholeness, as a willingness to accept and embrace oneself as one is, both the good parts and the not-so-good parts.

These ideas about integrity are good ones, and good reflective, earnest people should absolutely consider these things.  But I live with an engineer, and with two small children obsessed with Legos, so when I hear the word “integrity,” my mind jumps to integrity in the structural sense. As in: the capacity of a structure to hold up under a load without breaking or compromising its essential form.  How sound is the foundation– is it deep enough or wide enough to support the part of the structure that is above ground or visible? How many beams are supporting the next layer? Is that a load-bearing wall or can we take it down?  What kind of stress would crush this structure, twist it, knock it down?  How much should it be able to bend or stretch under stress, or should it not bend at all?  Does it have to return to its original shape, no matter the load it bears?  How much can it change and still be, essentially, itself?

For physical structures, a system has evolved to provide some assurance that concerns about structural integrity are addressed such that the users, inhabitants, and neighbors of the structure are not in danger: building codes.  A new building or a renovation is considered “up to code” when it has been certified to meet certain standards of structural integrity.  Of course, some projects are undertaken and completed without building permits, and they may be up to code and perfectly sound and safe.  But once the walls are closed, if no one checked the structural integrity, there may be no way to know if the building is sound until something catastrophic occurs.

As a teambuilding facilitator and small group consultant, I like to think of my job as being something like a code administrator for working groups.  My job is to consider the metaphorical value of the principles of structural integrity, and then to help team leaders bring their teams “up to code.”  This effort is not merely about keeping teams from being destroyed or collapsing in on themselves– it is also about helping teams to create an environment for their work that is and feels safe and supportive.  Building codes provide potential residents, neighbors, future contractors, and insurers with a certain assurance of safety.  Similarly, when teams and leaders are paying attention to a group’s structural integrity, individual team members can more easily feel professionally secure in the work they are doing.  In a structurally sound team, individuals know that loads are shared and risks, too. In a structurally sound team, individuals know that there are mechanisms and a shared commitment to address disagreements and conflict instead of letting them fester and destroy the team (or the individuals on it).  In a structurally sound team, individuals are secure because they feel grounded in the team, they see how the team is balanced and stable, and they know the work it is expected to do and the support that will be given to it so that it can do that work.  Team members who feel secure, supported, and grounded are often more invested in the team’s work, more willing to be creative or open to new processes, and ultimately more productive.

In the next few posts, we’ll take a look a closer look at some of the things we examine when we are trying to diagnose– and address!– concerns with a team’s structural integrity.

‘Tis the Season: Generosity

(This post is 3 of 3 in a special series about the lessons of the holidays for teams and team leaders.)

Christmas is just a few days away, and I have a LOT of presents left to wrap.  Maybe a few left to buy.  When I was a kid, I remember spending a few Christmas Eves up all night finishing the presents I was making or arranging for my mom and dad.  I wasn’t even in high school yet when I figured out that giving presents was even more fun than getting presents.  Don’t get me wrong– I loved (and still love) to get presents.  But the first time I really thought about what someone else would like and how they would like to receive it, the first time I made that vision real, I was hooked.

I wish I could say that every gift I give today is as carefully thought out and meticulously arranged as the cross-stitch plaque I made for my mom in fifth grade, or the CD of family recordings that I made for my dad in college, but that’s not true.  I confess that I give a lot of “obligatory” gifts at Christmas, which probably include stuff that the recipient doesn’t really want or need.  Still, Christmas for me is an opportunity to reflect on gratitude, patience, and generosity– to take stock of my work and my attitudes to see how well I am doing to incorporate these things into my life.

I started this series by taking at look at how leaders can boost their teams by developing gratitude.  In my last post I explored how teams and their leaders can benefit from taking the long view and cultivating patience.  To close out the holidays this year, this week I’ll focus on GENEROSITY.

Generosity

A team member who has enough resources to take care of his personal life (i.e. who is compensated appropriately for his work) and enough resources to do the work he is expected to do (i.e. who is provided enough assistance, time, materials, and support to accomplish his mission) will be able to devote his attention and his best effort to doing the best by and for the team.  (So, leaders– be generous with your team members in terms of how much you give them to do the work they do!)  However, when I talk to team leaders about the importance of generosity, I am not talking about generosity with money or with material things.  Rather, I am talking about cultivating what I call a “generosity of spirit” in leadership.

Generosity of spirit is not, essentially, a religious concept– although if you are inclined to spiritual work, you will find much in this idea that will resonate with your personal spiritual development.  A leader who is generous of spirit is open to her team members in terms of the things that matter to the work of the team– not just open to sharing parts of herself so that others can get to know her and relate to her authentically and comfortably (although this is important!)– but genuinely open to sharing ideas, process, and credit.

The structure and nature of your team will make this kind of openness and sharing easier for some team leaders than for others.  Lines of accountability in a professional setting can be a stumbling block for many team leads.  If you are the one who will face the music if the team performs poorly, it can be difficult to make yourself open to ideas that you don’t agree with, and especially to processes that you think will lead to delays or to poor results.  And sometimes it is true that the team leader is held accountable for the team’s work without regard to the team’s process.

But… I have found in most of my work with board chairs, staff leads, presidents of civic organizations, directors, teachers, and church staff, that what more often stands in the way of cultivating a generosity of spirit in our work is our own insecurities, and not any actual repercussions.  The team leaders who are ungenerous of spirit are the ones who feel threatened, unsupported, or unprepared.  They speak and act from a position of insecurity, confusing their responsibility to facilitate and lead with their habit of directing and ordering.  The ungenerous leader passes blame or makes excuses when things go wrong (and claims credit when things go right) because her fragile self-image is at stake.  The ungenerous leader criticizes ideas that are not his own– or responds to them in such a way that others do not feel welcome to offer them– because he wants to see his own ideas in action and is insecure about what the other members of the team might offer.  Ultimately, the ungenerous leader ends up using her team as subordinates rather than as collaborators, whether she means to or not.

The picture I’ve painted here is an extreme case– most of us are not so starkly ungenerous of spirit, nor are the leaders we encounter.  But if you exchange material gifts this holiday season, I invite you to take a moment with each present you give and each one you receive to reflect on your own generosity of spirit in your work with others.  Am I really, truly open to what my colleagues and collaborators bring to our work together? How often do I take an idea from a teammate without feeling the need to “fix” or correct it?  How willing am I to “go down with the ship,” whether or not the ship’s sinking was my own fault?  How often do I stand with my team as we try a process that might not work, instead of standing apart from them and saying “I told you so”?  How willing am I to praise the work of my team members when others come to me with praise for the team’s work?

 

Happy holidays from Teamwork & Teamplay!

‘Tis the Season: Patience

(This post is 2 of 3 in a special series about the lessons of the holidays for teams and team leaders.)

Some people lament the commercialization and the secularization of the holidays, but I don’t really mind.  I’ll confess that I really love Christmas music, and I don’t feel that all the shimmer and glitz distracts me from my own spiritual, reflective, and meditative practices.  In fact, being surrounded by all the decorations and music reminds me to think about the things that are really at the heart of the season: gratitude, patience, generosity.  In my sessions with teams and my conversations with team leaders, I have seen how spending some energy developing these things in ourselves can make a tremendous difference in how we work with others.  In my last post I took at look at how leaders can boost their teams by developing gratitude and humility.  This week I’ll focus on PATIENCE.

Patience

I do have one complaint about the commercialization and the secularization of Christmas– advent has gotten lost in the shuffle. Advent, the period of preparation that leads up to Christmas Day, can be an opportunity to practice patience. Instead, shops and retailers seem to be so impatient for Christmas that the seasonal decorations appear earlier and earlier each year.  From a liturgical point of view, the four weeks of advent are supposed to precede Christmas (which begins on Christmas Day and continues for twelve more days), not extend it.  Certainly many of us spend a lot of this time preparing for Christmas Day, but how many of us intentionally spend this time waiting for it?  How many of us use this time to reflect on the experience of hoping for, working for, believing in something without knowing when (or even if) it will happen?  How often do we appreciate, enjoy, or even relish the time and effort that it takes to build, to make, to grow those things that are worth having in our lives?

In our work with teams, we’re susceptible to this tendency to downplay the time it takes to reach our most mature and fulfilling state.  Collaboration does not just happen; it is a skill that must be practiced.  People who arrange or are assigned to work as a team do not immediately become creative and productive together; it takes time for the team members to build their style and method of working together.  Yet, too often we want to breeze through the early stages of group building and get our team “up and running.”  We set up some icebreakers and maybe a little retreat to make sure everyone knows each other, and then we shift our focus to what the team will be doing when it is fully-formed and functional.  We neglect to imbue our leadership with patience.  And, if we are not lifting up and modeling patience, it is almost certain that our team will not be, either.

But how can we lift up patience in a culture that, in general, is not good at waiting, that doesn’t like to wait, that prefers to lift up the results and downplay the time and effort it took to produce those results?  How do we make space for growth– messy, tiresome, difficult, and sometimes painful growth– without sacrificing attention to the real work that the team must do while it is in the long process of becoming?

In my work on and with teams, I have found that the way I talk about teams and teamwork can make a real difference in my own level of patience as well as in the attitudes I perceive in others. Some groups I have worked with are reluctant or simply unwilling to unpack the word “teamwork” or its appropriateness in their current context.  With these groups, I find that my tolerance for dysfunction is low; I forget to be patient with the learning process because there is no discussion of growth or progress. Other groups I have worked with talk about teamwork as the team’s work– the things that the group must create or do as a product of their collaboration– instead of as something that the team does for itself.  For these groups, teambuilding is a performance booster, a kind of “quick fix” rather than an extended process of maturation.

On the other hand, when I have the opportunity to dig in to the stages of group development with a team of people, the basic idea that groups develop in stages gives me a map that shows me where this group is on a longer path.  One of the tools that I use often is the “forming-norming-storming-performing” model.

Forming: the initial honeymoon phase, when everyone is happy but interpersonal connections are shallow.  Norming: clearly defined roles emerge (such as leader/follower), individuals are “known” by their roles, and deviation is not allowed. Storming: tensions and conflict arise, usually resulting from one or more individuals challenging the group’s “norms.” Performing: a team of individually committed individuals in roles that are defined but not rigid works confidently and with flexibility.

By talking with the group about these four stages, by linking their experiences to the different stages and illustrating how their team’s work, its productivity, creativity, and efficiency, will mature over time, my patience for their process increases and my threshold for frustration is raised.  Behaviors that, with another group, seem like dysfunction, become developmental milestones.  Each action that the group takes, each experience they have, is another step in an ongoing process of becoming.  A team does not– cannot— “perform” at its full potential or anything approximating it unless and until it has gone through the critical stages of forming, norming, and (yes) storming.  Established teams that have never really gone through a period of norming or storming are either not truly collaborating or not working at their full potential, or both.  And if you think your newly-formed group is performing very well, just wait and see what you are capable of doing in a few months.  Relish the time it takes to build, to make, to grow a truly phenomenal team.

Next week: generosity.

‘Tis the Season: Gratitude

(This post is 1 of 3 in a special series about lessons of the holidays for teams and team leaders.)

Consider this an invitation to take the holidays into your work, with enthusiasm and sincerity.  I know, I know– the holidays are everywhere, it seems, and it’s tempting to just shut them out.  But beneath all that tinsel and smooth jazz, behind all those glitter-snow displays, there are some big and important ideas (no matter what religious or cultural traditions you observe): gratitude, patience, generosity.  For team members, and especially for team leaders, spending some time and energy on these three things can reap tremendous benefits in terms of happiness and productivity… and who doesn’t want that wrapped up in shiny paper with a big red bow on top? This week I’ll focus on GRATITUDE.

Gratitude

In my mind, the “holidays” start with Thanksgiving, a national holiday (in the US) focused in principle on being thankful for what we have.  Although it doesn’t get as much press as gratitude, humility goes hand in hand with gratitude– both arise from a recognition that no one, no matter how great she is, really works alone.  Our work is made possible by the work of others, who have different interests, different strengths, and different resources.

With regards to gratitude, team leaders have three different but interrelated kinds of responsibility to their teams. First, a team leader needs to look inward and develop humility and gratitude within himself.  Contrary to the well-worn maxim that “there is no ‘I’ in team,” all the most important stuff about working with a team and especially about leading a team begins with the individual.  Before you can express gratitude, before you can encourage expressions of gratitude in others, you must develop it in yourself. Many teams (in the workplace and outside of it) have more than one leader, sometimes of different kinds– a “first among equals” named leader on the team, 2 or 3 team members with leadership skills who informally step up to lead the team, or a supervisor / facilitator / mentor not formally on the team who oversees the team’s work, or a boss or supervisor who is considered “on the team” but is not on equal footing with the other team members.  If you are in one of these leadership positions, it is all too easy catch yourself overestimating the role of your own talent and hard work in your leadership, to overlook the support you have received from others and the complex interdependence of a team and its leader.  Most of your team members have been or are now leaders in other groups, even if they are not a leader in this one; your leadership depends as much on their permission, their willingness to recognize you as a leader, as it does on any skills you possess or official position you might hold. They honor you by recognizing your strengths or your authority; honor them by being grateful they are choosing to play on your team.

As the team leader cultivates gratitude and humility in herself, she can model ways to live her humility and express her gratitude in the context of her team’s work.  Some of the most important ways to do this are also the simplest– learning and using names, noting individual strengths and contributions, and saying “thank you” in private and public communications.  Simple though they may be, they are often overlooked as being trifling, “cheesy,” or worse, disingenuous. But team members look to the leader, sometimes unconsciously, for cues about what kind of interactions and conversations are allowed and expected.  If the leader does not make time to thank individuals, subteams, and the whole team, for ordinary and extraordinary contributions to the team’s work, the team members likely will neglect to do so as well.  If you have developed genuine humility in yourself but actually saying “thank you” still feels stiff or awkward, express your gratitude more organically by noting individuals– learn and use names, call out specific details of their work for praise, and acknowledge what makes both the individual and her work unique.  If you want to go even deeper in modeling gratitude, build your understanding of how leaders are interdependent with other team members into your discussions of the team’s work, and acknowledge that the role of the leader is not more important or more valuable than the roles that other team members might play.

As he models expressions of humility and gratitude, the team leader can also look for ways to cultivate and encourage these characteristics in the team’s interactions within and as a team.  If the leader is doing the hard work of cultivating honest humility in himself, and if he is finding ways to express gratitude comfortably and authentically, the team will follow his example in their interactions with each other.  Encourage and reward expressions of gratitude when they occur, and create opportunities for them.  Some settings will feel more comfortable for this kind of activity– asking a team to thank their co-workers or otherwise express gratitude may seem awkward at the end of your weekly (or even monthly) meeting, but will fit more naturally as the team completes a major project or reaches a milestone, as part of a retreat or training outside of the their normal context, or at team events that have a social or informal component, like a holiday party.  Some teams, depending on both the individual team members and the team’s purpose or mission, will be comfortable with a “check-in” or “check-out” component of team meetings.  If you are leading such a team, choose a topic for check-in/check-out that shifts focus outward: instead of asking individuals to share something about themselves, ask them to share something they appreciate about someone else on the team.  Cultivate humility by encouraging your team to look around and see their place in the team, and the team’s place in the larger world.  Name the reasons your team exists, the impact your team wants to have on the world, and name the people on whom your team depends and who depend on your team. Encourage gratitude by inviting them to express appreciation, to see and then to name the value in someone other than themselves.

Next week: the value of PATIENCE for leaders and their teams.

Risk / Reward

“Tell us your name, and then tell us about someone in your life who has died.”

I was co-facilitating a small group discussion at my church this past weekend — part of a small group ministry in which our large congregation is organized into small groups of 8-12 people who meet monthly with trained peer facilitators, who are also members of the small group.  Each group meeting starts with a “check-in” — each person is invited to tell the group how he is doing, sometimes with a prompt or question.  This was our group’s second meeting, and most of us did not know each other before we became part of the small group… which is to say that this question– my question– was, in effect, our first ice-breaker.

A few years ago, I never would have done that.

Asking people to talk about someone in their lives who has died was intense for a group of near-strangers, and I knew that.  It happened that this group was meeting on the day after Halloween, on All Souls’ Day, and that the next day our church would be honoring in our weekly services our ancestors and others who have died, so the question was appropriate to the  context.  But still.  It was intense, and I was not at all sure that the group would accept my challenge to risk greatly, to share a part of themselves that we often do not share with anyone but our most intimate friends and our paid-to-be-detached therapists and counselors.  As it turns out, they did accept the challenge, and it allowed us to begin the rest of our conversation for our two hour meeting with an extraordinary amount of honesty and openness.  The reservations and hesitations that are normal– and natural!– as a small group seeks to “go deep” with one another were still present, but they were quickly moved past.  This group of near-strangers, committed to meeting regularly for the next eight months, was sharing at a level that we normally see among old and established friends.

When I first began facilitating, I was taught to structure a session progressively– to begin by inviting people to risk a little bit, then ask them to risk a little bit more, and a little bit more, until they are ready to risk what can feel, relatively, like a lot.  The payoff for a group that works its way up to greater emotional risk is greater emotional reward– more trust founded in shared experience and real-world understanding of how the group works, and a broader vision of what the group might be capable of doing and doing well.  When I train facilitators, I teach them to structure a session this way, too, so that participants have time to warm up, to each other and to the process.  I encourage facilitators to start with names and an easy mixer question, progress to a light challenge, and work their way up to a high challenge activity.  This structure encourages “buy-in” by allowing participants to see and experience the emotional safety of the activity and the group.  More importantly, it gives the facilitator plenty of opportunity to observe the group in action, the better for her to make choices about the type and level of challenge that will best serve the group for the rest of the session.

When I had been facilitating teambuilding sessions for about five years, I had the opportunity to work for the University of Michigan Challenge Program,  a year-round outdoor course that served a wide range of clients with a roster of about 35 part-time facilitators.  It was a great experience in many ways, and I encourage anyone who is seriously interested in teambuilding and experiential education to spend some time on a full-time course like that.  As a facilitator new to that facility, I went through their training and picked up all kinds of great things for my “bag of tricks,” but even better was the chance to co-facilitate with a whole range of different people, each with her own style and favorite activities, throughout the season.  One of the things that I started noticing was that the more experienced facilitators were often willing to start off with a bang, so to speak– to begin with a high challenge activity, sometimes (and this really blew my mind) even before reviewing names and having the group members  “get to know” each other.

This “jump right in” high-risk approach wasn’t right for every group, but the more I saw it play out, the more I could see how, for the right group in the right session, it could lead to quite a moving experience for our clients.  When chosen appropriately and done safely, starting out high challenge– inviting people early on to put themselves out there with what seems like a high risk– gives you and the group a head start on the work that you can do in one session.  It sends a message to the group that your expectations for them and the quality of their experience are high, and that you already believe in their ability to perform at that high level.  It allows you to engage more deeply and more quickly with the specific teambuilding work that this team needs in this moment.

When I began trying it for myself, I began to notice something else.  My own tendency as a facilitator and as a team leader was (and still is) to underestimate other people’s openness to risk, to be overly guarded on their behalf.  There is something worthwhile in that, to be sure.  By erring on the side of caution, I am less likely to alarm or even alienate people who are working with me.  But I am also less likely to provide them with the challenges they deserve, the challenges they need to stretch and grow.  How often have I missed opportunities for individuals or a group to achieve meaningful success by not asking them to take meaningful risks?  I’ve been surprised by how people rise to the challenge instead of shying from it.

What “Team Players” Do

Anyone who has ever had the concept of “team player” invoked in a performance review or rejection letter knows how maddeningly non-specific it is. Of course, it is true that some people use “not a team player” as euphemism for a person who is not liked or who, it is thought, doesn’t “fit in” to the dominant culture of the organization. In these cases, the weakness of the “team” lies not with the individual but with the other members of the team, who are unwilling or unable to get past superficial interpersonal differences.

Sometimes, too, “not a team player” is used as code for a collection of traits, habits, or behaviors that range from annoying to inappropriate but fall short of being actionable (from an HR point of view). And, of course, there are some people in leadership positions who expect that a “team player” is someone who follows orders, promotes the “party line,” and will set aside her or his own needs and desires for the good of the leader, which is usually called “the team.” In these cases, the weakness of “the team” usually lies with the poor management or leadership.

More often than not, however, when someone is told that he or she is “not a team player”– even when the person giving the feedback or review does not have a clear sense of what the problem is and uses the phrase “not a team player” as an ambiguous catch-all– there is something to it other than euphemism or code. It is another way of saying that an individual is acting like (or coming across as) a “Lone Wolf,” unable or unwilling to adjust priorities, strategies, or perspective to accommodate the work of those around him.  And these are habits that can, with time and practice, be changed.  So, what does a “Team Player” do that a “Lone Wolf” does not?

The Team Player understands how the success of the team is his own success.

For a group of individuals to become an effective and productive team, each member needs to prioritize the work of the team. But, every individual is going to bring his own goals and priorities to the job– and that’s normal, even healthy.  The Team Player understands not just that the team’s success is his own success, but how and why.  He has clarified his individual aspirations and is aware of how these aspirations depend on other people and how they impact other people.  More specifically, he sees how the people on his team are positioned to help him realize his individual goals, how he cannot succeed if they do not succeed.  The interconnectedness of the team’s success and the individual’s success is not merely a mantra or an empty platitude for the Team Player– it is a deep understanding of one’s own work in context.

The Team Player takes the time and effort to know the other members of her team, their skills and expertise, their working styles, and their strengths and growing edges relative to the rest of the team.

Even the most skilled Team Player cannot change the behavior or attitude of other members of the team– teams are always made of a bunch of individual “I”s, each one responsible for her own choices and work.  What the Team Player can do is make the effort to understand the other members on the team such that she can position herself, her strengths, and her interests, among them.  Because she knows her teammates, their skills, and their expertise, the Team Player can take the lead in areas of her own strength, provide support and assistance in areas of shared strength, and “apprentice” herself to others in areas she wishes to grow.  Because she knows her teammates as individuals and as whole persons, she can offer the encouragement, challenge, or support for them to do their best work.  Because she knows her teammates’ working styles, she does not need to demand that this team work in the same way as other teams.

The Team Player sees situations from other people’s points of view, and acknowledges that his own perspective is limited.

This goes hand in hand with the one above: the better you know your teammates, the better you are able to see things from their point of view.  Not only does “shifting perspective” help the Team Player to be nimble when facing the unexpected, it helps him communicate more effectively with his teammates and earn their confidence.  By making a habit of considering perspectives other than his own, the Team Player builds strong interpersonal bonds with his teammates– he deepens his understanding of his team as individuals and as a group, and others see him as someone who “understands” them, their priorities, and their concerns.

and…

The Team Player meets her individual commitments and completes her assigned tasks well and on time.

Most of what a team accomplishes is not done with people sitting in the same room or on the same conference call. Team work usually looks like individual work, except that the team is committed to opening work-in-progress to collaborative review and possibly redirection at key points in the process. If a team member is not completing her individual work, or if she is not doing it as well as she could, the team’s progress is hindered.

How do you measure up?  Do you think like a Team Player or a Lone Wolf?

“Not A Team Player”

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was turned down for a mid-level leadership position at a not-for-profit organization.  Two things stung about this particular rejection: 1) I had years of experience working for similar organizations, which was unusual in that field, and 2) I had actually worked at this organization about five years previously.  The director hiring for the position told me that he and his colleagues (some of whom I had worked with five years previously) did not feel I was a “team player,” which I thought was particularly amusing because one of my specialized skill sets was teambuilding and small group experiential education facilitation.

I went on to land a very similar position at a very similar organization with which I had a very happy and productive relationship for a number of years, overseeing, among other things, the teambuilding and small group facilitation components of their program.  It is tempting, when I think about that long-ago rejection, to tell myself that passing me over was “their loss” or even to imagine that someone used the hiring process to settle some unknown petty grudge.  But then again, as my understanding of team work and team building has broadened and deepened over the years, every once in a while I think of that rejection and ask myself: “am I really a ‘team player’?  What does ‘being a team player’ even mean?”

I’ll probably never know the whole truth about that rejection.  It is almost certain that differences in personality and leadership style– known from my previous experience at that organization– played into that individual’s assessment of my potential to work well on their leadership team.  And, as frustrating as may be to lose an opportunity based on “personality,” it is also true that the mix of personalities and styles that make up a team can be critical to that team’s effectiveness.  It could very well have been the case that my style and personality was either duplicated on or at odds with the team that organization already had in place– in other words, I was not a good “fit” for reasons outside of my skill set and expertise.  But, not being a good fit for that particular team, or even a particular organization, is a different thing than not being a “team player” overall.

The more relevant issue, I think, had to do with my previous experience at this organization.  When I worked with them five years previously, I was, unsurprisingly, five years younger and five years less experienced.  As a new employee, I was unable– and, to be fair, a little unwilling– to step back and look at the big picture of how this specific organization did what they did and why.  Instead, I was so concerned with putting my expertise to good use and helping the organization see how it might do things better that I did not stop to see the organization and its culture how others saw it.  I now understand how fundamental the ability to see things from someone else’s point of view is to working together with her or him.

In the intervening five years, I gained breadth in my professional experience that I had previously lacked, as well as maturity.  I had also, incidentally, begun my work in small group facilitation, which had given me a much deeper and more nuanced understanding of how individuals come together as a team.  Contrary to how the term is used (i.e. “you ARE a team player” or “you are NOT a team player”), a team player is not so much what one is so much as it is what one does.  A team player sees a situation as her colleagues see it without compromising her own perspective.  A team player accepts the situation on its own terms rather than starting out by trying to make it into something it is not.  And I would like to think that a team player, when she is told that she is not a “team player,” recognizes that there might be something to it.  Take your lessons onward.

 

 

Challenge by Choice

Possibly one of the very first concepts I was taught as a young facilitator was “Challenge By Choice.”  Even before I was certified to facilitate, I was already familiar with “Challenge By Choice.”  It means, in a nutshell, that no one will be forced, pushed, or coerced into doing something she or he doesn’t want to do– and no one will be taunted, shamed, or belittled for choosing not to do it.

Yes.  “Challenge By Choice” is that.  But it’s not just that.

“Challenge By Choice” is, on the one hand, a positive statement of a principle that is at the core of the kind of experiential education that I do– an approach that, by virtue of both my training and my personal inclination, is strongly influenced by an organization called “Project Adventure.”  At the same time, it is also a negative statement of what this kind of experiential education is not.  The phrase was coined at least in part to differentiate this approach, the Project Adventure approach, from other approaches that might look similar in terms of what kinds of activities they do and where they do them, but which are actually very different in how and why these activities are done.  Programs like Project Adventure and Outward Bound are known for their use of challenges and wilderness or outdoor settings, but they are sometimes confused with military-style training or so-called “tough love” wilderness experiences for troubled youth.  So the phrase came to mean that the facilitator of these activities is associated, at least loosely, with the Project Adventure approach.

Yes.  “Challenge By Choice” is that.  But it’s also more.

Most of my early work as a facilitator was done on outdoor “low ropes” courses.  The bulk of my own training and the training that I do for other facilitators also has taken place on outdoor courses.  For people who are not accustomed to spending time outside– in the heat or cold, in the sun or rain, in the bugs (!)– the setting itself can be uncomfortable.  Essentially, a formal course consists of a set of built elements, usually no higher than six feet off the ground and typically much lower than that.  Teams are given challenges or problems to solve using the built elements as tools or as obstacles.  What differentiates the “low ropes” or “teambuilding” elements from the “high ropes” elements is the fact that typically the low ropes do not use any kind of external restraint or support– the facilitator and other group members provide the support and protection.  Although everything is “low” to the ground– and the danger of injury is typically also quite “low”– it can still be quite scary.  So “Challenge By Choice” means that if you are uncomfortable or frightened by the setting for today’s activities, that will be respected.

Yes. “Challenge By Choice” is that.  But it’s also much, much, so much more.  “Challenge By Choice” is itself a challenge, one that extends beyond the course and even beyond teamwork.

It is, of course, a promise by a facilitator to her clients: I will not force you to do something that you don’t want to do. It is also a responsibility: you are responsible for choosing a way to participate in this group and its activities that will be both challenging for you and challenging in the right way.  It is a call to participation, to action, to “buying-in” and investing in the teambuilding process.

It is, of course, a commitment from the individuals on the team to each other: I will not taunt or belittle you for choosing not to do something you don’t want to do.  It is also a reminder: everyone you love, everyone you work with, everyone you encounter has a different experience of what is “comfortable” and what is challenging.  It is a call for respect, for patience, for pausing before passing judgment.

Perhaps most radically, “Challenge By Choice” is an invitation.  It is an invitation to choose challenge over comfort, as you are ready.  It is an invitation to make yourself ready for the next challenges that the world puts in your path.  It is an invitation to seek out– to go in search of and to embrace– situations that challenge you in the right ways, tasks that require you to learn and practice new ways of doing and being, problems that ask just a little more of you than you think you are able to give.  It is an invitation to take full responsibility for your own journey through the world, and to honor your fellow travelers by recognizing that only they can know where they need to go and what next step is right for them.