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Group Think …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Thursday, February 08, 2007Group performance rests on the starting point ... what you do and how you do it to establish this starting point will be the most powerful aspect in determining where you arrive at the end of the journey ...
Hello All ... and today especially Allison,
Good morning from not so sunny California, Tiburon specifically ... "Shark" ... in Marin County just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm here at 6:00AM thinking about a program I'm about to begin today at 11:00AM with a group of folks in the extended MythoSelf Facilitator's Training program track. This particular program, EPC2 - Exquisite Performance Consulting, I designed to present the structure and method of working with groups, teams and in organizations to improve performance.
A day or two ago Allison posted a comment on this blog to a posting I'd put up:
Do you find behavioral redesign more challenging the larger the client system is - like a group, team (project team), or an entire organization and/or corporation?
This question was specifically asked in regard to improving performance in relation to my posting, Focus on Performance. Further the specifics of this posting pointed to beginning from what we call the "Ready State" as the starting point for all exquisite performance.
Without going into the full details of that post here, the essence stated that beginning from a position of charged possibility, where you've organized the starting position around:
One of the critical points not specifically indicated above (nor in the original post) was the idea of allowing the future knowledge that will be contained in the outcome position - i.e.: after the the outcome has been attained - to flow back to the starting position where you are organizing to take action that makes the attainment of the outcome possible. Of course from the outcome position information will be available about exactly what and how things transpired that led to the realization of the outcome. This information forms a road map to the attainment of the outcome and proves to be a critical component in its attainment.
Now you have the overview of what I'm on about (a good British phrase I've picked up along the way ...). Yet Allison's question still begs answering: "What about working this way with groups of people, in teams and/or organizations?". Allison wants to know how do you get a group into the Ready State.
Well my first and most direct answer must be - IMPOSITION - i.e.: impose the Ready State upon them.
I mean by this that the best thing to be doing begins with setting them up so they are having a great experience before you begin doing anything with them officially. You lead in the case by storytelling ... you remind them of something that has happened that went brilliantly (of which they were a part ideally), you tell them how important they are to the success of what you are about to embark on and how important the success of it will be as well ... you set them up to feel good about themselves and what they are about to undertake and only then do you begin officially.
NOTE: If you have the time and it serves you for some reason you can delay the start until they've done something unessential to prove themselves - and then you can make this point evident. Either way, the official beginning occurs when you have set them up to succeed.
While this may seem utterly obvious at this moment very, very few executives, managers, supervisors, teachers ... whatever do this overtly and specifically. Most actually start from establishing the difficulty, challenge and problem contained in the situation. From there they go on to make clear in an un-obvious way that the group will be unlikely to actually achieve stellar results. But this will have to remain a conversation for another day.
I actually often find it much easier to work groups vs. individuals in this regard. In the group I have multiple opportunities to find What Works - stories of success, a sense of achievement, knowledge, skill and/or significant positive experience, a belief that together in a collaborative effort their success will be assured ... properly handled the group does a large amount of this work for me as the facilitator (officially appointed or not BTW).
The fundamental model that we've built to address this way of working with groups, including teams and entire organizations, is codified in the Satisfaction Cycle®. This model explicates exactly how to take a group from the consideration of the current situation as organized in relation to what works through to the successful implementation of the action(s) that will produce the desired results and outcomes. I've posted on this model in the past and will likely do so again soon ...
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Tiburon, California
If you are really interested in Exquisite Performance and haven't done so yet get my EPC Series One package and take it for a test run - as always you'll have thirty days to view it absolutely free ... to decide that it exceeds your expectations, you'll have a full thirty days to review the entire package ... four full-length high-quality studio audio CDs, a the same program manual we use in the live program presentation ... and you get to keep the program manual regardless of whether you return the CDs or not!
This program takes you completely through the EPC Coaching Model from beginning to end ...
For example how to ...
Go to the product page at EPC Series One and get the complete details now ... EPC Series One
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Thanks, Joseph. This is awesome, and more similar to working with individuals than I initially thought (ready state, what works). I’ll definitely check the EPC Series products out. I guess like with anything, it’s practice, practice, and practice some more. I have some upcoming meetings and some strategic planning sessions that will provide the perfect opportunity for this. All my best to you in lovely Tiburon - tell everyone I said “Howdy Y’all!”
Allison
This is a lovely blog....
This blog reminds me of one of the most beautiful quotes I have ever read, that resonates typically with the premise of the Mythoself process. The quote is “The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.” Yeah I believe deeply that the anything and everything about life itself is just about creating infinite possibilities that goes beyond the necessity and mundane - and even success- of the present moment into something fresh, new and untapped. Something that feeds on our passion for life and creativity and abundance. In other words, performance for me equals blissful adventures.
But what is different about creating infinite possibilities when it comes to individual performance as opposed to group performance? I think that group performance can be thought of in term of wave physics, thus group performance is a sort of “saltatory adventures.” In this saltatory adventure the performance often reaches a certain intended threshold that is of an elusive obvious nature. It is a threshold for another mysterious systemic thresholds that would take the whole group and its performance into further unexamined realms, and this process doesn’t stop unless the thought/being of “infinite possibilities” itself cease to exist in the minds/somatics of its beholders. But still there will never be a saltatory adventure without a true internal mythology that interpenetrates through the behavior of the human being himself as a manifestation of his uniqueness and exclusiveness.
This is the type of post that needs to be read more than once…
