“How do you manage people who are better than you?”
There Is An I In Team: HBR Presentation w/ Mark De Rond and Angela Herrin
Marvel comics, team, Xmen
I listened to a recent web presentation provided by the Harvard Business Review titled, “There Is An I In Team”.
I’m fascinated by collaboration among team members as a result of having had a couple of long term boyfriends who played Division I sports (Hot!).
It made very little sense to me in college that men can experience anger and frustration with a teammate or rival, duke it out, then grab a beer and hang out as friends the following day.
They seemed to be able to separate their roles on their teams from who they are off the team. But, how?!?!?
These abilities — a) getting over setbacks and moving forward, and b) separating one’s role on and off his/her team — are paramount to one’s chances of success in large organizations (i.e. Professor Xavier’s school for the gifted, or if you prefer reality, large world class corporations).
Marvel comics, team, Xmen
The HBR presentation I mentioned is one of the better studies on how the best teams function, what makes teams effective, and how to manage teams to accomplish wins. De Rond takes his observations of university rowing teams and boat races to examine coordination between team members.
One insightful observation De Rond discovered in the results of team surveys is that high performers typically underestimate their own teammates**. And, as we all have experienced, this makes high performers or those who are highly intelligent dismissive of others.
If this is true, what can we do to exploit the value high performers can provide while mitigating the risks these high performers’ behavioral tendencies often cause?
Surprisingly, the answer isn’t found by forcing all team members to get along. It turns out that expressing emotional experiences and venting to teammates create winning performance***.
While most of us define team harmony as an absence of competitiveness between members, this is only half of the story. Competition (“lack of harmony”) cannot truly be forced out of individuals because it is innate. If suppressed, competition resurfaces in more destructive forms under the radar of team leaders and creates more dysfunction than if they were acknowledged, accepted and resolved in a psychologically safe and moderated space.
My favorite take away from this presentation is this:
Harmony cannot be forced in teams. Harmony is created naturally when teams experience wins and achieve great things through collaboration with one another.
Pretty Pink Ponies 