Stephen Downes says that teams are a fiction that purport to represent everyone when in fact they reflect only a select subset of opinions [such as the team leader?].
Liong Huai Yu, highlights this quote in his review of Dave Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous – “The world is too diverse for any single classification system to work for everyone in every culture at every time.”
Classification systems, like teams, are artificial structures. Liong goes on to compare Weinberger’s premises with education:
To bring the discussion further from what is discussed in the book, what are the artificial structures and organisational methods have we put in our schools? Artificial subject segregation, timetabling and even teacher-specialisation. As we move forward facing new challenges, fighting regional and global competitions, we may have to re-examine the structures we have in place, as most of the time, these structures were created for a world that was last century. Also, are they benefiting the users (both students and teachers) the way it set out to be.
Any change initiative or attempt at systems improvement has little chance of success if you don’t take the time and effort to really examine the underlying structures. All of our management models and organisational structures are artificial structures and we have the collective intelligence to change them. Usually what is standing in the way are the vested interests of those with power and the all too powerful ingrained culture that we take for granted.
Remembering that it’s all artificial may be a good first step in seeing with new eyes.
The team metaphor is misplaced when used off the sports field. (well actually I guess it’s not a metaphor yet when ON the sports field ).
As I type this, loud cheers and jeers from a Canada-US Woman’s U20 soccer game are floating into my 3rd-floor window from the stadium 1 km away. It sounds like an exciting game, and as I imagine the play that might have produced the cheers (or jeers), it seems obvious that these team members and their fans DO share allegiance to a common goal.
But I would suggest that’s only possible when the goal is so simple, and the methods for achieving it largely agreed upon. (Even then, each player will have many other personal goals that feed into (or perhaps sometimes oppose) the main goal.)
Is this why people love watching sports? (that’s an actual question… I’m bored silly by it, and truly wonder what all the fans get from it). Is it like murder mysteries? Problem — straightforward. Goal — clear. Methods — limited choice.
Not like work, or the rest of life.
Good point, Jennifer. Teams seem to work well when the environment is simple or even complicated, but not when it’s complex (no fixed solutions). Life is complex, which is why families and tribes have evolved as natural units, and not teams.
Harold;
No vested interested can withstand the power of a clear vision of a better world. When the vision of the new “way” awakens the hearts of the masses (the way Ghandi or ML King awakened the masses) the future can now be “seen” and “felt”. This is the foundation of transformational change.
In all our talking and writing about technology and learning, I have not yet run across a clear vision of the “new way” that is compelling enough to awaken our hearts and rally the masses. Until this happens, progress will be slow.
pete