Independently of each other, this last week I’ve been approached by three senior members of separate teams I manage, asking me to stop attending some regular meetings with the respective teams. A few years back, I would have baulked at a request like this - how would I make sure all the right considerations are being taken towards critical decisions, if I can’t be there to make sure of it, after all?
Thankfully, I’m wiser these days. So in these three separate but very similar conversations, I asked why we should make that change. Some of my reports’ arguments revolved around the specific topics that tend to come up in these meetings, and whether my knowledge and experience is actually relevant to most of them. The common thread, however, was around team dynamics.
More specifically, around how dynamics change in my presence.
Some people command a presence. Whether through eloquence, body language or even looks, certain people just have an impact on the room they walk into. It could be the way others adjust the way they talk when addressing them, or it could be the way the conversation shifts to accommodate their presence.
I... am not one of these people. If I were, maybe you would be watching this as a piece on TED instead of reading my blog.
As it is, for reasons that go beyond the scope of this publication, I internalized at a very young age that drawing direct attention to myself invites danger. Years on, then, I’m still coming to terms with a strange reality - due to the fact that my job title begins with “Head of”, my mere presence shifts the dynamic in the room the moment I enter it. It doesn’t matter how friendly, approachable, or vulnerable I try to be, I will never be able to change that effect.
To be a successful servant-leader, I must care more about the success of others than my own. I have to spend most of my effort enabling others to tap into their potential. Sometimes, this focus on their success makes me forget the power a manager can hold over their report. To be more accurate, I forget how tangible that power can feel between us. Somehow, in focusing my sight on their potential and steering them towards growth, I can lose track of the fact that deep down, rooted into the very nature of our relationship, is a need for them to prove themselves to me.
It’s a dangerous thing to forget.
Forgetting means you risk eclipsing your reports by placing yourself between them and growth opportunities. Even worse, eclipsing them can make them feel distrusted or unworthy. Your shadow can also get in the way of your team forming critical bonds as they come to rely on you instead of each other. Simply put, the more space you take when you are in a room with your team, the bigger the void that will be left when you leave it.
In board games, we call this type of behaviour quarterbacking. A phenomenon normally reserved for cooperative games (Tough I have seen competitive games fall into this trap as well), quarterbacking is when one player takes over a game and starts making all of the strategic decisions for everyone else. This player usually has more experience with the game, or just more generic competence with games in general, which often means they have a better grasp of the best way for the group to win the game
Winning, however, is only part of the fun. In a cooperative game, just like managing a team, there’s a difference between leadership and bringing success to the team. Since becoming a manager, I’ve started to see cooperative games very differently than before, so this series will be exploring that difference.
None of Us is as Smart as All of Us
Unless you grew up swinging from vines in a jungle wearing nothing but a loincloth, at some point in your life you must have worked with a team trying to accomplish something together. No matter what members a team is composed of, in which area it operates, or what it is trying to accomplish, we know there is more to a team than the individuals belonging to it. A team exists between individuals, in the way their skills and personalities interplay and sinergise. Coordination and collaboration can be equally important to the skill of individuals for the success of a team.
A cooperative game tries to capture this dynamic, distilled through the accomplishment of a single goal. Whether it’s the aversion of a crisis or ensuring the legacy of a prehistoric tribe through the completion of a cave drawing, the players will face adversity as individuals and will have to support each other, winning or losing the game as a team.
Usually, all players will be capable of the same basic set of actions, but each of them has unique capabilities that make them particularly good at a certain task, more adaptable than others, more resilient, or anything else that makes them stand out.
Though many paths may lead to it, there is but one way to win the game. However, losing is a different story. Players have to make sure multiple problems don’t escalate too far, for each of those would spell a loss for the entire group.
So, a good cooperative game will have you scrambling to mitigate small crisis after small crisis, while making both individual decisions and decisions as a team, trying to carve the necessary time to work towards a long term goal. It’s hectic, at times argumentative, and you and your group will often lose many times before you figure out a winning strategy.
The Greater Victory is Making One See Through Your Eyes
In most competitive games like the ones discussed on this blog so far, you need to personally consider and execute well laid plans. In contrast, cooperative games are all about letting go of the notion that you could accomplish anything of significance on your own. It’s essentially an ongoing trust fall - ultimately, everyone has the agency to act as they see fit, but consensus over a strategy is something that the group has to weigh in on.
Cooperative games constantly put you on the brink of disaster. Often, after a loss, you can trace back to a single decision that resulted in a chain reaction you could no longer mitigate. You will never be able to address all the problems that surface, so as a group, you need to figure out what you can live with not accomplishing just as much as what you should accomplish.
To succeed, you need to find your special place within the team. You have to maintain awareness of threats to your goal, and the best way to move it forward. This can be challenging, as at the same time you are developing your uniqueness and learning how to bring your skills to bear. Sooner or later, there will be a conflict between what the group needs and what you are good at. If your view is not holistic enough to see that, you can cost your friends the game.
This might lead you to think that you should give yourself wholly to the team, then, become a cog in the proverbial machine. But losing sight of yourself also means you lose sight of what you are especially suited to do, and so are more likely to lose the opportunity to jump in with a strategy built around your ability. Your expertise and team spirit are equally important to the group you are a part of.
This conflict between self and team is often felt in workplace teams, especially newly formed ones. More so if the team is cross-functional, made of individuals from different skill sets bound by a mutual project. As a manager, I believe I feel it differently than other members of a team. Individual contributors may at times be conflicted by the desire to focus on the work they love and want to develop their skills in, and the current need of the team. A leader, however, is often conflicted by the urge to accomplish something on their own, rather than through their team.
Leadership is a slow burning effort. It’s rare to see the results of good management overnight. More likely, weeks or months will pass before the organisation will begin to reap the fruits of your labor. We know that, but knowledge and wisdom are not the same. Sometimes, I just need the dopamine rush of jumping on a task and getting it done with my own two hands. Sometimes I feel better suited for a task than anyone else, and don’t think I have the time to train someone else to take my place.
If you are managing a large, versatile team, more often than not, taking a task from your team to do yourself is the wrong call. You’d be losing your ability to zoom out, and you will be denying your team the most precious things you have to give them - your attention and proactiveness. Cherry on top, you’ll most likely be denying them of an opportunity to grow and learn, and set yourself up to repeat this scenario again in the future.
In a way, cooperative games embody these tensions. Between tactical and strategic. Between self and team. Between leader and doer. Leaning too far into one of these with friends at a gaming table while we are running around trying to put out fires has been a great experience for me as a leader. It is humbling. For people like me, who bring their true self to office and game alike, it is also incredibly informative.
At the gaming table, no one is inherently afraid to call you out. Your title doesn’t have an impact on the room. Only the way you carry your weight, and your willingness to listen.