by Peter & Roberta Budvietas
I remember taking part in a team building seminar. The idea was to train people in leadership, from the top man in the company, down to the assistant managers. A group of some fifty people were taken away to "camp" - a holiday resort booked for a week. It consisted of lectures to provide basic knowledge about leadership and exercises in applying leadership.
One of the things that became apparent very quickly in the exercises was that more than half the participants wanted to be on the same team as the CEO. So, the teams were essentially chosen by a lottery, so each person had a chance to work with the CEO. You know, the "pick a number" from a hat to decide which team you were on.
More, the competitive exercises (team versus the other teams) tended to be skewed towards the CEO's team winning - almost throwing the games so that the CEO was always the winner.
Not that the participants would admit to either wanting to be on the CEO's team or that they would let the CEO's team win. After all, these were the top people in the company, and all highly competitive individuals. These were people to whom winning was important, almost essential to their psyches.
That is, except for one person. In most of the exercises, this person seemed to be in the winning team even more than the CEO. You'd think that this would stand out, from early in the week. But it wasn't until the end of the week - seven DAYS of these competitions - that anyone noticed this individual had been in more winning teams than anyone else. And this person was not one of the top managers. In fact, there was some dispute whether he qualified for being among the fifty people selected for the training. He was essentially a substitute for someone who was ill and could not take part in the training.
Was this an anomaly in the process? Was it simply a matter of luck that this person finished in the winning team so often?
Discussion within the group was inconclusive. In virtually every exercise, no one could remember what this person had contributed. Almost invariably, the team's conclusion on why they had won was 'WE did it!' Each team member felt they had contributed to the win equally. Not once was it suggested that this person was important to the win.
It was not apparent what had been happening until the videos of the exercises were viewed.
The videos concentrated on how the teams worked. Each team had more or less equal total time in the videos, but, because of the lack of equipment, a couple of teams tended to have more filmed time at the beginning of exercises and some had more filmed time at the end. With the person's teams, there was a little less time than for the others - they tended to finish earlier than the others.
But, what was obvious was that his teams were in some way better organised that the others. The teams he was on seemed to fall into the best pattern for the exercise from the start. No one appeared to be the leader or choose a specific role within the team. Even when he was with the CEO, the same thing happened - the CEO's role was not as leader or decision maker, just part of the whole process.
What was this person doing in the videos? He said very little, other than "thank you", but he asked people to take on tasks, and kept them focussed on getting these small results. He didn't ask for respect, or to be the leader. He simply pointed to how people could contribute, and they did.
Even after everyone had seen the videos, no one could pinpoint what he had done. They still felt as if they had done the work required. Manager-ship and leadership in the form everybody says they should be.
That's the real problem with Keeping It Simple then Simplifying. It makes things look easy. In leadership, it makes the leader "invisible". It ensures that the team feels "WE did it!" because it is about getting results, not getting credit.
That's the up-side.
The down-side?
Well, back to the training group. What happened to our "start" after the training? Did he get the promotions he deserved? Sadly, no. He was made redundant when the company restructured…
Author Resource:-
For more ideas to Keep It Simple then Simplify visit
Keep It Simple then SImplify
Or to improve your bottom line with the FREE 30 days take the 30 day challenge - Better For Business
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://yourarticlesource.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
