Last Friday night, beneath the lights on the Bowen island football pitch, my co-ed soccer league team won our Cup Final 5-0. We played the best team in the league for the Cup and although were prepared for a tight game. we were rather stunned with the result. What happened far exceeded our expectations of what was possible. We played unbelieveably well.
Football (I use the global term for “soccer” here) is a team game that is much like other team games in life. It features constrained action, bounded and with a purpose. It requires different people to perform different roles, sometimes at a distance from each other and it requires tremendous levels of improvisation to deal with the flow and constantly changing conditions. At the best of times it is an easy game to play but a hard game to play well, and it is an incredible game when your team plays out of its skin as we did on Friday. In my work life I work with some pretty good teams, especially with my friends in the Berkana Collaborative with whom I have tight and deep relationships. But playing on a football team for an hour or so gives one a clear and bounded sense of the possible, and I have been harvesting some of the key elements that went into making up my peak experience.
1. Train and learn together. It should go without saying that a team that does not train or learn together is not going to create an incredible experience right out of the box. A foundation of basic skills is essential. You have to know how to do the elementary things that you are being asked to do. None of us on the team are professionals, although some of us have had good coaching in the past. And because this is a recreational league we didn’t do much in the way of training together apart from on game days. But on game days we always arrived quite early and worked on skills, worked on patterns and ran some basic passing, shooting and team drills to get us in the mood for the game and to learn a little. Practicing and training together, in a positive spirit of encouragement and curiosity is a fundamental basis for good collaboration. We were never critical with each other, and always helped each other learn to do things we hadn’t been able to do before. In this way I think we all grew a little during the season.
2. Be friends. You are not going to perform anything near well if you don’t like each other. A case in point is this year French World Cup footbal team. A team of incredible invidiual talent, they ended up imploding, picking nfights with each other and going on strike with the result that they clattered out of the tournament’s early stages. When he was interview on CNN about what was wrong with the French team, German great Jurgen Klinnsman said simply “they don’t like each other.” You may think that being friends is a kind of kindergarten approach to getting things done but trying doing incredible work with people you dislike, distrust or haven’t forgiven. Good luck with that.
3. Have an obvious purpose. My friend Toke Moeller says that “purpose is the invisible leader.” So it is. On Friday our purpose was to win the game and the tournament. That was what we were there to do. We didn’t need a mission statement or a set of objectives. We had a simple set of measureables, the most obvious of which was the difference in goals scored. To acheive our purpose, we needed to score goals in their net and keep goals out of our net. But as clear as our purpose was, it would also be fair to say that we had a clear plan, although it was not a very precise one – it was rather based on principles. Basically we decided to attack on the wings, get past their midfield to where their defense was weakest and collapse our defenders on their forwards, denying them the centre of the field. Given these straightforward tactics, which were concrete and easy to remember, execution was easy. As a defender if I was playing too far outside, I could make a mental check in and move towards the middle. If my partner was passing the ball up the middle I could remind her to get it up the wings. We were able to adjust on the fly and feedback was welcome. We played dynamic football, but committed to our roles and responsibilities. We were able to be creative and supportive and flowing.
4. Communicate well and often. Football, like basketball and hockey and other flow sports, moves and changes quickly. Communication is essemtial. In fact it may have been the difference between our two teams on Friday night. We are chatty and talkative, communicating information to each other to alert players to threats, openings, available support, opportunities and options. Sometimes the communication is subtle – a hand waving to indicate that you are open – and other times it is panic laden and full of passion and roar. First and foremost it is clear and factual; second it is encouraging of stuff that is working; third it is helpful criticism to shift strategies or play a little differently.
5. Be aware of the whole field. This is another subtlety that separates good team from poor ones. In collaborative activities there is very little room for people to collapse their focus down on invididual needs. This awareness is a tricky thing to cultivate in an individualist culture, where we are rewarded for personal accomplishment. On Friday I was spending a lot of time tightly marking Team White’s striker, a tough playing and talented Brazilian named Gelson. For a lot of the match my focus was on him but the moment the ball was away from us, I could literally feel my awareness expand to contain the whole field. It helped me to be able to suggest options to our midfielders as I was seeing things unfold from my back line position. This total team awareness was perhaps the best indication that I was in a flow state all night.
6. Do your job and trust others to do theirs. Football is a great sport because you cannot do everything. The division of labour means that you have to focus on your job, figure out ways to connect to others and trust them to run with what you offer them. In football as in improv, the idea is to make your partners look good. A well weighted ball from the back helps midfielders chase it down the pitch. A good recovery from a rebound keeps your goalkeeper riding a clean sheet. On Friday I chose the job of marking Gelson, which meant that I was not going to be anywhere near the opposing team’s goal. No glory for me on the night except through the fact that we weren’t scored on. If I could keep Gelson and the other strikers from having any chance on goal, it would be easy for me trust our strikers to slot goals, and that was just what they did. It’s a relief not to have to do it all. It conserves energy, allows me to focus and takes advantage of the good relations we have.
7. Be generous. I think more than anything else on Friday night, I learned that football is a game of generosity. For the vast majority of the time, your job on a football pitch is to give and create. In the improv world we call this “making offers.” Generosity on the pitch means delivering useful passes, creating space by pulling your markers away from the action, helping support the play going forward by providing options so that we don’t give the ball away. In football, greedy players are vilified unless they are of the absolute highest talent. And even then, when they miss, especially when they had better options open, they are shunned. A shunned team member is impossible to play with and in fact becomes a liability as they create a hole on the pitch and bad feelings that pervade the relationships on the team. So generosity, gifting, creates the best teams. A gift economy of attention, resources, and opportunities creates the conditions for shared glory and accomplishment.
These little learnings are perhaps elementary, but think about how difficult they are to execute in daily life. In your organization, have you got these all right? Is there something you AREN’T doing? Are there elements of collaboration that you aren’t paying attention to? And what other lessons should we glean from peak flow experiences in collaboration and team work?
One of the things I love about my mate Geoff Brown who lives in the lovely Airey’s Inlet, Australia, is his incredible willingness to be playful and creative in his facilitation work and especially in his harvesting work. He is one of the few that gets how important the harvest is – at least as important as the hosting. In this great post, Geoff shares his recent experience with Open Space and with a fantastic harvest that captures that creative brilliance of the group he was working with: The day after Open Space
Silo busting is a very interesting thing. Everyone knows that systems atrophy when they divide their work into silos. Silos entrench difference and prevent learning across sectors whether we are talking about departments in an organization, or a social system like health care or child and family services.
Silos have limited usefulness. They divide work into manageable chunks. But in general they create reductionist responses to systemic problems and they pose a massive challenge to people working nfor change. If we first have to bust the silos, and only then can we address the problems, how do we know we’ll have energy left for the real work?
So let’s be real. Dr. Rob Anda, who I met this week in Seattle, had a great line when talking about reducing the effects of adverse childhood experiences. “I don’t see silos as disappearing anytime soon, but if we work together in community from common information sources we can make change.”
Great line. Forget about the silos. Bring people together in communities of practice to learn about the information they need and that serves their common purpose, and then engage in the conversations that build network and community around learning about change and enacting solutions that make sense at the community level. Bottom up silo busting. Forget about the structural reforms first. Do the work first and then institutionalize the solutions that work across sectors, disciplines and other silos. Follow the Theory U process: concretize solutions following social prototyping.
And when the silos – the funders, the government agencies, the power brokers and decision makers – come looking for evidence and evaluation, use Developmental Evaluation to tell the story of what is going on across the system.
From my recent work in the labour movement, a quote to inspire you in your work for social change:
Howard Zinn: ”Ž”To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we… see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
I’m in Prince George today and tomorrow working with the BC Government Employees Union in a great regional conference that is looking at forging the links between unions and communities. There is much organizing capacity and heart based action in the labour movement and much need on the ground here in the north of the province. Putting one to work on the other is a huge and easy capacity building thing to do.
So today a cafe on where we can go to work in community to make a difference, and tomorrow a short Open Space for people to ground action and make some plans to get out there.
In the middle of a four day gathering of indigenous child and family services organizations here in British Columbia. I’m back in my room even though it’s after lunch and our meeting was supposed to have restarted because history just got made.
To understand what this means, you have to have an appreciation of how the state has related to indigenous communities in this country since colonization began. The essence is that tools of law and legislation have been used repeatedly to deny the jurisdiction, rights and responsibilities of First Nations from nearly the moment European governments set eyes on this continent. Nowhere has that become more of a hot point than with the issue of children.
For more than 100 years the stated policy of the federal governments was to place First Nations children into the care of the state and the churches by sending them to residential school. The residential school system was designed originally to educate the “Indian out of the child” and to assimilate people by breaking up communities, punishing kids for speaking their language and subjecting them to slavery, by forcing them to work to keep the schools running. This one policy alone has left a legacy of unhealthy family structures, weakened cultures and multiple generations of vulnerable children. When the provincial government stepped into to take responsibility for children in the 1960s the infamous “sixties scoop” happened whereby kids were removed from their families to be raised by non-native familes. By the 1980s the sixties scoop had ended and the residential school system was shut down. From that time onwards, Aboriginal kids were at the mercy of the non-Aboriginal child welfare system. In BC alone, the percentage of kids in care who were Aboriginal skyrocketed to today where it is now more than 50%.
In the last 20 years, First Nations have become more proactive in creating their own child and family services agencies and taking back responsibility and later control over the system. Starting at a historic meeting in 2002 in Tsawassen, BC, the provincial government began the process of recognizing the authority of First Nations communities to look after their kids. A process that began in 2002 (which I was involved in primarily on Vancouver Island) saw the creation of regional authorities around the province to oversee the establishment of First Nations child welfare systems. These authorities, had they been passed into law, would have taken all responsibility short of law making authority and placed it in the hand of communities through regional authorities.
The problem with the regional authority model was that it didn’t work well with the inherenet jurisdiction of the First Nations governments in BC. Problems began to appear in 2007 between the provincial political leadership and the leaders of the regional authorities. At the last minute, literally as the enabling legislation was to hit to the floor of the Provincial legislature, the provincial political leadership – against the wishes of many First nations cheifs – shut the process down. For a couple of years we were back to the status quo, and things looked grim.
But behind the scenes, the provincial ministry of child and family development was working to transform the child and family services syste. Led by a deputy minister, Leslie Du Toit, the ministry worked to help nations develop their own systems and did it from a position of recognizing the authority and jurisdiction of First Nations to care for their kids. As a result the 15 and more projects that are gathered here got off the ground, reestablishing a child and familiy services system that is deeply ingrained in the cultural, spiritual and political power of the Nations themselves. It has been a hugely decolonizing experience (the children of the Haida Nation even wrote their own declaration of their rights which is to be passed into law).
So things are ticking along and this has brought us to today where we have gathered 120 people to share their experiences and accelerate their work together. It has been a good meeting so far, conducted in ceremony and working productively and positively. Today the deputy minister made an announcement though that has rocked us all. She announced today that provincial government was now opening the door for First Nations and Metis groups in BC to create their own legislation to replace the Child and Family Services Act and to enbale indigenous child and family services systems to be established and supported designed and delivered by the Nations themselves. It is the first time anyone can remember the colonial government ever stepping out of the power they have and giving over the legislative jurisdiction to First Nations.
Suddenly our meeting has got a lot more interesting. Accompanied by the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Shawn A-in-shut Atleo, she stood for the principle that only a system created by the people for whom is it intended will be the right system. Everything we have been working towards suddenly is a reality. The chiefs are excited, the people who have been developing and delivering the indigenous systems are elated that their work will be made the formal system for their people in the province and everyone is buoyed by the right thing happening at the right time.
Suddenly we are all on the same side. My long time mate David Stevenson who is an Art of Hosting steward is right at the centre of the work in his job as the Executive Director of Aboriginal Services for the Ministry. Many other people who were with us through the regionalization process on Vancouver Island including Marion Wright, Kyra Mason, Pearl Hunt, Bruce Parisian and others are here celebrating and preparing for the hard work ahead. We are taking a break now while we get ready to go to the Sts’ailes longhouse for an evening of singing and speaking in ceremony. Tomorrow when we come back to work, we’ve thrown out our agenda and will just spend a half day in Open Space to articulate the opportunities that we have among us, all of us hosting together the very first steps on what will become the next chapter in a historic journey.