Thomas Steding has seen first-hand that the leadership skills that can take an organization from poor to peak performance and outdistancing its competition were not taught in business schools or management seminars or even a part of the leadership conversation.
Real Teams Win is the culmination of Steding's four decades of high-impact methods that offer real change from within the organization with real results that work really fast by accessing the untapped/unseen intelligence of deep imagination as well as the superior creativity and intelligence of the connected team.
Thomas Steding has seen first-hand that the leadership skills that can take an organization from poor to peak performance and outdistancing its competition were not taught in business schools or management seminars or even a part of the leadership conversation.
Real Teams Win is the culmination of Steding's four decades of high-impact methods that offer real change from within the organization with real results that work really fast by accessing the untapped/unseen intelligence of deep imagination as well as the superior creativity and intelligence of the connected team.
Real Teams Win: What Smart Leaders Need to Know Now About Achieving Peak Performance
256
Real Teams Win: What Smart Leaders Need to Know Now About Achieving Peak Performance
256Hardcover
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Overview
Thomas Steding has seen first-hand that the leadership skills that can take an organization from poor to peak performance and outdistancing its competition were not taught in business schools or management seminars or even a part of the leadership conversation.
Real Teams Win is the culmination of Steding's four decades of high-impact methods that offer real change from within the organization with real results that work really fast by accessing the untapped/unseen intelligence of deep imagination as well as the superior creativity and intelligence of the connected team.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781630061579 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Humanix Books |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2020 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 1,062,739 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Dr. Steding holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, a MS in Management (Sloan Fellow) from Stanford as well as an MS and BS from the Universityof Michigan. He author lives & works in the San Francisco Bay metro area.
Read an Excerpt
Real Teams Win: What Smart Leaders Need to Know Now About Achieving Peak Performance
Chapter One
Real versus Fake Teams
Real teams WiN. By “real” we envision a living system built around creative collaboration, intuition and trust, dramatically downplaying the role of ego, power-tripping and will to domination. We call for a new mandate for leadership: to develop and nurture an environment that is collaborative, creative, agile, supple, non-oppositional and courageous. This vision for real teams opens vast new territory for exploration and development—both within the organization and within each of us as individuals. There is much we can learn through the principles and practices in this book, from each other, across generations and from the ages. Real teams don’t worry about whether the boss is in a good mood today or not. Real teams loathe politics. Real teams spend their emotional energy focusing on the mission and figuring out how they can contribute. Real teams think gossip is for people who are taking their eye off the ball and not contributing to positive success. Real teams care as much about their colleagues as themselves. Real teams don’t look over their shoulders. Real teams don’t carry resentments but offload and resolve them as conflicts arise. Real teams see commitments as an opportunity to shine, not as obligations to evade.
The alternative to a real team is a pretend or fake team. Almost everyone has experienced this at one time or another. People who publically talk about the value of teamwork but who actually hate each other. People who gossip about their peers, the company and the management, but who never come up with any solutions to actually solve problems. Situations where sudden slippage appears out of nowhere. Meetings are endless with no resolution. Conversations are confrontational and offputting, ending with the fruitless “agree to disagree.” Leaders don’t listen, and team members stop contributing after the last smackdown they got in yesterday’s meeting. Morale is bad, and performance is deteriorating. Real teams win in two ways, one internal and the other external. Externally, benefits include the performance of the entity measured in the usual metrics of growth, profitability and brand success. Internally, they involve generating a meaningful work life for the participants. Now the team has the uncommon experience of creative collaboration without persistent toxicity, realizes the transcendent joy of a healthy connection with a bigger mission beyond personal ego boundaries, and celebrates how this team manifests its unique creativity in the external performance factors as the applause following a brilliant performance. Real Teams Win offers both by joining a deeper understanding of the underlying root causes for execution with the principles, practices and processes for execution.
Narcissism and Surrender of the Ego
The key factor underlying team dysfunctionality is narcissism or self-centeredness, either across the team or especially in the leadership. Real Teams Win is predicated on the mandate that ALL members of the organization—bottom to top—must accept a surrender of the ego to create an organization that functions at top capacity. The ego mind is, of course, essential to who we are. Clearly, we could not have evolved to our current state, with all of mankind’s achievements, without the ego. Yet the ego mind also includes its own bizarre combination of biases, misperceptions, defenses, strange beliefs, selfish longings and irrational fears. And it is this part of the ego that inhibits true creativity. To establish a high-performance team, real teams require egos subdued to a common purpose. In order to overcome any one particular ego malfunction in any individual team member, the organization must access the collective intelligence of the team. By “surrender of the ego” we mean the process by which individuals defer to the overall superior intelligence of the connected team, which most often does not share our peculiar ecentricities blocking our own creative path.
We know that companies with dysfunctional leadership (aka, “screwed up”) can be successful, at least for a while. More often than not, however, if you are screwed up, you’re probably gonna screw up. Many of these cases involve excessive ego, and where ego soars, souls suffer. Yet even these companies can be successful with new technology and fortuitous timing. We’ve seen it happen. We’ve also seen tyrannical leadership carry on for an impressive period of time. We also know, from experience, that companies can do better with the method we describe. And better is the goal.
Myth and Leadership
A story told at the US Army Armor School, perhaps apocryphal, is that the first tank assault in WWI was so successful it went in 30 miles…and ran out of gas. Similarly, in today’s world we are at risk of outrunning our supply line of hard-earned wisdom within the constraints of human nature. In search of a remedy, we look to myths that have provided guidance through the ages, relevant wisdom that we are at risk of losing.
So what do myths have to do with leadership? Turns out, a lot. Leadership is about people. And the more you know about people the more effective leadership can be to achieve desired results. A possibly underutilized resource to understand people is this mythic layer, the deeper region of our psyche that is expressed in the themes and drama of our ancient stories.
In order to understand their importance, take a look at how myths came to be. In the Greek Pantheon, for example, figures and stories were made up based on the projections (attributing your own feelings and attitudes onto another person or object, often unconsciously) of the various qualities of the human psyche. So our warrior instincts were located in the invented figure Ares, feminine qualities in Aphrodite and strength and power in Hercules. Mirroring the complexity of humans, they necessarily appeared in droves. As such, they are a readout of our own humanity, the operating system of we as people, and if you want to understand how an operating system works, read the source code. Along the way, we examine multiple stories from mythological traditions to illuminate the aspects of humanity relevant to effective leadership. We will invite heroes and heroines from ancient mythology into the room, only to discover they have been there all along.
One of the problems may be that myths suffer from the idea that myths are, well, myths and therefore not true. This misses the point that myths may be factually untrue but contain important truths to learn from. “Myths are false on the outside, but true on the inside. Stories that never been, but always true.”
As you can imagine, the Director of the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Lans Smith, knows more than a bit about mythology. The introduction to his very accessible book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Mythology, explains that one way to understand the truth of mythology is to: Consider the myth of the ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf.’…Chances are no such incident ever happened. We tell this to children to understand that habitual lying makes it hard for people to believe you when you are telling the truth. So…the story is one of truth, whether or not it is actually fact. Fact doesn’t matter, as it has no effect whatsoever on the value of a myth.
We also suggest linkages that may offer insight into leadership and the human experience in teams. We understand that myths and their underlying archetypes—the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based—have limitless paths and implications. Our intent is to suggest a bridge connecting the world of myths to the world of organizational teamwork and allow the ensuing foot traffic to proceed as it will.
To access the wisdom of myths for leadership, it is necessary to toggle back and forth between the depth of ancient myth and the surface of modern business practice, endeavoring to merge these two into an integrated and expanded consciousness. This toggle effect does require holding the old and the new in mind simultaneously. Be patient and give it a try. You will find yourself increasingly able to move between two domains of thought. Don’t worry, you don’t need to study mythology, just to reflect on the significance of the exemplary tales interspersed throughout Real Teams Win.
Understanding mythic patterns in our contemporary workplace exposes previously unacknowledged forces, alerts us to new creative paths, and provides confidence that our leadership is in tune with authentic human qualities. Understanding and respecting the power of archetypes provides a more solid grounding for leadership than following some patchwork intellectual method conceived by the ego mind anxious to conceal its befuddlement about things that go awry in unexpected directions for unexplained reasons.
For example, as we learn to detect narcissism in the team, we then recall that one of the problems Narcissus exhibited was a failure to take input, and we are alerted to the fact that somewhere our team may be missing the boat. When we call for heroic action, we also recall that Hercules in all his admirable strength was also a bit of a dodo, shooting arrows at the sun to lower the temperature and impetuously running off in disastrous directions. We understand that he anticipated today’s increasing failure of the Solo Hero Model and we need to look for new directions for better results. We also then recall Athena with a much more balanced approach (courage/compassion, logic/creativity, mediator/warrior) who also rescued Hercules and provides today a model of complementarity in leadership which we promote. We also recognize Hermes, the God of Complementarity, at work when we see tricksterism afoot—sometimes necessary and often painful—but also recognize his critical contribution to opening paths of communication (“the Hermetic Method”) enabling creative dialogue and systematic transformation. One of the author’s favorite mythic figures is Pan, Greek god of wooded spaces and pastures. Now, one of the author’s colleagues was heard to say, “There are a million ways for startups to go wrong,” referring to a dismal gallery to which the author has made his own unique contributions. Pan’s wild, erratic and sometimes destructive nature seems to be the personification of how reality often proceeds. Hillman tells us “Noon is Pan’s hour” the moment of bright light where we pridefully celebrate our own genius as Master of Ceremonies getting to a great moment, only to have a terrifying encounter with chaos. It behooves the leader sensing clear skies and exciting growth to keep a watchful eye out for Pan creeping through the surrounding wilderness heading to the campsite to do his mischief.
With the stage set, let’s jump in and examine the mandate for the New Leadership Model.
Table of Contents
Preface Why This Book? xi
Chapter 1 Leadership Involves People 1
Chapter 2 Real versus Fake Teams 5
Part I Changing Leadership and the New Model
Chapter 3 Mandate for Change The Hierarchical Leadership Model Is Increasingly Obsolete 13
Chapter 4 Intimations of a New Leadership Model Creative Collaboration Is Profitable 19
Chapter 5 The New Model of Leadership A Network, Not a Hierarchy 25
Chapter 6 Blueprint: Delivering the New Model Leadership Journey from Innovation to Execution 31
Interlude: Myth and the Hero's Journey 35
Part II Diagnostic System The What of Leadership
Chapter 7 The Hidden to Be Revealed That Which Is Not Acknowledged Rules Outcome 45
Chapter 8 Mindset Malware Leadership Dysfunction Is Common and Often Unrecognized 57
Chapter 9 Dimensions of Culture and Enterprise Understanding the Culture and Enterprise Layers 61
Part III Foundation Principles The Why of leadership
Chapter 10 Setting It Up What Teams Want 69
Interlude: The Mythological Basis of Complementarity 71
Chapter 11 Principles-Complementarity A Basic Rule of Nature 77
Chapter 12 Complementarity in Leadership 85
Chapter 13 Going Deeper Complementary Archetypes: Solar/Lunar 91
Interlude: From Solo Hero to Complementary Heroes 95
Chapter 14 More Going Deeper Complementary Archetypes: Puer/Senex 103
Interlude: Daedalus and Icarus/Helios and Phaeton 107
Chapter 15 Principles-Empathy The Master Emotion 111
Chapter 16 Beyond Emotional Intelligence Emotional Integrity 119
Chapter 17 Collaboration: How to Do Empathy Empathy/Challenge 123
Chapter 18 Marketing and Empathy Real Marketing 129
Chapter 19 Nonattachment Enabling Creative Dialogue 139
Interlude: The Myth of Narcissus 143
Chapter 20 Lessons from Narcissus Dangers of Self-Centeredness in the Team 147
Chapter 21 The Paradox of Success and Failure A Redemptive Narrative 153
Chapter 22 Idealized Expectations: Cancer of the Mind Roadblock to a Creative Culture 157
Part IV Practices The How of leadership
Chapter 23 Communication Practice The Role of Communication in Team Performance 169
Chapter 24 Case Study: NASA Catastrophic Consequences of Poor Communication 179
Interlude: Cultivating Wisdom with Myth 183
Chapter 25 Commitment Practice Real versus False Commitments 187
Chapter 26 Closure Practice A Neglected Practice 193
Chapter 27 Cultural Fabric How Principles Support Effective Cultural Practices 201
Chapter 28 Toward Cultural Transformation A Sealed Container Eliminates Leakage and Loss 203
Chapter 29 The Self-Regulating Organization Evolution and Radiation 207
Interlude: Drama and Dionysus 213
Chapter 30 Process The Full Life-Cycle Journey from Innovation to Execution 219
Interlude: Feminine Myths 223
Interlude: The Myths That Mystify 229
Part V Blueprint in Action Implementing Blueprint
Chapter 31 Blueprint in Action An Integrated Framework for High Performance 235
Chapter 32 Implementing Blueprint: Dealing with Resistance The Challenge 243
Chapter 33 Implementing Blueprint: Realizing the Benefits The Reward 245
Further Reading 249
Acknowledgments 253
Index 257