Lead, follow or control yourself

Aspiring leaders, check your ego at the door. Without vision, focus and hard work, the dominant person in the room isn’t the natural candidate for top dog.

The two dominant players in our DI team were absent from our meeting yesterday. The 90 minutes that followed were some of the most enjoyable we’ve had in the group in a while.

That’s good news and bad. In the good news column, the feeling of relief among the four team members in attendance was palpable.

Back in November it was clear to me that we had two girls who were naturally inclined to dominate the group for different reasons. One was the outspoken clown. The other was disciplined and organized. It created an undercurrent of conflict.

My theory is, if these girls had shared the same characteristics as well as dominance, they might have join forces. Instead, their differences set them at odds.

Unfortunately, the disciplined one quickly showed signs of frustration that her teammates preferred their “fun” teammate to her. She withdrew from the battle for attention by missing meetings. In fact, she’s missed often enough that she could be asked to leave the team.

Meanwhile, the clown became the center of attention. Without the other girl as a strong rudder,  the clown constantly drew the team off task, leading through her dominance in the wrong direction.

A successful leader is more than the person who draws the most fans or dominates the conversation. True leaders must not only have those dynamic qualities that attract people to them. A leader must have the discipline to focus on necessary steps and work deliberately toward the goal, bringing the team with her.

On Friday, our smaller group enjoyed themselves, but it was not as productive. There was less of a creative spark without our idea girl. And there was less discipline without our organizing force.

I’ve struggled over what to say to our withdrawn natural leader about her absence record until this morning. Now I know, it’s time to talk to her, to affirm her abilities and invite her to take the reigns.

Teams are cultivated, not selected

Five tween girls and one tween boy for ten hours with fifteen movies… creative purgatory.

Despite the apparent odds we’d kill each other, this was a hoot. On two days over winter break I had the Destination Imagination team over to watch ten- to thirty-minute clips from each of twelve film genres, complete with pizza, popcorn, cookies, all the goodies.

One goal was research. Their D.I. challenge requires that they make an improvised presentation in the style of three film genres. To encourage flexibility and resourcefulness,  the final three will be selected randomly at competition from a group of six genres the group chooses to research.

We had discussed genres as a group in past meetings, but it was apparent that some of the genres would never be covered.

First of all, getting a tween boy to watch a romance requires handcuffs and a muzzle. Surprisingly, tween girls will watch sci fi much more readily. (They also will hold spontaneous belching contests, I discovered. Who knew?)

By holding our own film festival, I could ensure that they all participated in each of the 12 genres, not just their favorites.

To overcome any temptation to become coach potatoes, after each film clip I’d ask them to describe the characteristics of the genre. I was amazed when, after they struggled with film noir, they chose it as their favorite.

Then—the best part—they had to improv a family dinner in the style of the genre we just watched. HILARIOUS! Ghouls dragged bodies under the table. Distraught women confessed fears to private eyes. The Three Stooges tumbled across the kitchen.

As they played, we achieved the second goal. We grew a team.

People with disparate styles and different measures of success do not naturally form a team. Performing work and acting as a team are not the same. A team is built of shared experience and struggle. Through that experience, they learn each others styles and find mutual goals.

I brought these six kids to my home to give them a relationship to each other. Now, a month later, they beg to do things together as a group. They tell inside jokes and call out each others flaws and strengths. Each time we meet, I see the friendships blossom more. It’s incredibly rewarding.

We really can just get along

Our team worked on its name for about 30 minutes on Friday. I started to wonder whether to let it go on and on, but what I saw happening between the team members encouraged me to let them run.

The singular characteristic that encouraged me was conflict. Not just an out-and-out battle. Constructive conflict.

I have experience with work situations that are riddled with conflict that goes unspoken. At least the conflict remains unspoken until the members who disagree walk out the door of the conference room and head back to their desks. They grumble, they mutter and sometimes they outright rage against their coworkers.

In rare cases, the conflict around a conference table is raw. In the few cases I’ve seen this, the conflicting parties have a long track record of disagreement that one or both are tired of concealing.

Neither is particularly productive, but we continue to use these strategies. It seems most often it’s the first.

After watching the team talk about their name ideas on Friday, I started to wonder about what leads adults sometimes to avoid conflict in business.

Here were six 10-year olds who were having serious disagreements about the direction they should go. Each of them had a good idea. Some of them shared the same idea but only barely recognized the similarities. This reminded me of many business people I’ve watched.

The difference with the D.I. team was that I stepped in as a manager to ask them about the conflict they were having.

I followed one of the girls who grumbled about no one listening to her as she walked away. “Have you said something to the others about how you feel?” I asked.

“No.”

“One of the team rules is that we listen to each other. It might be more productive if you say something.”

She marched right back to the group and told them “I don’t think anyone is listening to each other.” The conversation stopped and redirected. It was amazing.

I think it worked for three reasons. First, the group had decided unanimously on that rule. Every one of them had expressed the desire and, ultimately, the need for listening to each other.

Second, this girl was direct about what her problem was. She recognized what made her uncomfortable and addressed it. She stopped complaining to no one and took her issue to the people responsible.

The last part I think has more to do with youth than anything else. As adults, we become more set in our ways. We predict how others will act and adjust accordingly. We  become jaded and cynical. We assume the others will not listen, so we fail to say anything. Ten-year olds still believe the world is a flexible, adaptive place. They are still willing to try. Amazingly, when they do, it actually works.

Seeking identity

Every DI team has a name. It’s a requirement of the competition to come prepared with a sign that identifies the team, so the teams make up a name to go with the very sterile ID number.

I’ll get to the name, but first I have to preface this with another short story. At this particular intermediate school, the fifth grade is divided into “teams”, each associated with a color. My son’s team is purple.

These kids are no strangers to naming teams. During the first week of school, the purple fifth grade team had to decide on a team name, just as the DI team would have to name itself.

Starting from the only identity the group had — purple — they came up with a stunning name: the Exploding Purple Ponies. Just imagine the gender division in THAT classroom! Two dozen girls, lost in romantic horse daydreams, propose the pony moniker only to be attacked by their male counterparts who insist that they could only accept “purple ponies” if the guts of said ponies were being sprayed in every direction. Sigh.

So, on the day our DI team was set to name itself, I had visions of exploding ponies in my head. And yet, remember, I’m not allowed to influence their decisions! If they wanted to go the direction of blood and guts of innocent creatures, I had to be cautious not to judge.

What I know from my experience in branding is that, if it’s a good one, the name will reflect the core values of this team. What amazed me was that, free of any influence on my part–including any expression of that brand/value equation–that’s exactly what they came up with.

Here was group of children, joined for a single purpose with similar interests and skills, set with a deadline to express themselves in the form of a single name. They methodically organized a list of suggestions, voted on their choices and discussed their discrepancies. Yes, I asked them questions to lead them to organize, but they decided how to proceed.

And voila! The suggestions I heard from them expressed exactly what I perceived about these kids: Creative, artistic, ambitious, with a common tie of the school.

I know you’re wondering what the name is. Truth is, it isn’t final, and I haven’t pressed them to finsih. Several weeks and several team building exercises after their first naming attempt, the group dynamics have matured. The name will probably be a little different now than when they first worked on it. 

Remember those purple fifth graders? They no longer refer to themselves as Exploding Purple Ponies. For them, it’s no longer all about the name. Now they think of themselves as friends and classmates. The name is the result of a team building exercise and a common bond for them to rally around. But they’ve moved on to live the characteristics of their team and the name is incidental now.

Our DI team naming exercise showed me the characteristics of the team, and their name (their brand) will reflect those. But more important, they’ll “live the brand” because they have a vested interest in it. They created it. And that teamwork was as important to the success of their organization (or more so) than the name they give it.

Destination Imagination

It’s true I have a hard time saying “no,” but this case was special. That was probably because it was related to one of my sons, which makes “no” even more difficult! But I had other reasons.

Like the noble pursuit of creativity.

I gave in and volunteered to manage my older son’s Destination Imagination team this year. I won’t go into all the details of Destination Imagination. I recommend you check out their web site, though.

My son had been involved twice before, and his younger brother, too, so I knew a little about what I was getting into.

“DI,” as it’s referred to by those intimately involved, is an activity for kids, primarily 1-12 grades (although there are apparently a college and adult versions, too.) Small groups of kids must work as a team to solve a problem and present their solution at a competition. Ours will be March 7. 

Of course, winning is nice, but there’s more to it. Along the way the kids learn teamwork, listening, critical thinking, research, time management, art, engineering, social studies, performance — a myriad of great life skills, including practicing humility when they win and finding lessons in their failures.

So I volunteered to make sure my son’s team could participate, but then I realized what an amazing business management and communications exercise this was.

I get asked all the time in my job hunt whether I have supervisory experience. Good God!  This had to be good for points, right? Successfully direct five 10-year old girls and my own son on a major project for four months complete with goal setting, skill identification and development and measuring against objectives? Even better, as a team manager, I am STRICTLY FORBIDDEN from giving them the answers. Now THAT’s personnel development.

So, dear readers, I’m blogging to bridge my experience as a Destination Imagination team manager with my profession as a communicator and business person. I think there’s a very promising lesson in this somewhere about managing people, sparking creativity and making smart business decisions that lead not just to being busy, but to successful business!