Breakdowns and Breakthroughs Transformation is full of risks; some of them are expected and others are not. Expect to experience breakdowns. Expect them to be painful. Expect them to be difficult. Also, expect them to be beneficial. Most importantly, don't try to prevent them; in fact, encourage them. High-performance teams almost always experience breakdowns. When your team breaks down, hang on tight, because it is going to be one hell of a ride, one that can end with fantastic results no one ever thought were possible. What happens during a breakdown? Teams go through three distinct stages: blow up; re-integration and leveling off. When the team blows up, frustration levels are high. Expect to see finger pointing and fault-finding. Communication is often hostile. Trust may have been broken between team members; some people may not be speaking. This is a dangerous time for a Change Team. If the team cannot get beyond this stage, it disbands either quickly, or slowly, as people drop out in frustration. Openness about the hostility, anger and frustration will go a long way to getting a team past this point. Teams that make it beyond the blowup will start re-integrating. People on the team begin to see that maybe, just maybe, the team can work together again. Commitments, requirements and expectations of team members are revisited and altered. Trust is tentatively built during the re-integration. Everyone remembers the pain, anger and hurt feelings of the blowup. Sometimes the team breaks down because it is attempting to do something that's impossible... impossible with its current plan or with its current tools or with its current belief system. Because the same frustration and anger are present, team members often believe the cause of the problem is people. When they finally review their approach to the initiative and realize they have to change their plan and/or their tools and/or their beliefs, they re-integrate themselves into a force more powerful -- and with more potential -- than ever. That's BREAKTHROUGH! Finally the team starts to level off. Surprisingly, trust and commitment are often stronger after a breakdown. People are more confident that they know what the team and their fellow members will tolerate (and CAN tolerate). The anger, frustration, hostility and hurt feelings have paid off in a renewed and deeper commitment to one another, to the team and to the initiative. What will it accomplish to encourage one of these painful breakdowns? Major breakthroughs almost always follow a breakdown. Breakdowns are a symptom of something that isn't working. So a breakdown forces the team to examine itself and its initiative when its own processes are broken or ineffective. Breakdowns create chaos. Nothing works like it did before. It's that state of chaos that generates the creativity that can lead to huge breakthroughs in thought and processes. You've heard the saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention." That's what a breakthrough is. It's necessary for the initiative to progress, especially when chaos prevails. Because the old way isn't working, a new way is created. Real breakthroughs in thought and process so often follow breakdowns that there is reason to believe breakthroughs are actually caused by breakdowns. Written by Heidi Jeanne Hess (Doug Wesley contributed) Check Point (Please complete and submit the Form below) When
you are finished Updated: July 5, 1998 |
