While we are fighting, we are not working as a team
Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2024 8:39 am
Conflicts within groups unequivocally wear down the affected members. And, far from being resolved over time, problems and disagreements become entrenched, producing devastating effects on people's motivation and, therefore, on productivity .
Our minds are not designed to consciously do two things at once, it is not their greatest strength. So, while I am thinking about “what an idiot this guy is”, I do not have enough cognitive resources to do the work at hand. Also, when I am not being listened to, I become irritable and devote my energy to trying to get someone aruba email list 38244 contact leads to understand me . At those times I cannot hear anything they are trying to tell me, and the ensuing dialogue is like a joke.
But as soon as I feel understood, my cognitive resources are freed up to listen to the ideas of others. And when I listen, something changes in my network of mental associations, connections, new ideas and collaborative work appear . And all this is mainly because I have the energy to do so, since I am not using it to fight, but to build. And I have to choose: either I create or I destroy.
Therefore, it is not possible to achieve extraordinary results without the support and help of a team. We cannot survive as a business by going it alone; no one can move forward without the support of other people.
Throughout our evolutionary history, it has been shown that humans have achieved incredible achievements due to their ability to live in community and generate synergies. But I find it curious how easily we lose focus and neglect our relationship with our environment.
Both success and failure result in the individual isolating himself and ceasing to build together with others. In some cases, when everything goes very well, I become a superior being who undervalues the contribution of others; in other circumstances, when I fail, I become someone uncomfortable or annoying to others. And if things just go… I neither enjoy success nor regret failure, which means that I risk little, that I learn even less and that I am a nondescript member of the group, a “neither here nor there” individual. I am simplifying a lot, but oh well, here is how it goes.
There are SME managers who are aware of this discourse and who, when they stop to think about it, realize how much better they would live if their company worked as a big team; but it is a wishful thinking, the phone rings immediately and they go into “we have to do this now” mode.
So the only time they make it possible for employees to enjoy a pleasant time together outside the office is at the company Christmas meal . Well, that's something because there are others who don't even team up for Christmas, they settle for having a detail, a basket or something similar, which only fleetingly sweetens the bitter taste of certain hidden conflicts.
Therefore, there are few SMEs that organize meetings and events with the sole objective of improving relations within the company itself (something that is quite common in larger organizations, which is perhaps why they are so). Managers justify this lack of company meetings with the argument that the business is neglected; but they do not realize that it is necessary to attend to the workers and the relationships they maintain among themselves.
I have not seen a single case where, when people in a team have been able to talk about how they see each other and how they could work better, they have not come out with something positive. There are conflicts that have arisen and it is too late to resolve them and the most sensible thing is usually for the parties to separate. But there are many conflicts that can be avoided, that have not yet occurred or that are only just emerging and, therefore, there is time to manage them. A simple company or department event can change everything…
In any case, it is not only the entrepreneur who is responsible for what happens in the organization, because the company is all of us . It is clear that those who manage can always do more to promote spaces and moments for dialogue within the team. And it is no less true that each person also has responsibility for the conflicts in which they are involved.
I always ask groups in my workshops: how long has it been since you asked someone to have coffee with you to talk about how to work better together? Most people just sit there in “mute” mode, looking at each other, as if I had asked them why planes fly.
And everyone sees the point of that “relationship-saving coffee”, of course they do, why don’t I have more coffees with my colleagues? But the euphoria generated by the possibility of improving relationships with others is soon mitigated and deafened by the question we ask afterwards: and now, who will make the effort to ask for a date for that coffee? Because someone has to start…
And the fact is that we are all at the limit of our energy (well, some only seem to be) and making an extra effort is not easy to justify to our cognitive system , which prefers to live as it always has, unless its life depends on it (we will talk about this in another post...).
In this way, conflict levels in organizations can be brought back to reasonable levels with two simple measures:
Meetings called by management to improve the level of understanding between team members, from time to time and 2-3 hours being sufficient. I call them Team Revamping sessions.
Our minds are not designed to consciously do two things at once, it is not their greatest strength. So, while I am thinking about “what an idiot this guy is”, I do not have enough cognitive resources to do the work at hand. Also, when I am not being listened to, I become irritable and devote my energy to trying to get someone aruba email list 38244 contact leads to understand me . At those times I cannot hear anything they are trying to tell me, and the ensuing dialogue is like a joke.
But as soon as I feel understood, my cognitive resources are freed up to listen to the ideas of others. And when I listen, something changes in my network of mental associations, connections, new ideas and collaborative work appear . And all this is mainly because I have the energy to do so, since I am not using it to fight, but to build. And I have to choose: either I create or I destroy.
Therefore, it is not possible to achieve extraordinary results without the support and help of a team. We cannot survive as a business by going it alone; no one can move forward without the support of other people.
Throughout our evolutionary history, it has been shown that humans have achieved incredible achievements due to their ability to live in community and generate synergies. But I find it curious how easily we lose focus and neglect our relationship with our environment.
Both success and failure result in the individual isolating himself and ceasing to build together with others. In some cases, when everything goes very well, I become a superior being who undervalues the contribution of others; in other circumstances, when I fail, I become someone uncomfortable or annoying to others. And if things just go… I neither enjoy success nor regret failure, which means that I risk little, that I learn even less and that I am a nondescript member of the group, a “neither here nor there” individual. I am simplifying a lot, but oh well, here is how it goes.
There are SME managers who are aware of this discourse and who, when they stop to think about it, realize how much better they would live if their company worked as a big team; but it is a wishful thinking, the phone rings immediately and they go into “we have to do this now” mode.
So the only time they make it possible for employees to enjoy a pleasant time together outside the office is at the company Christmas meal . Well, that's something because there are others who don't even team up for Christmas, they settle for having a detail, a basket or something similar, which only fleetingly sweetens the bitter taste of certain hidden conflicts.
Therefore, there are few SMEs that organize meetings and events with the sole objective of improving relations within the company itself (something that is quite common in larger organizations, which is perhaps why they are so). Managers justify this lack of company meetings with the argument that the business is neglected; but they do not realize that it is necessary to attend to the workers and the relationships they maintain among themselves.
I have not seen a single case where, when people in a team have been able to talk about how they see each other and how they could work better, they have not come out with something positive. There are conflicts that have arisen and it is too late to resolve them and the most sensible thing is usually for the parties to separate. But there are many conflicts that can be avoided, that have not yet occurred or that are only just emerging and, therefore, there is time to manage them. A simple company or department event can change everything…
In any case, it is not only the entrepreneur who is responsible for what happens in the organization, because the company is all of us . It is clear that those who manage can always do more to promote spaces and moments for dialogue within the team. And it is no less true that each person also has responsibility for the conflicts in which they are involved.
I always ask groups in my workshops: how long has it been since you asked someone to have coffee with you to talk about how to work better together? Most people just sit there in “mute” mode, looking at each other, as if I had asked them why planes fly.
And everyone sees the point of that “relationship-saving coffee”, of course they do, why don’t I have more coffees with my colleagues? But the euphoria generated by the possibility of improving relationships with others is soon mitigated and deafened by the question we ask afterwards: and now, who will make the effort to ask for a date for that coffee? Because someone has to start…
And the fact is that we are all at the limit of our energy (well, some only seem to be) and making an extra effort is not easy to justify to our cognitive system , which prefers to live as it always has, unless its life depends on it (we will talk about this in another post...).
In this way, conflict levels in organizations can be brought back to reasonable levels with two simple measures:
Meetings called by management to improve the level of understanding between team members, from time to time and 2-3 hours being sufficient. I call them Team Revamping sessions.