Collaboration and Communication

Ask the tough questions only when you truly want the answers. Requests for feedback are often misunderstood as appeals for praise. Why ask unless you are prepared to absorb the critique and make the changes it evokes? Consider intensifying the challenge. Rather than asking a friend, ask a stranger. Instead of soliciting one opinion, ignite a feedback circle. Here’s an example:

It took nearly three years for the Team Clock Institute to publish the soon-to-be-released interpersonal suite of products. The assessment sort cards and action workbook unfolded quickly since they are both anchored in the trademarked principles and methodology of the Team Clock. The book, Useful Pain: Why Your Relationships Need Struggle, took over two years to complete. While the author had his own obstacles, the primary source of delay was the decision to invite critique.

The executive leadership team I coach on Friday mornings doesn’t always see eye-to-eye. Sometimes, a teammate opts out of the discussion when he or she isn’t getting their way. As a coach, I finesse a way to invite them back into the conversation. The musicians who gather in my basement on Friday nights find ways to collaborate without words. It’s a universal language. Sometimes there is harmony and other times there is dissonance. There is always communication. Fridays are full of lessons.

Surrounded by vital partnerships, it’s time to give pause for reflection and gratitude. Where do you fit on the Team Clock Institute’s 2012 Thank You List?

The Mayor’s director of economic development stood at the center of the room as the facilitator carefully arranged community stakeholders in a constellation around his orbit. The exercise was designed to assist the city’s leadership to better understand the priorities of their community partners. One by one, workshop participants were assigned roles and placed somewhere in proximity to the center either facing toward or away from the leader. If it wasn’t already clear before the exercise, there would soon be no question about which members of the community had power and influence in the city’s future.

The task was daunting, the time frame was pressing, and the outcome was magical. Resurrecting a 65 year old musical composition by musicians who had never before sung together for a 45-minute window in a recording studio was the challenge.

Welcome back to the Team Clock Institute’s monthly newsletter. Each month, Breakthrough Teams will invite readers to participate in an Ask/Apply/Act model:
Ask: this month’s team challenge
Apply: example story
Act: action steps for consideration

Welcome back to the Team Clock Institute’s monthly
newsletter. Each month, Breakthrough Teams will invite
readers to participate in an Ask/Apply/Act model:

Ask: this month’s team challenge

Apply: example story

Act: action steps for consideration