Real World Parallels: Rice and Straw "help" Iraqi's

In today's New York Times (4/6/06) there's an article reporting that the elected leaders of Iraqi resented the "help" that Secretary Rice and Foreign Minister Jack Straw tried to give them to form a government. All of the Iraqi officials said the effort was counter productive. Even those who were fighting with one another.

In Pumping we say that all teams must win for any team to win. On several occasions there has been one team out of a group that's struggling. The teams that are doing well discover this and make the decision to help the struggling teams. In almost every case the help is resented. Even when the successful teams can absolutely solve their problem by giving them just a few hints. The struggling team won't hear of it. On several occasions they would rather fail than accept the help.

I think what happens is that the people who are struggling are already operating in the reptilian, non-rational, part of their brains because of the stress that the potential failure puts on them. So when someone tries to help, they don't make a rational decision but an emotional one. To the people who are trying to help and who are operating in the rational parts of their brains, the rejection seems stupid and often makes them angry. The point is that to help someone or a group of people who are under stress, you have to work with them to move out of the emotional area and start to think rationally about the problem. The best way to do this is with one's best facilitator skills e.g. ask questions to help them solve their own problem and not offering solutions unless asked.

It makes me proud of our profession

April 3, 2006.

Garry Shirts

Last Thursday and Friday we conducted a train the trainer workshop for Pumping the Colors. All of the people who attended were trainer types who taught and valued the process of working together as a team.

I'm always impressed with the difference between the way a group like this works on the problem and a group of people who have not been trained in group processes. In this particular train the trainer group there was only one person who had any experience building with the pipes, connectors and equipment that we use in Pumping the Colors. Yet, because they knew how to listen, to work together, to give feedback, and use all of the other skills required by the 7 practices, they were able to accomplish the task faster and better than any team of people who have extensive experience in using the equipment and materials that are used in Pumping The Colors but do not know how to work as a team. For example, this group out performed by a country mile a group of machinists who recently went through PTC. These were men who had spent their lives building complicated machines but had very few of the team building skills. But what is even more important, if this group were an intact team they would continue to improve as a team and want to work together.

It makes me proud of all us who have chosen to help other people learn how to work together as our life's work.