Do team’s have heart & will?
Do teams have laughter, joy, celebration?
Could teams feel sad, lonely and estranged?
Firmly believing that a team has each of a human’s vital organs, a system in its own right, expands our view of the human experience at work.
Trusting in this belief is key to building aligned & engaged teams.
Teams have a personality and identity of their own. Each member of the team brings their perspectives, strengths, challenges, voices, actions to impact the entire organization, collectively, towards a shared purpose.
What’s the path to a team’s heart & will? Recognizing the human system of teams. By virtue of being a system in its right, a team brings its own shadow and light. The up days. The down days. The mood swings. The challenges. The revelations and inspirations. The full range! In a busy, thriving organization, a team with heart & will comes with both shadow and light.
Shadow & Light
A team’s shadow and light comes with the full spectrum of possibilities that sparks both heated, and breakthrough conversations.
A team who’s relationship with shadow and light is healthy and strong allows for tough conversations, with straight talk. Conversations that both challenge the status quo and honours tradition. From a systems perspective, voices and actions allow for tradition and disruption to be in healthy debate.
Aptly said by Debbie Ford in “The Dark Side of the Light Chasers”: “We can’t have the full experience of the light without knowing the dark. The dark side is the gatekeeper to true freedom. Each of us must be willing to continually explore and expose this aspect of self. Whether you like it or not, you’re human and you have a shadow… The saintly and the cynical, the divine and the diabolical, the courageous and the cowardly: all these aspects lie dormant in us and will act out if they are not recognized and integrated into our psyche.”
The same goes for teams. With the full range of light and dark, the doorway to team alignment opens for effective teams to have space to innovate, problem-solve and create valued contributions. The gift in the shadow side empowers and changes teams; humanizing and transforming organizations.
What’s the path to a team’s heart & will?
- Listen: What’s not begin said? Seek the hidden perspectives, particularly the quiet, marginalized voices that hold the key to what’s working and not working.
- Ask: What’s at stake? Explore underlying struggles and opportunities, aligning the conversation to the team’s shared purpose.
- Connect: What’s our shared purpose? Bridge the gaps between what’s hidden several layers beneath the surface to what’s at stake.
What does a team’s human experience at work look, sound, feel like?
Here’s one … challenged by communication gaps, competing priorities and, inefficient team meetings….team meetings run amuck. My mind wanders … I hear music. “It’s my life” by Bon Jovi filtered in my mind during a meeting. I felt like singing: “It’s my life, it’s now or never…. Let’s get to the point!!”
The human experience in meetings is just like music – high notes, low notes, drama, story, joy, distress… When rational debates, heartfelt dialogues, quiet moments are channeled well, strong outcomes result, from a truly collective effort. This takes a concerted effort by each team member to self-select as a leader, to step up and speak up. Leadership belongs to each and every member of the team.
With a systems-oriented team mindset, the team’s heart expresses the full spectrum of laughter, joy, celebration and the sadness, loneliness and estrangement. That’s the human experience. It’s real. It’s natural. Firmly believing that a team has each of a human’s vital organs, a system in its own right, reminds us of the much needed human experience at work.
Learn about how team coaching tunes into the high notes, the low notes and the in between notes in the orchestra that is a team!
