Great Groups

Here is a bit of wisdom from Warren Bennis ... it is so powerful, it deserves the entire focus for this week. I've broken the paragraph into bite-sized chunks because there is so much food for thought here. Enjoy

"As they say, 'None of us is as smart as all of us.'

That's good, because the problems we face are too complex to be solved by any one person or any one discipline.

Our only chance is to bring people together from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines who can refract a problem through the prisim of complementary minds allied in common purpose.

I call such collections of talent Great Groups. The genius of Great Groups is that they get remarkable people -- strong individual achievers -- to work together to get results.

But these groups serve a second and equally important function: they provide psychic support and personal fellowship. They help generate courage.

Without a sounding board for outrageous ideas, without personal encouragement and perspective when we hig a roadblock, we'd all lose our way."

Questions for the week: Are you part of a Great Group? If so, what nourishes the group? What challenges does the group face in maintaining itself? Please comment below.

Warren Bennis's classic On Becoming a Leader was re-released last year and is definitely worth reading or reviewing.

Comments

[Penny Wilson]

This sounds like is would be an excellent way for groups of business professionals to become mutual mentors. Would anyone in the Chicago area like to start a GG here? I work downtown, and would love to test-drive this concept with a few others of a like mind.

[Marian Thier]

Our Great Group has been together for almost eight years. We practice Dialogue (David Boehm's brain child). It is one thing to tell others how to communicate, check assumptions, listen, observe yourself, and respond instead of react; yet, it's quite another kettle of consultant fish to do it yourself. Our GG is committed to growth and being honest with one another and ourselves.

[Annie Robinson]

Joyce, I think I've written about this before. I mentor a terrific group of women AND men. It's called the HUNCH BUNCH AT LUNCH and we study all aspects of intuition: what it is, how to encourage it, how to distinguish it from wishful thinking, how to use it to great advantage in today's fast-moving, always-changing world. The group meets at my home on the first Tuesday of each month, ll:30 to l:00. Members bring their lunches. I furnish water and cappuchino if anybody wants it. We discuss some of the many good books on the subject, watch videos, listen to audio cassettes and practice ways of honing one's intuition. I'll be doing a workshop for the American Creativity Association's Houston conference on April l ... the workshop to be titled INTUITION: The Forward Pass and Slam Dunk of the Mind. Houston is in driving distance so I can go for a short time. First time I've been to a national conference in a lo-ong time because of the wheelchair. The ACA conference will be in Austin next year I think. Wish you could join us.

[Jill DeVilla]

I am very pleased to discover that I am part of a "great group." That group is the Staff Council at the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

I've just sent the item by Bennis around to the council--thank you so much for sending this, because the item itself will help to nourish the group.

We are nourished by
-- the pursuit of our common goal--which is to help our organization (ADB) become a better place for us to work;
-- our varied backgrounds and points of view (our 12 council members have at least 8 nationalities and come from very varied ethnic, religious, educational, and occupational backgrounds);
-- our abilities to respect and enjoy our differences and varied ways of doing things and thinking about them;
-- our ability to refract our problems through the prism of complementary minds allied in common purpose; and perhaps most importantly, our ability to provide good support for each other.

We are challenged by
-- the yearly turnover of half the members of the council;
-- having two members many hours (by air) and time zones away, requiring video conferencing for meetings;
-- negotiations with ADB's management on a wide variety of issues--and trying to find win-win situations, while having to carry on our normal work loads; and
-- trying to meet the needs of a many and varied membership.

And, often, we are nourished by these challenges

[AL SULAIMAN]

i think the main thing to answer these question is trust between the group,then how much the group is interested to share the information and making it to work.

[Tim Ogilvie]

I’m part of a newly-forming Great Group, but it is too soon to have much perspective on it. However, my greatest professional achievements came as part of a Great Group triumvirate. Two colleagues and I had a practice that I recommend to members of other groups. Whenever we found we had one of those black holes on our personal To-Do list – you know, the kind of task you dread and are lousy at and keep putting off (until it becomes infinitely worse) – we would trade black holes with each other. Whatever my colleague was dragging his feet about, I found to be no big deal, and vice versa. Our productivity as a threesome went up as a result, and so did our sense of fun and mutual commitment.