"Living in Three Dimensions" by Andrew Grant |
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Is this book for me?
This
book is for anyone who has to work and/or live with other people. Most
importantly, it is for people who would like to live and work in groups
effectively and productively. It
is for those who would like to achieve something as individuals and as a
group, knowing they are able to get the job done correctly and to the best
of their ability, knowing they are appreciated for their efforts, and
knowing the satisfaction of the tremendous potential outcomes of a
combined effort. Very
few people live or work completely in isolation, so most people will, at
some stage, need to consider how they can best get on with others. But
unlike so many other areas of our lives, we are mostly ill-prepared for
the challenges of developing positive group relationships. Although one
needs lessons and a licence to drive a vehicle, for example, there is
little preparation and awareness when it comes to driving a team or
working together. More often than not, when a group of people have to work together, that group is left to its own devices. If any pressure is placed on the group, they can end up spending more time trying to deal with potential problems than achieving. Groups can so easily become counterproductive if they are not handled appropriately.
Driving
the team A
group may be you and your partner, or the whole family unit. It might be
the people you sit next to at work, a project team, or the entire company.
Whatever
groups you may be living in and working with, there are some very
important principles that will help you learn to get on together. Instead
of spending time creating stress, you can be productive and enjoy the
group process, and have everyone benefit from the experience. The
by-product of this is that whenever you are with the group, you will want
to be there and you will look forward spending time in this environment.
In a home situation, this will translate into improved relationships and
mutual support. In a work situation, the same improved relationships will
result, which should also translate into increased effectiveness and
ultimately improved productivity. It creates a win/win situation all
round. Even
better: If you can learn to see what makes your group work together, then
you can help foster and nurture that group, steering them away from
potential danger and towards practical goal achievement. Working
with a team is an art. Steering a team through the obstacles that lie
ahead and doing it in a way that is both efficient and considerate is not
easy. There are so many different ways of responding and behaving, and
each of us carries a lifetime of values and experiences that have shaped
the ways we behave long before we get together. Pulling
in one direction On
a simple level, it is fascinating to watch a group of people go on a
rafting trip down river rapids together. At the start of the journey
paddles are flying in all directions, and although each group member may
be furiously paddling, they can all be pulling in different directions.
Until they have learnt to coordinate their efforts and aim in the same
direction, the raft can end up spinning around or helplessly drifting down
dangerous sections of the river. So much effort may go into such an
exercise, but the group can end up going nowhere. As
a rafting group becomes forced by the external circumstances (such as the
river current) to work together, they soon have to stop and re group to
discuss the best approach – or at least find ways individually to try to
coordinate their attempts. By the end of the river the transformation is
often amazing. The group is usually expending less energy, and yet the
raft is moving much faster and with greater accuracy to navigate difficult
rapids. All are paddling in the same direction. Their efforts have become
coordinated. They have placed the most suitable people in the best
positions to take advantage of each person’s unique skills, and they
learn to respect these positions. They have become more of a team. It
is interesting to note that whether the group members know each other well
or not usually means little in terms of their combined performance. In
such circumstances all still needed to re-group and work through
particular issues and the general stages of development that will help
them to become a team. One
of the key issues is that although the group members are all under
pressure due to the innate stresses of the environment, they quickly
become focussed in a way that surprises them. The need for politicking,
bickering, and vying for power simply doesn’t exist. Identifying the X-Factor
After
an experience such as this, we like to challenge groups to identify what
it was that made them start to perform as a team for the journey. We then
encourage the extra step, of considering how they can try to re-create the
same conditions back in their regular living or working environment. There
are no quick formulas for encouraging people to work together, as there
can be too many varying contributing factors. However, if a group of
people can work out what made them a team in one instance, then they can
try to isolate the x-factor that allowed for this, and start to apply it
elsewhere. Those who have become aware of the process of transformation
during the trip are often taken through an experience they never forget,
and many have been able to replicate the positive experience in other
areas of their lives. Anyone
can get on with others if they think similarly to the other person, if the
environment is conducive, or if they want something from the other person.
But we often find our time with people is under some type of pressure, and
we end up tending to dwell on the problems that emerge under pressure
rather than the possible positive elements and they end up weighing
heavily on us. The need to
develop teams
Underlying currents
“The
process and of how we create maps and mental models is usually tacit,
existing below the level of awareness, often untested and unexamined. They
are invisible till we look for them.” Whenever a group is together there are deeper
dynamics and governing principles, underlying currents and strong rips that only the
trained and experienced eye can see. The
ocean may look calm from the beach to an untrained eye. The lifeguard,
however, often sees something different. S/he can see the currents and the
safe zones, and can alert others to them. A good ocean sports enthusiast
can not only see these currents, but even use the rips to their advantage.
The novice who is unaware of the underwater environment, however, can be
in danger of drowning. A
team will drown if there are no experienced lifeguards. Conversely, a team
will flourish if there are individuals who can identify the currents and
use them to the group’s advantage. It’s all about having the
experience to see and act. Sink or swim
This
book is about helping you see what is going on beneath the surface of a
group’s functioning. It is about learning how to harness the energy of
the work team, the family, the community, or the company to bring about
positive results. It is about learning to use any potentially threatening
situations to the advantage of the group, and learning to work with people
who may have a completely different view point to your own. Most
of all, we hope to help you understand your environment, the group of
people that you end up spending time with – even those who may annoy or
frustrate you. This
is not a “Ten steps to creating great groups”, it is a book that is
designed to help you understand people. When we understand people we will
have the confidence to rise to any situation required of us. Instead of
being threatened by those around us, we become able to harness our own and
others’ strengths and pull them together, inspiring the group to work
together to create a happier more productive environment and higher
performance teams. To
do this we want to challenge your perceptions about groups and individual
and group behaviours, and ask that read the book with an open mind. We
want you to open up new possibilities for thinking about other people,
people who may see things differently to you. From tolerance to trust
This
process should not be threatening, rather it should be enlightening. Once
you can learn to see how other people see a situation and can learn to
empathise with them, you are half way there. Tolerance is the first step,
and this can soon lead to trust and respect. This is not a tolerance for
ineffectiveness and inefficiency, but a tolerance that comes from
appreciating that people are different. Unfortunately
we often end up feeling so threatened by differences that we end up
creating unnecessary barriers. Instead of trying to make everyone like us
(to satisfy our own needs for security), we need to realise that if
treated carefully, we can actually make these differences a source of
strength for the group. This is by no means an easy process, as all of us
carry so much emotional baggage with us. More
often than not we will need to shift our paradigm to a new model and new
analogy to help us achieve this. This requires courage to let go of the
old and embrace the new. Work
has become an all-consuming part of our daily lives. So often, in this
environment, we are forced to work together with people we may not
otherwise have chosen to be with, and there is always and added pressure
to perform. Many of our
examples will come from this area. However one of the most rewarding times
is when we go to give a seminar on conflict resolution to a company and
people come up at the end and say thankyou that has not only helped my
work situation but my marriage. The principles are the same as it is the
mindset the choice of metaphors the attitude that determines much of our
state. We
have been fortunate to work with thousands of people from some of the
largest and most successful companies around and in varying industries and
at all levels and from many different cultures. We have been equally
privileged to work with the smallest of tribal villages that have had
little exposure to our way of life. We have listened to CEOs and directors
in their fancy boardrooms and to kids in an Orphanage in El Salvador in
the middle of the civil war. We have dined with the rich and famous from
Hollywood and with displaced families in the rubbish dumps of Mexico City.
The beauty of this is that we have been looking for common threads of what
it is for people to work together, to cooperate to cope with any situation
that is presented to them and come out victors. The value systems and
attitudes we have encountered and exposure to such a variety of groups has
given us great insight into how people can learn to work together. Why build villages?
Getting smaller
The
recent trend has been to expand, to grow, to be able to demonstrate your
immense wealth and power through size. But that trend is changing. Through
necessity, and through a realisation that success is not necessarily size
related, individuals are simplifying and organizations are downsizing
rather than inflating. Those
we are most impressed by are now becoming the ones who have no baggage or
unnecessary accessories, who can travel the lightest and fastest.
We admire those who are able to keep abreast of change and take
advantage of the change process, those who are independent, who rely on
strong strategic networks rather than hoarding the resources. A
new approach to organisational development requires a new outlook, and a
new conceptual framework. It is time to stop trying to build empires
through an emphasis on the growth of physical assets. It's time to get
back to basics, to focus on developing an organizations greatest resource
- the people - and to do that by ensuring internal structures are small
enough and intimate enough to allow for the individual and to encourage
communication and positive relationships. Common team metaphors
"Human
beings are analogical animals; we explore the unknown by probing it with
images of the known. We use metaphors to transfer meaning from one domain
to another and create connections between distant points, weaving them
into a single integrated structure. What we call understanding usually
means finding the metaphor that connects the unfamiliar with the
familiar." The 21st
century village
Organic growth
The
concept we are promoting is based on that of communities, on the form of
traditional village life. This
concept has been borne from our experiences throughout Asia and Central
America, observing and participating in the ways ideal traditional
communities often interact and support each other. Villages
are living organisms that have set structures based on deeper principles,
but that must adapt and change with the ever-changing needs and issues of
the villagers. Villagers generally need to be committed to each other, but
they are not necessarily permanently binding forces. They are small enough
so that most people know each other, but can be big enough so that there
are a number of different connections and relationships at work. Historically
the average traditional village was no more than 150 or so people in size.
It's fascinating to discover that the average personal phone directory has
approximately 150 entries in it. Apparently, that is about the social size
that we can cope with, that we can effectively network with. It is
difficult to expect individuals to really feel connected to an
organization that extends in numbers much beyond this, unless it is
divided up into manageable community-sized units. “Regardless of the specific ups and downs of recent social and economic change, we have simply not yet had enough time to adapt to the cataclysmic changes in our way of life wrought by the Industrial Revolution. – changes which saw the population move from the relative security of life in a hunter gatherer village to a very different way of life in the vast suburbs that sprang up around industrial towns and cities. The well established rhythm of pastoral and agricultural life gave the inhabitants of a village the psychological comfort not only of living in a relatively stable social network, but also the reassurance of living in direct relationship with the land that sustained them. Suburban life, by contrast, is characterised by fragmentation of extended families, the mobility of population, the separation of work and home, and the removal of any direct sense of dependency on the land… Isolated in our suburban homes an apartments, coming and going in the sealed capsules of the motorcar, we have paid a high emotional price for our material comfort." Mackay excerpt from "Living in Three Dimensions". by Andrew Grant
T
I R I A N Innovative
Communications www.tirian.com
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