- The Quest for Staff Leadership
- The Beauty of the Beast
- Getting Things Done When You Are Not in Charge.
He invited the group to re-live the feeling of participating on a highly effective team. There is really nothing like it. Experiencing the ecstatic thill of achieving something really challenging and revelling in the shared success. Bellman asked us to look even more deeply into the requirements for a high performing team. We were clear on what was required: a clear and common vision, trust, respect, clear definition of roles and responsibilities. Beyond that, Bellman urged us to consider the very primitive and basic needs that participating on a team serves. Those needs appear on Mazlow's heirarchy of needs. Things like being curious about the world around us and wanting to make a difference; needing to understand the world and succeed in it, knowing what we can and can't control and knowing just as clearly, what we have power over and finally knowing that we make a difference in the world.
This process helped me make a connection between why the criteria for high performing teams is so necessary. That it feeds something much deeper in our souls. Driving home from Bellman's speech, I heard an interviewer with Barbara Ehrenreich, anthropologist and author of Dancing in The Streets. Her book on collective joy, community dancing and rituals also supports our very human need to share joy. That all cultures have found a way to collectively express joy and that often, the higher reining in the society have frowned upon this collective celebration, fearing anarchy. Barbara has a great post today on CEO compensation. http://ehrenreich.blogs.com/barbaras_blog/
I am reminded today that we all hunger to matter; we hunger for joy; we hunger to belong. The leaders that recognize that and build on it find an unparalleled loyalty in their teams.
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