More Truth about Teams!

Since my last post there has been a barrage of great responses, not only on this blog site but also on various networks as well as personal email. A big thank you to everyone for your thoughtful responses as they started a real discussion and demanded more thought.

The responses can be roughly divided in two categories:

1. the importance of equal participation and inclusiveness, and
2. a focus on what needs to be done, the purpose, and how to align everyone with that.

Historically, teams are a relatively new phenomenon. There wasn’t much like it back in our parent’s age – perhaps an Olympic team, a string quartet or the Apollo missions were early manifestations, but in the workplace it was command and control and rigid, firm hierarchies. Even when I first started working a straight job in the 90’s in the Amsterdam Harbour (which admittedly was a very traditional environment) there was no such concept as a team.

To begin with, I want to do more justice to the existence of teams. They have emerged as a result of the greater freedom and egalitarian approach that came with the pluralistic worldview, now typical for the Western world. Bottom-up approaches, the inclusive workplace, personal development, mutual understanding and respect are the great achievements of the second half of the 20^th Century.

At the same time I don’t see them as a purpose in themselves. If we make a climate of mutual understanding and bottom-up empowerment the goal, we could end up in those mushy situations in which we’re caught in endless meetings, satisfying a requirement for the job-review, but not being at the top of our creativity, and therefore possibly resentful and in perennial conflict with the most creative drive in ourselves – and with our colleagues. Because what is the team there to do? What is my right to self-expression worth if it inadvertently creates an environment that stifles my ability to act on my own creative drive?

What I’m pushing into is something beyond the phenomenon of teams – something that is being enabled by our capacity to listen, share, understand and make space for each other – but that takes us beyond ourselves into a possibility that none of us can imagine or manifest by ourselves. Here are a few great responses that I think point into this direction:

“What I found key is the individual purpose and/or motivation should be aligned and catalyzed by the collective. Individual should be in the center but grounded in the collective big-picture. (…) The magic seems to be in kick-starting the individual fire, by finding and highlighting to the collective the unique contribution of each individual in the team. (…) And we compete by shaping the diamond in so more perfect angles together.” (Daniela Micodin in Vienna)

“… we are exploring how we demonstrate collective intelligence beyond ego by acting out of our authentic selves as we work together. (…) The key challenge: how to inspire individual genius within collective wisdom to create collective genius!” (Robin Wood in Perpignan)

“However, I firmly believe that it’s worth the effort to try to make [teams] work, by dealing with the many issues you illuminate [...]. When you address head-on the varying levels of capacity, ego, territorial concern in an open, safe and supportive atmosphere [...] you can emerge with something quite amazing and beyond anyone’s furthest imagination of what is possible.” (Nadine Hack in New York)

What I find so strong in these responses is the inherent balance between the personal and the collective, the interior and the exterior, the individual needs and the collective purpose. There is a climate of understanding, respect, trust, bottom-up empowerment – but it is a climate in which empowerment serves a strong collective drive, respect and understanding enable the facing of ego-issues, and trust shifts competition from individual dominance to collective excellence.

I know from my own experience that this balance is the hardest thing to achieve, but the most amazing and satisfying thing we can do in a lifetime. I’ve been in situations that were as close to perfect as humanly possible (Nadine knows this as she beautifully guided me in it and showed me many things about myself!) and was utterly challenged to embrace the possibility of a higher emergence. Despite my enthusiasm for this emergence, I struggled and at some point failed to embrace it when I needed to – but it taught me the real human growth that this takes.

Why is that? The creative force we can unleash by going beyond our mundane, superficial relationships is stronger than we are, we can’t control it, it takes over from us. The more you let go, the more there is to give. It’s a bit like this: the more money you put in the bank, the greater your debt. Now if there’s anything you want to keep for yourself, that’s an unattractive scenario. But if you want to give everything to what stirs your passion, it’s the best thing you could ever do. And if you not only see your peers flourish in doing the same but experience yourself the exhilarating power of collective emergence, you have entered a new way of being.

So that’s a very different way to work. There are some inspiring examples of team emergence – I recently read the story of the handful of Open Source volunteers who saved the Internet when something went badly wrong – without official positions, without anyone taking a lead; for two hours they laboured to get it back on track, just because they felt called to do it. And they needed money nor glory in return – there were no job-reviews.

Here’s my hunch: the whole thing about Team Players is only the beginning. It was the act of putting on our skates – now we have to start skating! And whoever has ever had the pleasure of skating on natural ice (as a Dutch girl, I grew up with that), you know that skating alters your perception of the possible, particularly when you do it together and bolster each other’s courage; the ice may crack, you may not know how to stop, but you have that exhilarating sense of freedom and possibility – an expanded understanding of your own destination.