Build a
Tower, Build a Team
The
leadership role is being transformed because of the increasing importance of
team’s in today’s organization. Research on effective organizations shows that
more and more organizations are relying on the team approach to managing (Brown,
2011).
Wujec
(2010), on his short presentation, talk about the marshmallow challenge, created
by Peter Skillman. The purpose of Wujec was to analyze the performance of
different types of individual and teams in a simple activity that reveals a lot
of aspects of a groups and teams. One of the Wujec’s conclusion is that
kindergartners perform better than MBA students. The reason inferred by the
author is that simplicity has a powerful note on teamwork. Partially I agree
with Wujec because I believe that facing simple situations in a complex way
tends to turn simplicity into complexity. The reason I agree partially is
covered also by the author when he touches base on the preparation aspect. When
a task is given in advance, allowing team to discuss and collaborative find
solutions the outcome tends to change, and MBA students prove to be also great
performers.
Another
reason I believe kids perform better is because they get less distracted by external
aspects when they have a task in hand. Kids at this age does not have ego; does
not worry with status; and they have no agenda when an activity of this level
is presented to them. It brings back that simplicity, not only in a technical
scope but behavioral speaking, also plays a role on the positive outcome of a
situation at hand.
Wujec’s
mentions that group of CEOs alone has a lower performance in comparison of CEOs
with an executive assistant, due to the assistant’s holistic perspective. Although
I agree with Wujec, I also believe there are other aspects that influences the
better results. One of them is the fact the assistant, in a situation like this,
plays as mediator, due to the CEOs probable similar traits. When CEOs are alone
there is a high probability of clash in personalities, agendas and leadership
traits. Another aspect is the fact that the assistant probably has a simpler
mind, which goes in liaise with the kindergartners results: simplicity is
crucial for simple challenges. Last, but not least, the assistance brings the
technical collaboration to the “table”. CEOs tend to think in larger scopes and
far forward, while assistants deal with technicalities more often.
If I were asked to facilitate a process intervention
workshop, I would relate the balance of skills from the participants on the
activities. For instance, I would initially put teams with same background and
formal position to work together, and right afterwards I would separate them
and build teams as diverse as possible. The purpose of this design would be to
present to the participants how collaborative diversity is powerful and how all
members contribute to the outcome of the results, independently on how high-skilled
they are. This balance on the team’s structure would be brought up also on how
systems and subsystem are interrelated as presented by Brown (2011), in the
same way people are interdependent.
Jody
Rogers (n.d.) presents follow-up questions to ask of the group to facilitate
discussion and further learning, which I believe could be used if I were asked
to facilitate a process intervention workshop. The questions suggested by
Rogers are:
- Was there a leader on your team? Who was it and who decided who the leader would be?
- If you had no leader, do you think having designated someone a leader would have helped?
- If you had a leader, how did he/she do? Of the leadership practices we have learned so far, which did your leader use?
- How helpful was everyone on your team in challenging the process of building the tallest structure? Did anyone appear to be an expert?
- Did any team members tune out of the activity — out of frustration with other members or for some other reason? What could you have done to keep all members of the group fully engaged?
- Did you feel everyone's ideas were well received during the activity?
- How did you feel as the time limit was approaching? Did pressure increase? If yes, was that helpful or not?
- In retrospect, what could you have done better to enhance your ability to Challenge the Process?
- Did you practice outsight? Where might new ideas have come from given your time constraint?
- Did you celebrate small wins? If yes, how did you do this?
The main learning outcome of this exercise, for me, is
how bottom-line employees can contribute to challenges. Their lack of knowledge
and of broader perspective can, in fact, be a positive aspect to solve challenges.
In my current job I can bring the team together more often to make basic
decisions, empowering and delegating decision making. In my career, specially
the one I intend to pursue, I can make use of the same or similar challenges to
work on team building and observe group
tasks and maintenance task on individuals, not only to reinforce participants strengths
but to assist on the diagnosis of team problem and potential, through
observation.
References
Brown, D.R. (2011). An
experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Rogers, J. (n.d.). Challenging
the process with the Marshmallow Challenge. Retrieved from http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/resource/challenging-the-process-with-the-marshmallow-challenge.aspx
Wujec, T. (2010,
February). Build a tower, build a team. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower
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