Growing Edge
October 1, 1997
What does it take to create a dynamic team?
In 1992, an energetic team from our church launched night life, an up-tempo, casual Saturday evening service for secular people. Everything about this service differed from what happened Sunday morning.
Of course, not everyone in our land of the Psalter hymnal appreciated using secular music to make a spiritual point. Often criticisms were blatant: "The atmosphere in night life is closer to a bar than a church." Other pressures to conform were subtle: "Why not design the service to have a wider appeal, making it more comfortable for all ages?"
I championed the vision of the team making the launch, but looking back, I can see I missed a crucial need of this innovative bunch: protection. I should have shielded the launch team rather than highlighted concerns about the service.
This was driven home for me recently as I read Organizing Genius (Addison-Wesley, $24, to order: 800-822-6339). Its authors, Warren Bennis, author of Leaders and On Becoming a Leader, and Patricia Biederman, write, "One thing Great Groups do need is protection. … Because Great Groups break new ground, they are more susceptible than others to being misunderstood, resented, even feared. Successful leaders find ways to insulate their people from bureaucratic meddling."
Team-and-leader marriage
Great Groups organize around a mission. Bennis and Biederman cite six case studies of Great Groups: the recent turnaround at Disney, Apple's development of personal computers, Clinton's remarkable victory in the 1992 presidential race, Lockheed's Skunk Works, the educational experiment at Black Mountain College, and the Manhattan Project. Unlike so many authors on group dynamics, Bennis and Biederman value both ...
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