The Big Bang Theory of Teambuilding and Leadership or
Listen Up!
Teambuilding
is Not an Unnatural Act
Successful teams and
teamwork at work should be as easy and natural as
breathing, walking and talking—shouldn’t
they?
Yes, they should but all of us hear about
people having difficulty with some teams at work, or a
particular team that is stuck. And we sometimes wonder:
“Why the difficulty with teams at
work?—it’s not as if being on a team or a
part of great teamwork is an un-natural act, is it? Every
day, outside of work, we see people, talking and
listening, making plans about changing things. Every day,
the newspapers, radio, and television are filled with
examples of teams—good and bad—teams from
NASCAR racing, football, baseball, rowing, even
orchestras and bands are teams. So, the question is,
“are teams natural or not?”
To answer that question, a few years ago
Canadian researcher Gervase Bushe and his colleagues
reported their research* on forming and empowering teams.
They found—what we all hoped to be
true—everyone can work on teams successfully
whether they volunteer or are assigned. So, teamwork at
work is not an un-natural act—good. Then why do so
many people still seem to have more difficulty with it
than we would expect? What’s the problem? In search
of an answer, we remembered that for ten years or more,
we have been hearing about two brothers, who present
themselves as Quiet Riot, who have had good success at
helping people “get over” stuck or
unconnected teams. Recently we talked with one half of
Quiet Riot, Bill Mettler (David Mettler is the other
half—the quiet half; Bill is the riot half of Quiet
Riot). Talking with Bill, we learned, anew, that although
listening is natural, it is not always done well or
attentively. And we relearned that wanting to be
“heard” and “being heard” are
power packed issues for each and all of us. Read on and
“listen up” to this dialogue on teams and
teamwork.
* More information on teams and
empowerment: Gervase Bushe, Stephen Havlovic, and Graeme
Coetzer, "Exploring Empowerment From the
Inside–Out," The Journal for Quality &
Participation, March 1996.
NFC: I have this great picture of you
holding up a "soft" planet earth. What do you use it for?
What does it illustrate?
Mettler:
That is a part of our most important story. We call it
the "story of the universe." It’s a story about our
earth from the first bang—the first explosion of
hydrogen up to the unfolding of the human brain and our
consciousness. The purpose is to show our interconnection
with the universe, with the natural world, and with one
another. It’s an introduction to the idea of
interdependence—the new value for the new paradigm.
And that has everything to do with teambuilding and
leadership, with appreciating diversity and
innovation—all of it.
NFC: When
you talk about people being interconnected, or connecting
folks as an important part of teamwork, what exactly are
you talking about?
Mettler:
When I take a look at a team or partnership, I see each
person as bringing in their own particular bag of tricks,
gifts, and attributes. My idea about supporting
leadership and teambuilding is to make a container or
make the environment of the team one of mutual regard, so
that those unique offerings can come out. An environment
with a minimal amount of judgment and a maximum amount of
eagerness to accept difference, because the difference
that every unique person offers is the answer to great
teamwork. When I’m talking about connecting people,
it’s with a respect that we show each other so that
these contributions can flow freely.
NFC: You
make a living asking people to have respect and regard
for each other when they talk to each other at work. Why
does having respect and regard for each other at work
seem to be such an unnatural act?
Mettler:
That’s actually a very good question. I like the
question. I was just talking with a friend of mine about
listening and about relationships. I was talking about my
wife and myself. We’ve been married for 31 years
and whenever we get in trouble with one another,
it’s usually a case of not listening. I notice that
I really have to be vigilant; to avoid formulating a
response while the other person is talking. I have to let
that go and just listen to what they’re saying
— and that is the ultimate gesture of
respect.
We all want to
be heard, to be seen and heard and our ideas respected.
So, if I am talking with someone and there’s no
assurance that I am being heard — the conversation
just bullets on to the next counterpoint — then
that fires up my counterproductive, competitive juices.
That’s where I want to be right rather than getting
in and solving the problem using both of our resources.
So, it definitely is a competitive-defensive
response.
NFC: So
you’re asking people to come together to be
productive and put aside some of their
competitiveness.
Mettler:
Yes, above all to just listen to each other when someone
has something to say. The best way you can help a group
become a high performance, innovative, agile team is to
help them know that they’re going to be heard and
heard well. Even disagreement, after being assured that
you have been listened to, is not quite such a bitter
pill to swallow because at least you’ve been heard
and you know your idea has been
considered.
NFC: Knowing
that you have “really” been heard can be as
important as having your idea or plan accepted. Can you
share an example of “being heard” from your
work with groups?
Mettler: We
were doing a workshop in Montreal. I told a very emotive
story about not being seen for who I was, and how that
changed me. A very athletic-looking, senior executive
told my brother, in an exercise after, “I
don’t feel very close to what your brother, Bill,
said about how he had been overlooked and disregarded. I
feel like I’ve been very lucky and I don’t
see the need for all this emotional stuff. What I try to
do is help along the junior managers that come in that
didn’t get as good a break as I have…and I
try to mentor them.”
David is listening to this, then he does what
we were asking partners to do in the exercise. David
says, “So Roger what I hear you saying is that you
feel really lucky, that you got some good breaks and you
were excellent in sports and were always included, that
you were popular, and you look around you and you see
that some folks aren’t as fortunate as you.”
And Roger starts to tear up a little bit. His bottom lip
is quivering and David says, “So your response to
this is that you want to help these guys along, you want
to give them the same kind of breaks that you had. People
helped you and you’re passing that on, you’re
helping them.” Roger’s wiping away the tears
coming down his cheek. He says, “Yeah, I guess
there is something to this emotional stuff. You heard me
exactly. That’s exactly what I said.” Just
the act of being listened to, even with the most crusty
people who seem to have their say all the time, is very
powerful.
NFC: So,
step number one is modeling and creating exercises for
listening, or enabling people to be heard, because for
the people you’re working with listening is an
“unnatural act” at work?
Mettler:
Yes, that particular workshop is called “Enhancing
your Voice.” In a performance for a large group,
when there isn’t the opportunity for everyone to
pair up and go through the listening exercise, we do a
performance that uses William Glasser’s work. He
says there are four values or qualities that a good team,
a team of mutual regard and high performance, would have.
Those four qualities are:
• Belonging
• Choice
• Fun
• Respect
We tell
stories, or do theatre pieces around those four qualities
to illuminate them. To set them in the minds of the
audience so they can go away with them in their bones. We
emotionally charge each one of those presentations for
each of the values so that the retention is excellent and
people remember the feeling and the value.
When those four qualities are in place, it
makes for a team of goodwill where effective conflict
resolution can happen. Also, with the four qualities in
place, it’s a great container for creativity. A
team with those four values is most responsive to change
and can work like a polished team of bricklayers to
accomplish the job that’s in front of
them.
NFC: How do
you try to ensure that what is learned doesn’t end
up being like jelly nailed to a wall…after a few
days what you’ve learned starts to slide down the
walls of your mind and you can’t remember what the
instructor said or did, or what you should
do?
Mettler: One
thing that sticks in people’s minds (we’ve
been told long after we’ve gone through) is our
temperaments work. We do that in conjunction with things
about choice. We use a four-temperament model that we
have adapted, or changed from its original form over
time. I act out all four of the temperaments after the
audience has had a chance to take a written exercise to
figure out which is their dominant temperament. The four
temperaments we use are:
• Director
• Integrator
• Communicator
• Thinker
They learn
what it is that they’re after most of the
time—the thing that they need. If they’re a
Director, they need control, or they’re after
control. If they’re an Integrator, their challenge
is taking a stand on an issue rather than always being
the facilitator or negotiator. If they’re a
Thinker, they see that they need data and time to write
their interview or whatever they’re doing. If
they’re a Communicator, their contribution to the
team is that they see the big picture and they get
excited about the possibilities for the team.
People get to see that each temperament
offers something unique and each one has the best
strategy to relate to. And each has their particular
challenge. What makes those memorable is that people
remember watching me act them out, taking the test. That
sticks with people because they get to figure it out
first on paper, then they see the kinesthetic solution,
and they get a little wheel that summarizes the types to
take with them.
NFC: When
you get up in the morning, after 23 years of doing this
work, are you still excited by your work? You sound as if
you are—are you?
Mettler: I
am. I have a passion about where we are in time right
now. We are in a great transition time. The entire human
family is in transition and I think it is the most
exciting time to be alive.
NFC: Do you
think this is like being in Renaissance Italy—the
best and worst all at once?
Mettler:
Yes. Look, we have this superb technology that has
brought us unprecedented comfort and it has also pushed
us seriously close to ecological catastrophe. This
technology that has given us both comfort and a perilous
position has given us lenses to see into the natural
world on a macro or micro perspective in a way that was
never possible before. Our scientific culture is
beginning to see the interconnections between everything.
Mystics have been talking about those interconnections
for eons but now we can empirically see the connections.
It is really exciting to be involved with this shift in
consciousness.
NFC:
Let’s go back to listening for a bit. Why do you
think it is so important to teamwork?
Mettler: The
reason why we offer a workshop in listening is that
listening cuts through all four of the qualities a team
needs. The belonging, choice, fun, and respect. When
people feel free to voice their hunches or voice their
solutions or ideas, then the team is ultimately
resourceful.
In our show, we’re demonstrating how to
set up the most effective team possible. Our work is
about setting up the best container out of which that
work can move. If I were in one of those teams, the next
step beyond establishing mutual regard is sharing dreams.
That is, sharing your vision of what could be, and you
need good listening to do that.
NFC: Often,
when you go into a workplace it seems there is an
“invisible work culture sign” over the front
door that says “no emotion allowed inside,
focus,” those sorts of things. So you ask people to
share their vision or expose their feelings, their hopes,
but you’re “not supposed” to do that at
work?
Mettler: Ah,
that’s part of the listening exercise. We ask them
to tell the listener one thing that’s of importance
that has occurred to them in the last couple of
days—it can be from work or from home life or
whatever. This is after we have made a big deal about
listening and that the listener has the highest position
of honor, that it is a privilege to listen. Then, we tell
them they are going to be responsible for feeding back
what their partner tells them, and then they’re
going to switch roles. The result of knowing that they
will be switching roles is that they listen with
everything they’ve got.
It’s incredible afterwards. People will
say this is not—it’s like you were
saying—this is not like “work,” I
really felt respect. I felt like I’ve told this
person about something that was on my mind that has been
affecting my performance or has been needling me or
whatever. I’ve told this person and I was heard. In
the process, just in talking, I’m able to see the
next step. Or in his talking to me, I began to see
solutions to my own particular conundrums or
challenges.
October 2001 News for a
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