Teams, Athletic and Non LO7102

Mariann Jelinek (mxjeli@mail.wm.edu)
Wed, 1 May 1996 13:45:25 -0400

Replying to LO6994 --

Barry Mallis wrote:

>I like the implications fo your question for the actual workplace where we
>have to think on our feet, little time to "practice", lots of time to
>apply what we believe are the right tools for a given job--not much
>practice time there.
>
>I have instructed people with whom I work and train that at the end of
>team meetings during the initial weeks of work together team members take
>the last five minutes of a team meeting for something unusual: process
>playback.
>
>Leaving data and mission behind, team members each make observations about
>how interactions worked during the hour or so. This debried may possibly
>be the closest thing to "practice" that we can support and sustain in
>situ.

Barry's suggestion is so apropos, and so rarely allowed in
practice, for "process" is the invisible matrix within which all our
actions happen. That process matrix is both cause and creator of our
experience, the field within which our interactions happen, and the ground
our interactions create. And, in our individually-oriented culture with
its mythos of individual, heroic actors ("Lou Gerstner leads IBM to new
highs" - or lows), it is so frequently invisible. Good for you, Barry, in
suggesting a good way to help people pay attention, improve their
interactions, and exercise their common wit and insight on the matrix they
create, whether they know it or not! Cheers!

Sam
MXJELI@MAIL.WM.EDU
Mariann Jelinek
Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business
Graduate School of Business,
College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, VA 23185

Tel. (804) 221-2882 FAX: (804) 229-6135
************************************************************************
The only enduring strategic advantage is the ability
to change the rules of the game.

-- 

mxjeli@mail.wm.edu (Mariann Jelinek)

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>