"They called us the Blue Shirts," said Katie about a team of twenty-eight that implemented an automated patient medical record system in twenty-five family practice or specialty clinics. For three years, they wore blue shirts that identified them as the IT consultants. Two years later, says Sheila, "We are known by this name, even still." We had the opportunity to interview Sheila, who was the group's manager, and two members of the team—Katie and Catherine.
You'll catch the drift of their experience by considering the words and phrases used to describe their experience: "pushing people to their limits . . . tension . . . periodic, appropriate mutiny . . . high expectations . . . evolving . . . rewarding . . . fun . . . family-like camaraderie . . . tons of learning . . . recognition . . . a calling . . . people thought we couldn't do it . . . a sense of service." This intense and wonderful experience was transformative for all three women. For Catherine, "I've been launched into a world of diversity and now know how to navigate and adapt to different scenarios." Katie acknowledged that she did not have to be great at everything she did. "I realized where I was strong, but also learned how to ask for help and be vulnerable to others." Sheila has moved on to new leadership responsibilities. "I think I'm a more effective leader now. For example, I now know that not everyone is always going to be happy. I used to try to 'make it better' when there was tension. I don't do that as much anymore."
The Blue Shirts were a part of a larger effort that had significant Impact on patients and health care providers—allowing them immediate access to information and each other on a 24/7 basis. This could not have happened without their work in the clinics. Of their Purpose, Sheila said: "We were very clear about what we were trying to do. It was a very concrete thing to us. In the beginning, perhaps we were not as clear about the value we were really bringing. Over time, we felt better and more confident about what we were trying to accomplish. Every day, individuals made a difference—but it was always expressed in terms of the team." They also discovered that in clinic after clinic, as they focused on teaching and using the medical record technology, they had opportunities to see ways to improve the overall flow of work related to patient care. "We kept saying this project was a magnifying glass that enabled us to improve the process so the patient would have a better experience."
Reality for the Blue Shirts was filled with challenges. Four issues stand out:
The scale of the work—they made their way through twenty-five clinics, spending four months in each location, guiding each clinic through the move from paper to electronic records so everyone could operate the new system.
Resistance to change—as they tried to move the organization toward a more electronic approach, other health care organizations were un-installing similar systems because of staff resisting the new methods.
A training curriculum that didn't fit—team members were frustrated by being required to teach a curriculum that was designed without full understanding of the circumstances faced by clinic staff.
Turn-over within the Blue Shirt team—they had to learn how to motivate and retain bright, creative, sought-after people with well-developed technical and people skills when the work was repetitive and "other companies were recruiting away our teammates and paying twice as much!"
The team addressed these real world issues in several ways. Whatever the problem they ran into, "we'd analyze what happened and make changes." Sheila commented, "If we heard 'we're bored,' we'd change and give people more responsibility." To keep the job more satisfying, "we let people pick the sites where they worked to reduce commutes." Even still, they had to rehire half the team. Catherine recalls their push-back on the training curriculum and how "a combination of former teachers and nurses"—all Blue Shirts—"took over the curriculum and redid the design to make it work." Katie remembers that a group norm was clearly established: it was fine to voice concerns, "but only if you had an idea and were willing to contribute to fixing the problem." Doctors and nurses from other parts of the organization were brought in to see patients while clinic staff were involved in the training sessions; this was a big boost to the effort's credibility. Organized in subgroups that varied from clinic to clinic, team members were essentially self-organizing and handled most of their decisions without needing to check with management. But if a decision affected the whole group, it was opened up for whole-group input.
For three years, this group of highly diverse, skilled, and energetic members faced one Reality after the next. They did so because they believed in their mission and the benefits it would bring to patients and health care providers. As each clinic came online, they got to see their Impact. One clinic at a time, they recognized challenges, solved problems, saw tangible progress, celebrated success—then started all over again. And with each new beginning, they were better grounded, informed, skilled, and connected to one another.
This chapter focuses on the last pair of linked Group Needs. It's about the group in action, attempting the change it wishes to make. External Change groups' ambitions intentionally include changing their external world. Individual Support groups are less focused on changing that world together, yet support their members as they go about living successful lives—often impacting the world. However these groups intend to have an Impact on the world, their actual accomplishment depends on how each group brings itself together in shared Purpose, and that depends on the individuals in the group, their awareness of what they bring and what they might become. In the Group Needs model, the Self loop empowers the Group loop, which in turn empowers the World loop. It is that last loop we will explore now.
By world we mean that bit of the entire world on which your group intends to have an Impact—the world closest to and most important to your group and its Purpose. This could be your extended family, your company, your local government, your state, or the planet. It may be multitiered, multistate, multifunctioned; it may be the competition, the union, the management, the Congress, the school, or the neighbors. Whatever your world is, your group's Bond and Purpose have led you to collectively invest in it.
The core dynamic within this World loop is the interplay between your group's ability to know and embrace its current world Reality—understanding and accepting the world as it is and how it affects you. This grounding is balanced by Impact, your intention to make a difference and your readiness to act. Logically, full appreciation of the world precedes taking action in it, but that is not always the case. As the Blue Shirt story illustrates, part of Reality is dealing with it as it comes, even when everything seems to be happening at once. You may be pushed toward Impact when you are not yet sure of what your Reality is.
Three group statements capture the importance of understanding and accepting your world as it is:
We are alert to the world around us.
We are intrigued with that world.
We accept our reality.
Imagine yourself on the Blue Shirt team as you review these ideas.
The need for alertness flows from our most primitive roots. Being keenly aware day and night has allowed our species to survive. That survival need and its necessary alertness continue into the twenty-first century. Our reactions are significantly affected by perceived threats and opportunities. When what we sense is exciting and promising, we move more freely and expansively. When anxiety and danger are provoked, we move cautiously and protectively. Our choices between more expansive or protective stances come with consequences. A more open stance allows groups to turn their energy outward toward opportunity, acting to develop their interests, seeing their world through a more ambitious eye. When groups behave protectively, separating themselves from perceived danger, they typically turn their energy inward, erect barriers outward, and see their world through a shield. Regardless of the stance, when a group chooses to see the world, it must keep group Purpose and Bond in mind. Purpose and Bond contain the reasons the group formed in the first place and they are vital to holding it together.
Interviews with extraordinary groups reveal their curiosity about and fascination with their world. Even when they are greatly disturbed by it, they cannot easily put it aside. Like it or not, their world engages them and that engagement feeds group action: Action to learn more about their world so they will not be caught unprepared; action that takes advantage of their special insights. Where an ordinary group might see risk and peril, an extraordinary group can see opportunity.
The intrigue with the world is about fascination, curiosity, and engagement; it is not about judgment. Judging your world early on limits access to it and your options within it. When a group "knows" what is going on, it has less reason to explore what else might be going on. When a group "knows" its competitors are wrong, the group has good reason to dismiss the competition and all their ideas. When the group "knows" its product strategy is right, there are fewer reasons to explore what's happening in the marketplace today. Without the curiosity of intrigue, we have fewer reasons to learn, and that affects the actions we take to understand our Reality more deeply.
A group alert to its world and intrigued with it is in an excellent position to accept it. Not accept as in, "We give up and want our world to be that way," but accept as in, "We understand and appreciate that this is the way our world works right now." World change is best preceded by group agreement on what, in the world, is currently going on. When a group disagrees on what is happening in its world, actions are likely to be disjointed and disabling for the group. Why? Members don't share a common sense of Reality. The group lives in this complex world; it is not an elaborate case study that is analyzed from a distance. The group must take pragmatic steps to learn more about its world. High Impact begins with shared acceptance of the current Reality. By looking straight on into the heart of it, your group will be far more effective when it crafts its strategy about how to move ahead.
A group intending to make a difference through concerted and collective action is likely to agree to the importance of these three statements:
We want to improve our world.
We need each other to make a difference.
We are powerful together.
You are in a powerful position to act when your group's desire to have an Impact on its world is backed up with understanding of the current Reality and grounding in your Bond and Purpose, with members who are self-accepting and aspire to their Potential. Meeting this combination of needs puts the group squarely behind the changes it desires to make in the world. As you read on, look for reflections of the Blue Shirts' group experience.
You know what your group's Reality is. Now, what is the Reality you want to create? Discomfort with the status quo is not motivation enough to constructively change it. Solid group action needs to be preceded by some imagining of, then plans for, what the group wants to make different. What would your group like to be celebrating in seven months or seven years or seven generations? For a moment, look over the fence separating the practical from the impractical; dream of what might be. In your heart, how do you want to see this world changed and improved? Not in your head, but in your heart of hearts, where motivation to act resides. When your group imagines and reaches together, it unites in spirit. Dreaming together gives expression to the longings held by individuals and now shared with the group, aiding your collective clarity on what you want to do together. When the group creates a vision of the world it wants, it readies itself for action in the present.
Extraordinary groups commonly delight in, not just what they are able to do but also, how members' unique accomplishments are interdependent and meld together to contribute to the success of the entire group. Achieving together is a special experience rooted in the integration of individual contributions. It's as if the work is genetically imprinted by those participating: Looking back, members might say, "It's our baby; we made this! We all contributed." The outcome would have been different with different members. Members realize their individual importance to their shared accomplishment. This comes out in celebration when you hear, "Look at what we did! We couldn't have done this without each other!"
Meeting each of the six Group Needs builds power and it comes to fruition in Impact. Power is about combining talents and aspirations to make a difference in the world. As the group sees its Impact, so do each of the members; they each know what they contributed. They feel more powerful. When members feel powerful, they are more powerful, and this affects their behavior, generally making it more expansive and creative. The vitality present in the group, the way it has used its resources, the learning of members, the effectiveness of action—all of this lifts the power of a group and its Impact.
Combining our understanding of our current world with the pursuit of a better world requires empathy, even compassion. We read the outside columns of the table below separately, but we live them together, two sides of the World loop. On the left, we pursue deep understanding of the current realities of our world. On the right, we move toward the world we wish to create together. And, as the center column suggests, we do both: we simultaneously accept the world while changing it. At least that's what our extraordinary groups' actions suggest. Hold a vision of what you want while knee-deep in Reality. This is the creative dynamic; this third view deepens your clarity about the world while expanding your options. This larger view from the third position makes transformation possible.
Katie, Catherine, Sheila, and all their Blue Shirt colleagues constantly worked within this creative dynamic within each clinic and within the larger team as one organizational unit. In the clinics as they implemented a similar process and worked toward the same outcomes, each of the twenty-six settings required the team to flex, adapt, and apply their various talents given the way Reality showed up in each location. The same was true for the team as a whole as it responded to member turnover and fatigue. Reality had to be addressed, and it took the full team to not only deal with that Reality, but to push past it to achieve the desired organization-changing Impact.
Table 6.1. The Creative Dynamic of Reality and Impact
Reality: Understanding and Accepting the World as It Is and How It Affects Us | The Creative Dynamic ↔ | Impact: Our Intention to Make a Difference and Our Readiness to Act |
|---|---|---|
We are alert to the world around us | ↔ | We want to improve our world |
We are intrigued with that world | ↔ | We need each other to make a difference |
We accept our reality | ↔ | We are powerful together |
In the preceding two chapters, the Self met itself, then the Self joined the Group, and now the Group goes out into the World—joining all six Group Needs in the model. As the group of now bonded individuals frames its Purpose within the context of the real world, all three loops of the model intersect. To help this happen, our four suggestions are
Risk making your world a better place.
Set clear goals with flexible plans.
Face into adversity and resistance.
Keep the group together.
The remainder of this chapter builds these suggestions with reflective questions for you to consider and sample actions you might take. And don't forget to look in Appendix A for exercises that take you step-by-step toward a better understanding of your world.
Note your first reaction to this first suggestion. Many of us have learned to step away from this grand dream—even though it is exactly what we would like to do! This strategy asks you to step back into that world-changing intention, that inspired feeling, you may have carried years ago. Return to hope and back it with action. This stance toward the world informs your actions. There is no doubt that you already have intentions toward the world and they profoundly affect what you see, do, and feel. We know, and our extraordinary groups know, that right action backed by positive intent works wonders. The same action backed by cynicism, fatalism, or pessimism produces quite a different result. So our first suggestion is a commitment of the heart: "I intend to make this world a better place." Try it on. If it fits, you are living one of the critical ingredients of progress.
Most great groups build on their members' desire to positively influence, to make a difference, to have an Impact on others and their world. This desire is about contribution, power, recognition, and legacy. Helping a group step up to these aspirations can be a challenge that requires a willingness to risk disappointment or failure. Earlier, we urged you to intentionally reach beyond in-the-moment practicality to dream a bit, to see your work in a grand way—and that is what the group must do too. This often comes about by engaging the group in dreaming, envisioning, and expressing what that better place looks like. In the same way, your group will consider two questions: What change do we envision for our world? And how will we bring that change about? Heartfelt collective answers to these questions build confidence to face the risk involved.
Considering these questions will center you for related discussions in your group. Notice the bias of the questions toward possibility and progress. Consider these questions based on your wide experience with groups, thinking particularly of groups that were more successful.
What have you seen other successful groups do that allowed them to change their worlds?
When have you been a group member truly invested in bringing about change? Why were you so invested?
What are your key motivators when it comes to making a difference in the world?
What regularly blocks you from stepping up to make your world a better place?
What would you like to see yourself doing regarding the above questions that you do not now do?
Again, use the same optimistic bias we saw in your reflection questions. But this time it's the group's turn to think positively.
Discuss ways in which your group could intentionally make its world a better place. Build a list of the specifics you want to see; mark those items where you can have the greatest Impact. Decide what needs to be done next.
Ask that the group consider what members need in the way of world change for this to be a satisfying endeavor in which to invest themselves. Keep notes on this and then select a need or two that appears widely felt. Then together figure out what members could do in concert to meet those needs.
Initiate a discussion about how your group is currently impacting its world, imagining that some higher authority seriously asked the group to do so. How would fulfilling this be for individual members? What would make it more so?
Given your group's Purpose, what Impact would be most inspiring or make group members most proud?
Encourage the group to discuss what members could do within the group to make their effectiveness outside the group more likely.
When people are clear about the world they want to create around them, the question quickly becomes: How? Most of us schooled in the ways of groups believe that plans and strategies are critical tools for marshalling group's collective talent, knowledge, and energy. Our interviews shed a different and contrary light on that notion. The only aspect of typical planning methods that consistently surfaced as important was setting clear, inspiring, attainable—yet challenging—goals. Focused strategies, detailed plans, established procedures, or working agreements were not consistently cited as important by these extraordinary groups.
Instead, people spoke of the need for clear goals that stretched people and flexibility in attaining them—especially in situations where circumstances kept changing. A common comment: "Strategies could change, but goals stayed the same." Clear and sustained goals allow members to know individually and together what they intend to do to change their world. Then members can adapt as needed to respond to or take advantage of shifting circumstances.
Goals and plans are at the heart of what most organizations talk about—along with objectives and procedures, roles and rules. Consider your own reactions to all of this.
How important are goals in your life? In your work? Why is there a difference between these answers—if there is?
When have goals served you particularly well? Describe two or three instances. As you think about your answers, do they fit with the ways you generally describe yourself?
How planful is your group? Will you have the ability to adapt your strategies as circumstances change?
How do you like being part of a planned group effort?
How planful are you—apart from the group? How natural is planning for you? If you are not a planner, what do you do instead? How effective is that for you?
Most groups recognize the need for goals at some level—otherwise, why do members come together? However, harnessing collective action toward goals can be challenging.
Push the group to set goals to achieve the Impact for what you want to accomplish together. Hear from all members.
When setting goals, check for clarity and support across the group. Assure goals are clear, doable, and challenging. Make sure these goals will fulfill the group's Purpose and desired Impact.
Consider the current Reality the group faces in carrying out these goals. Do a deep assessment of barriers and the support needed to overcome those obstacles.
Ask the group to discuss how members can support each other on the way to goal accomplishment.
Develop a "Plan B"—what to do to continue to reach your goals if your Reality shifts.
Time and time again extraordinary groups cited "a challenge" as a big factor in making their experiences compelling. The challenge of doing something huge, important, new, or difficult galvanizes people, inspires and requires them to step up. In such situations, groups must understand the Reality they face as they step up. Turning away from the forces arrayed against the group does not serve. Our interviews touched on a wide range of resistance and adversity: physical hardship, cultural diversity, deliberate miscommunication, lack of technical skill, language barriers, poverty, limited life experience, egos, and lack of funding. We suspect you could double this list. Each adversity offers an intriguing challenge for your group as you face resistance and drill down into Reality.
Denying the resistance of others will also not serve your group. Resistance is natural and usually the indication that your efforts have engaged something important. Extraordinary groups expect and enjoy rising to such challenges; it's part of what Bonds them. In politically sensitive organizations, groups are faced with bringing along "those other people" who "don't see things our way." These others can be anyone: management, a department, a person, a small group of employees, a group of citizens, a new boss. In each case, those others are a part of the Reality the group must face. A group's challenge is often embracing and holding resistance, accepting its Reality by respecting and honoring where this resistance comes from. This does not mean caving in to it, but rather learning from it in order to move ahead.
Resistance always comes from people. It may be reified in rules, but there are people and decisions behind those rules. And resistance is primarily about feelings—usually fear of some sort of loss. Notice your own resistance, your own reactions to adversity.
Think about adversity and how it shows up in your work, community or personal life. Are there patterns in the way you typically respond to these challenges?
Which of the Group needs are most likely to come up for you when you resist? Acceptance or Potential? Bond or Purpose? Reality or Impact? What fears or worries trigger your resistance?
When you see other people resisting, how does that affect you? Do you find your own resistance being activated by theirs?
Can you think of examples from a group you are currently part of in which you showed resistance? What did you do and why? How effective was that for you? For others?
One of the keys to succeeding in the face of resistance is to understand and respect it. Help your group members talk openly about resistance they see in others and in themselves.
Be a group of learners. With others from your group, meet with those who resist your efforts; listen to them; ask lots of questions and collect what you learn in response. Demonstrate that you understand their views. Remember that understanding does not mean agreement.
Deal with resistance as normal. In a group meeting, anticipate the resistance you expect. Build a list. Decide what you want to do about the items on your list.
On a regular basis, assess the Reality your group faces, recognizing that circumstances change. Talk about Reality in group meetings. Together determine whether shifting circumstances translate into something as serious as adversity. If so, how will you collectively respond?
Groups intent on changing their world are wise to pause periodically to check-in on what holds members together. In our view, the answers lie within the six Group Needs. People show up physically, emotionally, and spiritually when their needs are being met. They pull away when their needs are neglected. In extraordinary groups, members act in ways that keep the group together. When designated leaders try to handle this task alone, it doesn't work. Anyone in the group can help build relationships, encourage learning, praise accomplishment, listen to contrary ideas, offer assistance, ask questions. Designated leaders have a significant role, but in only half of our extraordinary groups were designated leaders cited as very important to the group's success. Instead it is what group members do together that coalesces them into an effective unit. Said differently, every member acts in leader-like ways; each feels responsibility for creating a cohesive group that moves toward success.
The potential for Impact on the world is a great motivator, but it is not enough because it only meets one of the six Group Needs that drive people in groups. Groups need to attend to the other five as well to increase the likelihood of great results and a transformative experience. Groups only focused on Purpose, Reality and Impact often lose heart—because so much of heart is in the other three needs: Acceptance, Potential, and Bond. Meeting all the task needs and none of the relationship needs sucks the life out of the group.
Returning to questions like these regularly makes it more likely your Group Needs will be met within the group. Give voice to your answers in the group. Keep the six Group Needs in mind as you answer these questions.
What do you need from this group that you are regularly getting? What do you need and seldom get?
How does having your own Group Needs met impact your day-to-day behavior in the group?
What Group Needs do you see at play among other members in the group?
What could you do in the group to better meet their Group Needs?
What are the primary bonds that hold this group together?
What are your responsibilities for keeping the group together? How do you fulfill this obligation?
The Group Needs model is a useful tool for focusing the entire group on what the members, individually and collectively, need.
Review the Group Needs model with your group. Ask members to cite examples of where these needs have been recently met. Then ask where needs have regularly been frustrated. Use all of this information to decide what the group might do next to better meet these needs.
Help your group spend time reviewing its accomplishments, large and small. Occasionally, turn this into a real celebration. Celebrate work progress at least as often as the group is critical of progress. Learn from your success and learn from your failures.
Support the group by setting aside time for members to vent their frustrations with the group itself or the world on which the group is trying to have an Impact.
Deal with group frustrations as normal. Do not expect perfect projects, perfect performance, or perfect meetings. Be accepting of the circumstances you face; build from there. Forgive mistakes and learn from setbacks and failure. Do not focus on punishment. Never blame.
Support wide involvement of group members; encourage people to take on a variety of roles. Do not rely on the few to carry the many forward. Rely on the many; expect them all to initiate, to take responsibility, to lead. Talk about the importance of full-engagement and shared leadership.
Of course, recognizing Reality and having an Impact on the world are just two of the six Group Needs being met in group action. The more members attend to all Group Needs, the better the group will perform. As important as Reality and Impact are to the continued life of a group, our interviews found that extraordinary groups don't just "keep their eye on the ball." They instinctively keep their eyes on all the balls, in this case, all the Group Needs. We encourage you and your groups to consciously scan your selves, your members, your world—deciding what is important again and again. The more Group Needs are met, the more likely something transformative will occur. Chapter Seven illustrates this dynamic with several examples from our field study.