Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Something new that I’ve been learning ever since I came on board with IMPACT 360 in January ’06 as a consultant (then in May ’06 full-time) is the notion of a high performance team in the workplace.  Among other characteristics, a high performance team is one whose synergy with all members produces an exponentially greater output than each individual team member could accomplish alone.  Desiring that outcome is one thing; accomplishing it is quite another, I’m finding.  We’re well on our way, thanks to solid leadership within the organization, including leadership mentoring from the Chick-fil-A (CfA) execs at the corporate office. 

My leadership mentor, a management consultant at the CfA home office in Atlanta for over 25 years, recently put me onto a book that addresses one of the key ingredients of a high performance team, namely the ingredient of team learning. Peter Senge, author of the book, points out that many organizations have character-related ”learning disabilities” that contribute to a state of perpetual status quo.  Why are they character-related?  Because these learning disabilities turn out to be the natural consequence of fear and avoidance of personal embarrassment rather than true disabilities of intelligence or competence.  He puts it this way:

“All too often, teams in business tend to spend their time fighting for turf, avoiding anything that will make them look bad personally, and pretending that everyone is behind the team’s collective strategy–maintaining the appearance of a cohesive team.  To keep up the image, they seek to squelch disagreement; people with serious reservations avoid stating them publicly, and joint decisions are watered-down compromises reflecting what everyone can live with, or else reflecting one person’s view foisted on the group.  If there is disagreement, it’s usually expressed in a manner that lays blame, polarizes opinion, and fails to reveal the underlying differences in assumptions adn experience in a way that the team as whole could learn from….School trains us never to admit that we do not know the answer, and most corporations reinforce that lesson by rewarding people who excel in advocating their views, not inquiring into complex issues (When was the last time someone was rewarded in your organization for raising difficult questions about the company’s current policies rather than solving urgent problems?)  Even if we feel uncertain or ignorant, we learn to protect ourselves from the pain of appearing uncertain or ignorant.”*

*Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline:  The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Revised Edition (New York:  Doubleday, 2006):  24-25.