Teamwork, and "Where does your body end?"

Regenerative Culture Social Technology
#1

For various reasons I got to thinking about high-performing teams in the modern age, and our heritage as tribalists/extended-family-ists.

Though I work away and improving my team-building skills, I know that in all actuality, creating/synthesizing a team comes down to a pretty simple set of pressures and experiences.

Crisis creates a team, and the deeper the crisis, the more powerful the team.

Highly team-based organizations like Hotshots and Special Forces folks know this. You just grind away at the members of the team till they don’t know where their body ends and the other team members begin.

You can see this sometimes, in teams of folks who, when apart, have a kind of half-life…like an arm that has gone off and taken a job as a desk clerk while the rest of its body continues on as a garbageman, or something.

In a funny way, the team building social-technologies I use will never hold a candle to the fundamental experrience of a simple, powerful, life-threatening crisis.

I keep having images of men in my mind’s eye as I write this, so this may not apply to women (of our culture).

In any case, this ‘team’ notion, of not knowing where your body ends and the team begins, sounds a lot like a step towards animism, eh?

#2

Does the team building involve practice/rehearsal, so when the event occurs the team is ready to respond with much less thinking involved?
Is there a hierarchy or chain of command?
Can anarchists be part of teams?

Real questions, not challenges, just want to hear some thoughts.

The closest thing I have experienced is the old tree planting co-ops I used to be part of. Actually the kind of fluid team work where the crew worked as one entity only happened occasionally but it was really cool when it did and you could see that everybody felt how cool it was.

#3

They are at Food Not Bombs! It works terrifically.

(Granted, not all there identify as anarchist, but it’s run non-hierarchically.)

The skinny on FNB (or at least how it works in Seattle) is that we “salvage” food that would otherwise be wasted (we have developed relationships with some produce stands, farmers markets, food co-ops, etc). We take what we’ve got (which is often a lot) and make a meal out of it. We serve it to “whoever wants it” in the park, which generally means people whose home is the streets, but not always. (Sometimes curious middle-class-ish people wander in and end up eating and staying a while.) Usually there’s some kind of stew or soup, potatoes, green veggies, coffee or tea, bread, and donuts (this wonderful neighborhood donut bakery called “Mighty O” :slight_smile: donates their end-of-day donuts to us every week). Everyone takes different roles (some are food collectors, some are organizers, some are liasons/communicators, some are cooks, some are servers, some are clean-up crew) but nobody makes decisions for the group or is “in charge” in any way. Most people take on more than one role, but nobody could do every role (unless they had a lottt of free time on their hands).

As for me personally, I do some organizing/brainstorming (such as, how are we going to spend the money we fundraised?), serving, and cleaning up. I’d prefer to cook and collect food, but my schedule doesn’t permit.

#4

when you have two pieces of wood you want to fasten together with a bolt, you don’t necessarily need a drill, what you need is a hole.

it’s hard to verbally grind out self-interest because of all the cards we hold close to our chest. I try and build coalitions all the time. I have only had success in creating mutual self-interest, I have made no inroads in verbally eliminating self-interest, but I definitely see how it is done physically, and work with some groups who have, like americorps NCCC members, who do PT in the morning together.

any suggestions or thoughts on the things I’ve mentioned Willem or Billy?

#5

I just finished doing a show in which we (the five actors) took on all the roles of a production. Meaning, we all directed, we all produced, all acted, etc. It was very tough for a good portion of the rehearsal period. One of the actors didn’t learn his lines until a week before the show, I ended up having to put up more than half the budget, schedules hardly ever coincided for more than an hour rehearsal, etc. etc.

However, despite all the problems, and my pessimism about how well I figured the show would go, by the time “Hell week” hit, we brought it all together.

I agree with you Willem. A crisis does indeed strengthen the ties of a group. I think it has to do with individual and group goals becoming easily apparent in a crises. When you have the same goal as someone, it doesn’t matter how much you agree with them on things, you’ll simply get it done. And in the end, I’ve found that the relationship is strengthened because of it.

#6

having been part of some “high performing teams” and, sadly, more than one “disconnected, confused, negative productivity team”, it seems to involve more than simply a crisis. pressure can just easily drive wedges into a team as bring it together.

Ran posted this link a while back. if you can get through it, i think it has a lot of good advice for how to proceed in putting these together. i’m still in the process of digesting it myself, but i really do think that there’s some valuable insights that rewilders could use as we try to form strong, free, land-based tribes/communities.

#7

There’s a lot of good insights here.

TonyZ.'s idea about mutual self interest is important. That can be a fragile thing to maintain in an ad hoc group. I’ve found it easiest to do if the goals of the group are very focused and not allowed to be opened up to bigger pictures. Is that the best we can hope for? Is it possible for a group to operate as one body including the self-interest part? So that the group operates for the benefit of the whole body?

“When you have the same goal as someone, it doesn’t matter how much you agree with them on things, you’ll simply get it done. And in the end, I’ve found that the relationship is strengthened because of it.” Jordan

Yeah I’ve seen that happen.

“pressure can just easily drive wedges into a team as bring it together.” jhereg

Yeah I’ve seen that happen too.

Willem, you said, "In a funny way, the team building social-technologies I use will never hold a candle to the fundamental experrience of a simple, powerful, life-threatening crisis.

Could you talk about these social-technologies?

#8

I read a bit of it, and frankly it challenged my abiliity to keep my skepticism in check. The fellow seems to write as if in a vacuum…the Jerry Weinberg book he refers to as “the last thought on programmer’s psychology” had several sequels on the same subject written by Weinberg himself. In another part of the site he refers to Peter Senge’s ‘recent writings on the new paradigm of systems thinkings’, whereas Senge started writing on that fifteen years ago. This doesn’t necessarily discredit his ideas, of course, but it makes it difficult for me to read them.

Ironically, I myself have apprenticed to a teacher who mentors teamwork methodology as pioneered by software programmers, a methodology called “Agile Teams”. Searching under this or “agile teamwork” will uncover a small universe of knowledge and experimentation into collaborative and practical results-oriented models of working.

It disappoints me that Ran may not know about the Agile Teams renaissance (per his posting of a fairly isolated writer on teamwork).

I have to agree with you, that I look for team and community/social-technology insights wherever I can find them! It does seem odd that a bulk of my team technologies come from the high-tech business world.

#9

[quote=“heyvictor, post:7, topic:587”]Willem, you said, "In a funny way, the team building social-technologies I use will never hold a candle to the fundamental experrience of a simple, powerful, life-threatening crisis.

Could you talk about these social-technologies?[/quote]

Absolutely! As I mentioned in my reply to Jhereg, I use a mix of improvisational (“theater” games) and Agile Teamwork methods.

Check out wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development

A lot of these tools come down to such things as consistent short stand-up meetings (meetings so short you don’t need to sit down), simple and useful consensus decision making process (resting on the ‘consensus does not mean we all agree’ paradox), brainstorming methods, group/individual check-ins (one-word check-in, appreciations, puzzles, new information, complaints w/recommendations, hopes + wishes), iterative processes (i.e., every week may start with a planning session, proceed with daily stand-up meetings, and end with a retrospective on what happened, then repeat for the next week).

‘Retrospective’ refers to a more elaborate version of the ORID debrief model, “Observations, Reflections, Implications, Decisions”, the smaller version of which I use when debriefing classes at the close of a workshop, or any similar event.

Also throw in Open Space Gatherings/Rewild Camps.

Also throw in basic facilitation skills, such as keeping tabs on a group process, such as (when, say, someone stomps out of the room in a huff), saying “what just happened? did every one see that? can you explain it to me? and can we still proceed or do we need to resolve it?” kind of stuff.

And so on. I’ve really found that for the majority of folks I work with, traditional native models just don’t work. Modern urban people (and probably rural too, but I haven’t worked with them, so I can’t say) need lots of stepping stones to get to the point where they could even handle a ‘talking circle’ and such models.

Fortunely, the stepping stones exist a-plenty, and they work great.

And maybe this addresses Jhereg’s point about ‘sometimes crisis destroys a group too’, which I agree with. In the presence of useful team processes, I don’t think that will happen as much, if at all! But, well-facilitated teams, without a true, cut-to-the-bone crisis, will always remain marriages of convenience. They miss that true high-flying flavor of teams of our ancestral past (tribes), some teams in war (squads, etc.), some sports teams (underdogs that win the championship), and so on. These peak teams really harken to the most awesome parts of our humanity, I think.

#10

hmm. i’ve used some Agile methods in the past (and thought the results pretty good), i’m not sure it really helps build teamwork and/or teambuiding skills. it seems rather to leverage those pre-existing skills by getting those involved out of the usual stagnant corporate BS.

but, i readily admit i’ve only used the methods on a couple of projects, so i can’t really claim high expertise.

it may seem that way, but if you think about what it’s like to work on IT projects in corporate America…

well, if you haven’t had the pleasure, if we compare civilization to, say, an abusive parent, then working in corporate American is like having a speed-freak, steroid-pumped abusive parent. IT has never really fit well in this scene (ever hear “Managing programmers is like herding cats.”?). this has caused corporations (particularly high-tech corporations) to explore teamwork in an attempt to get “cats” to act like “cattle”.

actually, that’s why i liked Ran’s link, it seems to do the best job of explaining why IT mixes so poorly in the corporate setting that i’ve seen yet. and if we accept that corporations use the same techniques that civ uses to manipulate, control & dominate (only more so), then that explanation seems particularly useful to me.

oh, i completely agree that properly “gelled”/“high-performing”/whatever team requires crisis, i just wanted to point out that a crisis alone doesn’t provide a guarantee that people form such a group.

#11

[quote=“jhereg, post:10, topic:587”]hmm. i’ve used some Agile methods in the past (and thought the results pretty good), i’m not sure it really helps build teamwork and/or teambuiding skills. it seems rather to leverage those pre-existing skills by getting those involved out of the usual stagnant corporate BS.

but, i readily admit i’ve only used the methods on a couple of projects, so i can’t really claim high expertise.[/quote]

Hilarious! How cool that you’ve used Agile Methods. I think my problem (with talking about modern team-building methods) enters in when I try to distinguish Agile from other skills sets…they all kinda wash together as the “modern toolset” for non-hierarchical collaborative teamwork. For example, Open Space Technology does not at all intrinsically belong to Agile…an entirely different history and lineage gave birth to it.

I’d love to hear more about how you think Agile itself may not specifically build teamwork or teams themselves.

I’ve spoken more with my teams mentor and we arrived at a different space than when I started this thread.

High performing teams need a common goal with a sense of urgency, a communal decision that working as a team will accomplish that goal (which obviously doesn’t hold true for everything, like brushing one’s teeth), frequent and high-volume communication (I throw in agile methods etc. here), and a shared history consisting of a series of conflicts or challenges that the team has overcome.

In a crisis, one compacts an enormous amount of conflicts and challenges into a small period of time, thus creating the shared history.

However, just by hanging out for several years, a team could slowly build up a shared history of one small or large challenge after another. So ‘crisis’ just creates a short cut. The true power comes from a shared history, I think.

So a group of people experiencing a crisis in the absence of the other hallmarks of a high-performing team will then probably experience division/implosion rather than cohesion/enaction.

#12

actually, i think you summed it up well with this line:

looking back at the most “coherent” teams i’ve been on, what i note are: lack of ego, self-confidence, willingness to say ‘i don’t know’, willingness to participate in ‘pooling our ignorance to come up with a solution’, and a commitment to not just getting it done, but getting it done “with style”.

so, i think Agile methods work well when that’s in place and i can see how they could work okay to start building those abilities up if they’re not, but from my own experience, most people are quite willing to play that game as long as they’re given an honest chance to. that’s why i say, i think the biggest asset of Agile (or Open Source, for that matter) in the context of corporations (which is where i’ve mostly used Agile) is in getting people temporarily out of the hell to which they’re usually resigned by allowing them to say things like ‘i don’t know’ without getting their hands slapped for it.

#13
the fundamental experrience of a simple, powerful, life-threatening crisis

Everytime something pops up and exhales upon the posterior of my neck another icy reminder of the one waiting to drop the curtains and escort me backstage I feel a renewed sense of appreciation for what I have, for all I have yet to lose.

A bon vivant has an acute awareness of both sides of the coin and knows that like the yin-yang symbol, like waking and dreaming, they both have a bit of the other.

Part of me wants to say this reminds me of that flick where the Pitt makes tomorrows breakfast a bit more tasty in an unorthodox manner, part of me wants to say screw that flick and all the others. Low calorie snacks supplying a minor sating of the hunger for bold and challenging enterprise. Screw that flick and all the others because -“theater” games-, to use Willem’s alias for ritual, and let me know if I’ve missed the mark on that one, make for something interactive and thus much much more filling and fulfilling.

Why enact a myth? To set heads on fire with awe and evoke the -sense of urgency- which one needs to leave behind the “life is a bench and then you die” point of view, animate, and seek a pool of radiance. To awaken hidden, forgotten, neglected energies and endow shadows with substance. To kindle passions, to make what has turned to ash into blood again. To put the jungle back in the zoo and provide the retrograde shock needed to pull a lost soul out of the haze of learned helplessness. & to have fun. All kinds of fun.
:slight_smile: :wink: :smiley: ;D >:( :frowning: :o 8) ??? ::slight_smile: :stuck_out_tongue: :-[ :-X :-\ :-* :’(

–

‘Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
And being restrain’d it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.’

  • William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell