Chapter 13

The Pieces Come Together

When the team regrouped at 9:00 the next morning, each member seemed ready to get to work. The process the day before yielded some promising results, but that didn't quench the team's anxiety and eagerness to hear from Kate about her discussion with Alicia.

“It was a good conversation,” Kate began. “Not only did I confirm we are on a very productive path but I also talked with her pretty straightforwardly about how she can help our ideas get heard.”

“What do you mean, ‘get heard’?” asked Amy.

“Just greasing the rails so that when we present our recommendations, they will be given fair consideration rather than being dismissed offhand.”

“Excellent,” Juan said, verbalizing the wave of relief that was flooding the room. Now they could move on!

Juan got right down to business. “As you can see, we've been converging on several areas for growing Consolidated's relationship with the market. Before we broke for the day we were able to group the ideas into several general categories, each of which needs additional research and development.”

“Yes, I see,” said Kate, perusing the work covering the walls of the conference room. From one end to another, sticky notes holding ideas—some of which were very creative, Kate noticed with satisfaction—were grouped in titled categories.

“That wall has over two hundred ideas on it—some of which were totally not worth exploring,” Amy said.

“But we didn't dismiss them easily,” Damon broke in. “Those babies produced a lot of discussion. Preserving novelty is not easy.”

“How did you make sure you did that, preserve novelty?” asked Kate.

“We each had to force ourselves to look at the ideas differently. We asked each other ‘What do you like about this idea?’—which at times turned out to be a lot harder to answer than we thought it would!”

Damon was clearly enthusiastic about the process—his smile was buoying up the group's spirits considerably. “Some of the ideas that we initially put in the trash can were reexamined with that “being appreciative” concept in mind and they actually morphed into new, workable ideas, just like you said they could. So we added those to our wall and went on with the grouping.”

“Sounds great. Let me ask you all this: if we explored the best ideas here, the best groups of ideas, would we be meeting the mark of providing our client with some real breakthrough results?”

The group didn't hesitate. A confident, collective “yes” came from all five members in unison. Without a doubt, they were clearly committed to the process and invested in its results. Completely independent of her logical side, Kate's heart involuntarily swelled with pride—for them and a little bit for her, too. They were pulling it off. They were becoming an innovative team.

Juan and Amy walked Kate through each of the groupings. Five main themes emerged as essential to building alliances in the marketplace—globalization, technology, supply chain, staffing, and partnerships.

“Kate,” Amy finally said after the team talked over the potential directions the ideas could take within each broad theme. “We think it's time to open up the doors here. We need more expertise, more manpower, in order to effectively explore these areas. If we are going to pursue each of these areas with the appropriate amount of attention they deserve, there is a lot of work to do and we can't manage that alone.”

“I was expecting we might need some support. Tony has already approved the idea of us pulling some people off other projects to do some more work here. Mostly from the business analyst pool as well as some support staff to help us compile and present our best thinking.”

“That's great news. As we discussed next steps at the end of the day yesterday, we were all in agreement that creating subteams to dive deep into these ideas and develop something comprehensive was the best approach,” Elaine explained. “The five themes also lend themselves nicely to each of us leading the subteams. Convenient, no?”

“Yes, perfect,” Kate added. “Tell me more about your plan.”

Elaine took the lead with the pure anticipatory joy of a Golden Retriever faced with a Frisbee. Her tendency toward implementation was finally able to be satisfied. She explained the plan for developing the ideas, including the structures of the subteams, expected outcomes, and aggressive timelines for deliverables. She was clearly in her element. Her voice was enthusiastic and forthright. Juan and Maya seemed to be paying close attention to the content of her plan, following each step as it was presented to be sure nothing was missed. Amy seemed somewhat disengaged, which Kate thought was odd. Damon, however, was beaming. Kate wondered if it was relief that someone else was spearheading this part of the process that made him so happy or something else. Whatever it was, Kate's earlier fear that Damon would disengage during this part of the process seemed unfounded.

When Elaine had finished her thorough layout of the plan, Kate decided to find out. “Damon, I couldn't help but notice you have a happy little grin on your face. Does this plan excite you?”

“To be honest, Kate, I am just glad that Elaine is here,” Damon said.

“What?” Elaine said, surprised that Damon was being so openly complimentary.

“This is your part of the process, isn't it? Maybe this is why we occasionally butt heads. I am an ideator and you are clearly an implementer. Just look at how excited you are at finally getting down to business, putting the plan together. I would be dying right now trying to map out all these steps. I mean, I can do it, but I sure wouldn't find any pleasure in it. This stuff makes you glow.”

“Yes, this is where I like to spend my time. I love putting together a solid plan and then making it happen. That's why when you're off in Idea Land I try to call you back to Fact World. I want to build something and you're being all . . .” Elaine tried to come up with the right word.

Maya found it for her. “Divergent?”

“Exactly. All that diverging is like floating in the air to me. It needs to come down to earth at some point.”

“Right now, I am very glad we have someone who not only likes being where the rubber meets the road, but is also pretty good at it.” Damon's compliments were a welcome surprise to the team. Kate was relieved to see Elaine and Damon begin to come together so well, to openly appreciate each other's differences. The shift from when they first started was remarkable. She was convinced that without paying attention to the qualities of the team members and the process they were engaged in this appreciation would never have occurred and their results would certainly have been less significant.

“Me, too,” added Amy, as if coming out of a state of hibernation. “The implementation phase is exhausting to me. I'm glad we have someone who is strong in this area.”

“That's an interesting question.” Juan's mind had wondered away from the interpersonal and back to the theoretical. “Just because you prefer to spend time at one point or another in the breakthrough thinking process, does that necessarily mean you are good at it?”

“What do you think?” asked Amy.

“I think it would make sense if it did, but then again, some of Damon's ideas weren't always the best.” Juan smiled at Damon.

“Hey—don't judge, remember?” Damon said.

“I'm kidding a little, but think about it a minute. What if your preference was to come up with ideas and you just weren't all that good at it? Or if you were like Elaine and enjoyed coming up with plans and implementing them but kept missing steps? Do you think that could happen?”

“I think so. I mean preference doesn't necessarily mean skill. You've got to have both to be good at something, I would think,” said Amy, intrigued at exploring the idea.

“I don't know about that,” Maya spoke up. “I mean, I don't think I have much of a preference at all for one or the other of the stages in this process and I think I can be good at all of them. I don't think you need a clear preference to be good at something.”

“That's true,” Damon said. “I mean I didn't get to this point in my career without implementing a few things successfully. I love the idea-generation part of the process but if that was all I could do I wouldn't be able to succeed. I don't get turned on by implementing, so I'm seriously grateful that Elaine does, but I have been able to do it when pressed.”

“Of course, you must have,” Elaine reflected. “I think where people can run into trouble is when they rely too much on their preferences. If all I did was implement, implement, implement, I might implement myself off a cliff. I have to be a clarifier at times so I know in which direction to head.”

“Have you ever found yourself leaving the gate too soon?” Juan asked. “I felt you were ready to get going early on in our process. It seemed to me that I was beginning to hold you back.”

“Yes, I've done that before. No question about it. Right now I am really glad you did hold us back. Without that mind-mapping thing, we never would have ended up in the direction we have. Exploring the data was key,” said Elaine. “And although I can now appreciate that as I look back on our process, I still know that I have no energy to do that work. For me, it's tedious. Next time, I'll use the mind map when I have to do this—that got us out of a rough patch.”

Kate was sitting back admiringly watching her team go. What was it that was making this team that was so incompatible at the start work so well together now? It was more than following the breakthrough process. It was something else. Through learning about the process, they had gained an appreciation for each other and their strengths. They understood more about why they behaved the way they did and that understanding was helping them come together around a common goal. Most teams are so busy doing that they are not able to think about their own thinking and manage their own processes objectively. The team had moved quickly to a high level of performing through this understanding of preference and process. She made some notes of her thoughts to bring to Tony later on.

“Kate, you're awful quiet over there. What are you writing?” Damon asked.

“Just a few observations.” At first, she wasn't going to share her thoughts with the team for fear of taking them in a direction they didn't need to go. With Damon's direct question, she was on the spot. Instead of being direct about her thoughts, however, she thought it best to test them out.

“I'm wondering, has discovering your preferences for different parts of the process helped this team?” she asked.

Around the table were instant reactions that it had, so she swapped her closed-ended question for an open-ended one. “How has it helped?”

“If I hadn't known that Damon's preference was ideation and that we needed him for that, I would have killed him long ago,” Elaine said jokingly, and then added, “but knowing my own preference has helped me more. I mean, I had to actively force myself to do the other parts of the process that I would have preferred to just get through quickly.”

“I agree,” added Juan, “and the tools we've been using have helped with that. It has been great knowing where we are in the process and where we are going. I like to spend my time clarifying and developing, so when it was time to come up with ideas, I knew to be more patient. It was more important to generate a lot of ideas instead of a few usable ones. Usually, I would stop there. You know, just come up with a few ideas that I found workable and move on. Knowing where we were in the process and having some tools to use to get me to think differently helped me make it through that phase with a little more comfort. You just have to trust the process is going to take you where you need to go.”

“What tools are you talking about?” Damon asked.

“Like when Tony came in with those toys. Those were tools of sorts, weren't they?” said Juan.

“Yes,” said Kate. “They were tools used for helping people come up with new ideas by relating things to each other that they wouldn't normally try to combine. It's called ‘forced connections.’”

“I thought so. That got my mind working differently and the guidelines did, too. I would never have expected something as simple as guidelines would make such a difference.”

“Yeah, I've been in lots of meetings before when we would generate ground rules during the first meeting,” added Amy, “and then set them aside and hardly ever think about them again. It made for a lot of wasted time in terms of the time generating them and then the time wasted not following them. These guidelines were different, though. We made an effort to really use them and hold each other accountable to them. I've been in brainstorming sessions before where there were no guidelines and that led to a small number of ideas, boring ones at that. I think that was because people would criticize them so much no one would take the risk of putting something new out there.”

Wanting to own up to her own insights, Elaine added, “And we used the stages deliberately so that we were all applying our thinking, no matter our preference, to the task at hand. It's just way more efficient to have everyone focused on the same thought process—and for me to realize that I can't rush the process to get to action steps.”

“Can I say something here?” Maya said. “I think I'm missing something because I don't know how awareness of preference has really helped me. Like I said before, I don't think I have a preference. I'm pretty comfortable with all the stages of the process.”

“So you didn't use that knowledge at all as a part of this team?” Kate challenged her.

“Yes. Yes, you did,” Amy said. “It wasn't the same as Elaine and Juan being more aware of themselves. It was more about you being aware of where others were in the process and helping them come together. There were a bunch of times you helped me see the importance of a part of the process I didn't particularly get. For instance, I'm not all that much into implementing plans. I love data so clarifying is comfortable for me. Generating ideas and developing them is great. But I'd prefer to continue to make an idea stronger than let it go. Juan and I have that in common. Last night as we were working on these, we were both getting in tinker mode—you know what I'm talking about? We were sort of adjusting things.”

“I like to tinker, it's true.” Juan agreed.

“And he and I were spending a lot of time in the globalization group over there. I could tell you were getting a little impatient. You wanted to work with Elaine to come up with a plan of attack and had already started imagining how our subteams might look. Instead of pushing us too hard, you were able to get Juan and me to finish our work more quickly. Instead of just saying, ‘That's it—we've got to get on with it.’”

“Like I wanted to say,” Elaine interrupted.

“You actually helped him finish.” Amy continued, “It was as if you understood that tinkering was something we had to do and it was better to just help him through that phase than to squash it.”

“I did? How did I do that?” Maya was surprised.

“I remember this,” Juan interrupted. “We were looking at the ideas under globalization and Elaine began talking about moving forward and mentioned a couple of steps that needed to be done. You said something like, ‘Yes, we do need to move on,’ but instead of trying to stop our work, you asked us a couple of questions that got me to finish what I was doing faster. What did you say again? It was something simple like, ‘What are you seeing here?’ that started our conversation. In just talking about it, you brought us back to task and helped me concentrate on finishing. And that's when we noticed the staffing issue was embedded in the globalization issue. We pulled that out and made it into a fifth category.”

“I think you are what's called an integrator,” said Kate. “By not having a distinct preference you can be flexible throughout the whole process; you can also help us move forward when we need to. That's what it sounds like you did here. You went and helped Juan finish up so you all could move ahead. That would be hard to do if you weren't comfortable with all parts of the process.”

“I guess I can see that,” Maya said. “I hadn't thought about it like that. More often, I don't see my not having a clear preference as an advantage but a liability. It's like I feel pressure to be everything in the process or be good at everything. Sometimes I just want to move on.”

“I'm glad you did it,” Juan assured her, “but it was the way you did it. You felt comfortable with the process, helped me do what I felt I needed to do, and then we got out of the gate.”

Maya was pleased. She had been unsure about how she was contributing. Being comfortable with everything felt to her like she wasn't specialized enough or that she needed to be stronger in more parts of the process. Now she realized that was not the case.

“Not to be too much of the task master that I am,” Elaine began, “but we need to finish up here. All this reflective talk is well and good but we have some work to do.”

Kate bristled a little bit. “Elaine, we do have work to do and I think you've laid it out very nicely. But I don't want to diminish the value of what we've been talking about here. This reflective time we are having is essential. It's what is making this team outperform other teams and more important outperform itself. You guys have done more work in new and different ways in the last week than you have all year. I'm very proud of you all. We are almost to the finish line and I can see the directions we are taking our client in are right in line with what they need.”

“Of course, you're right,” Elaine said. “I can't argue with the results. We got here not just by reflecting on how we were doing but trusting that the process would take us there.”

“It has so far,” Maya interjected, also ready to move along. “What's next?”