What Are My Priorities This Week?

What can you do in the meanwhile? Perhaps this scene revealed the dawning of religious belief. And perhaps it does. But in reading about the Sulawesi cave paintings, I was struck by a different interpretation. The tail of a crocodile to denote intelligence. The wings and beak of a bird to celebrate speed. A lion’s head for courage. The earliest human painting we’ve yet found is a painting of a team. A team in which each member shares the same goal, but also brings their unique qualities to support the rest of the team. I don’t know about you, but I find this interpretation of the painting greatly comforting. From the earliest prehistoric times we have realized how different we are from one another, how much we rely on one another, and how we can achieve so much more together than we ever can alone. We humans are, and have always been, team creatures. Workers who reported that they felt part of a team were not only 2.7

That Which  We Have Lost

That Which We Have Lost

times more likely to be fully engaged, they were three times more likely to be highly resilient and two times more likely to report a strong sense of belonging to their organization. There is no I in team. Teamwork is introduced as an aspiration to remind you that you yourself are less than the whole. As Pak’s painting reveals, this is a complete misunderstanding of the point of a team. We did not invent teams to remind individuals that they are not as important as the group. We created teams precisely because it was the best mechanism for maximizing the unique qualities of each individual. In one we saw the talent for organization, in another the instinctive connection to animals, in another brute strength, in another cunning, and we thought to ourselves, What if we combined these different people into a unit, these four fingers into a fist. And so we spoke to our brothers and sister around the fire, we told them of the hill that we needed to take, and then described how each one could play their part, together. There is no I in team misses the mark. The entire point of a team is to capitalize on each I. I’s, coordinated, are what a team is. Teams are the perfect place for you to both celebrate and contribute your unique loves.

A Mean Disposition

Organizations have created such disengaging places to work precisely because they haven’t understood the power of teams. If you are not part of a team, our data shows, less than 10 percent of you feel engaged, resilient, and connected. To contribute your best at work, you’ll have to buck this teamless working world. How can you do this? How can you seek out a team where your colleagues and your leader are deeply interested in who you are and what you bring to the team? Wrongheaded though this is, you’re not going to be able to recreate your organization’s talent management practices all by yourself. You want to find love in your work, you want to be seen for your whole, authentic self at work, and for the very best of you. Indeed, some of your fellow humans at work might be trying to do the same. Where does love fit into this ecosystem? First, try to get your thinking right, and then, whether you are a team member, team leader, or senior leader, you can follow the actions that flow from the thinking. To help you, here are five myths and truths to guide you in becoming a Love and Work leader. The team leader should set goals at the beginning of the year. The team leader should check in with each team member for fifteen minutes every week. They are one of the most common characteristics of your working world, and yet they’re also one of the least loving. In your nonwork world, goals serve as a way to make real the loves you feel inside you.

Although The Sun Is Shining

When I set myself a goal of getting into that room with Don Clifton, it was because I felt I loved what he was doing in that room. The goal started inside me as a love, and then I externalized it as a goal. This is the way goals will work in your life as well. Any goal springing from your loves is a good and useful thing. Unfortunately, this is not how we see them used in the world of work. Instead, they are usually deployed from on high, with your senior leaders defining goals for the entire organization, and then cascading these down through every level until you get yours. The problem with goals comes when they land upon your head. These goals were not set by you. They did not spring from what you love. In fact, they are ignorant of and irrelevant to what you love. You don’t necessarily need to pick a public fight with them, though. The difficulty of my goals doesn’t match yours, and besides, even if they did, your team leader and mine differ in how they assess our progress toward these goals. But, as I said, getting this realization widespread enough to spare you the yearly bump of goals dropping from the ceiling is going to take a few more years. While you’re waiting, here’s a new ritual you can do with your team leader, or as a team leader if you are one already. What activities did I love last week? What activities did I loathe last week? What are my priorities this week? What help do I need from you, my team leader? Each week, while your memory is still fresh, you get to think about and share a couple of red threads, and maybe a few of other shades. And then, of course, this sharing is not put on a shelf or stuffed into a report somewhere. It’s immediately applied to what you’re working on in the coming week, and what help you might need from your boss.