Was It Something I Said?
The Power of Teamwork
By Vijay Mehrotra
Friday: The presentation is scheduled for Tuesday. I first hear about this on Friday night when Trudy calls and quickly presents the situation: "We met today and gave them an overview. Two groups are interested in our solution, but they want a deeper understanding. I need your help. Here's our plan..."
I have worked with Trudy for years. She's bright, insightful, energetic, passionate, and I'd follow her almost anywhere. Her voice this evening is alarmingly calm, so this must be serious. I promise her I'll help.
Saturday: Our team gets on the phone at 8 p.m. to assess the situation. For more than two hours, we discuss the players, goals, messages, proof points, perceived gaps, and ideas about how to go forward.
Sunday: At 9 a.m., four of us gather in the company War Room, which features three huge whiteboard walls. We rehash the Saturday discussion in more detail and move right on from there, covering the walls with scrawled text, arrows, bullet points, ideas, visions, outlines and anecdotes.
We argue a lot. Eyes are rolled, voices are raised, Oscar leaps from his seat, grabs a pen, crosses out half of what I've just written and rewrites it defiantly. Leaning back in his chair, eyes half closed, Donald launches into a diatribe about all of the things that we have already done wrong. The four of us have worked together for more than four years. Trudy, exasperated, says that all of us are "just like an old married couple." We laugh and go on with our sparring. We assign work to one another, wrap up sometime after 1 p.m. Oscar and I go out to lunch afterwards and carry on the discussion.
Monday: We are joined by Kyle and Norm, who have just flown in from out of town. Norm gets a recap of the Sunday bull session, proposes a whole new outline that incorporates the main ideas. Trudy and I agree to his suggestions. We're still in the War Room, now with our laptops, scrambling toward 5 p.m. when several of our executives will join us for a practice presentation. Kyle shows us how to beam files between our laptops. Very cool. At 4:55, we frantically send what we have to Trudy, and she slaps it into a single Powerpoint file.
We get killed in the practice presentation, me in particular. Too much abstraction, too much redundancy. "Simplify, simplify, simplify." Too much that's too obvious. "Where's the Beef?"
Still in the War Room, we are exhausted and somewhat demoralized. We have a huge amount of work to do by noon tomorrow. There is no choice. We regroup, review the feedback, reorganize. Gone are some of my favorite visuals and concepts. Added are some things that we had ruled out the previous day as totally impractical and inappropriate.
Donald arrives with food. We eat, chat, resume banging at our keyboards. We are punchy, more moody. Norm begins to grow frustrated with us all. I spew out strange words. We laugh and plod on.
Slowly, imperceptibly, something comes together between 10 p.m. and midnight. The story line is now suddenly clearer, more articulate because of the feedback and the flailing. A few of Sunday morning's sloppy scribbles are now polished models, reframed within the larger context. We have heard each other hash through the ideas so many times that it is under our collective skin. We are too tired to feel anything but ready.
Tuesday: 8:30 a.m., again in the War Room. Last night's euphoria must face the harsh light of Game Day. We rehearse, adjust roles, make notes, chatter more than a little nervously. Suddenly I'm presenting slides and everyone's got some advice for me — unnerving. And it's time to go.
We do well when it counts. Norm, Trudy and I face the firing squad with our presentation, backed by our experience, our notes, our discussions, our colleagues and very little sleep. Those who liked the Friday presentation totally love what we have to say, while even the skeptics concede that we have something valuable to offer. There is a clear, important next step forward, and our sales people are happy for that.
How is it that we were able to come up with "the right answer" for this meeting? Was it the brainpower in the room, the phase of the moon or something else?
Malcolm Gladwell would argue that it was the construction and makeup of the group itself that enabled us to create something special. In a recent New Yorker article entitled "Group Think" (12/2/02), Gladwell points to such disparate groups as the French Impressionists and the original cast of "Saturday Night Live" as examples of how common goals, shared experience and mutual support have been the driving force behind all kinds of innovations throughout history.
If asked to prepare for the Tuesday meeting by myself, I would have had the same information at my disposal, but none of the creativity or criticism that our group provided. Moreover, without the brainstorming, feedback and rejection, much of the synthesis and refinement would never have emerged and the presentation's quality and effectiveness would have been far lower.
In contrast, the great American story celebrates the rugged individual, the visionary, the genius. I am none of those things, and am painfully aware of it. Even working with trusted colleagues, I am painfully aware of my limitations, shortcomings and biases. When working closely with others, there is a relief in putting your ideas forth and having them enhanced, amplified, re-directed or even rejected. With the right group, this give-and-take is highly motivating, and feeds the idea that anything is possible. This is worth an awful lot to me, especially when tired, dispirited or intimidated by the task at hand, which is more often than I would care to admit.
Vijay Mehrotra is vice president of the Solutions Group at Blue Pumpkin Software. He can be reached by e-mail at Vijay@BluePumpkin.com.
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