Innovation Tips

…a monthly internet letter addressing key aspects of

innovation through teamwork

==============================================

Learning from the Chicago Bulls

Teamwork is an ineffable phenomenon. So much occurs at an unconscious level to promote either harmony or conflict that it is often difficult to know when a group is really going to work well together, no matter how much conscious training in teamwork they may have received.

But the context for team interaction often has a remarkable effect on team results. Groups that are structured to highlight individual performance often do not cooperate as effectively as those focused on the performance of the whole team. Traditional management structures often feature and reward the success of managers, “the leadership,” but seldom reward or highlight as effectively the performance of the people that made the manager look good.

When teams are fluidly organized in a way that enables people to independently take initiative without a lot of managerial directives, they often come alive with a renewed passion for collaboration.

One of the classic examples of such teamwork is the NBA championship team, the Chicago Bulls. Having Michael Jordan, the player widely considered to be the best ever, it would have been easy for them to organize their game around the performance of that one star. But they didn’t. Their unorthodox coach Phil Jackson, who drew much of his inspiration for teamwork from Zen Buddhism and Lacota warriors, developed an unorthodox and fluid approach to their offense that liberated them to respond to any defense as a cohesive team, while thinking and responding individually.

In their unconventional and fluid “triangle offense”, they often confounded the opposition by reacting unpredictably to various defensive scenarios. Their “system” permitted the group intelligence to emerge while it liberated the spontaneous initiatives of each individual player. To engage the system, to get lost in the “dance” of working together, each player had to embrace the idea of selflessness wholeheartedly.

Effective teamwork in organizations often occurs when systems liberate individuals to act independently for the good of the organization. Accomplishing that approach to work requires new ways of organizing that defy traditional command and control methodologies. But once people learn those approaches, they often don’t want anything else.