Working with groups is never dull. Think of a time or twelve when a group you’re working with has surprised you in some way – for better or worse. Perhaps a person you wouldn’t have expected took charge, or the group came up with surprising ideas, or people had a strong reaction to something that seemed benign when you presented it to them. Whatever the case may be, the things that come up in groups have so much to offer us if we take the time to reflect on them.
I’ve written before that “it’s all in the debrief“; that taking time to reflect and cement learnings after an activity or project can turn the experience into one that offers long-term change, whether you’re a leader or not. And sometimes, some of the greatest value can come when things go wrong – not just as an example of what not to do in future, but what value can be extracted from the experience to create something new.
A recent example that got me thinking about this: While facilitating a corporate team building program recently, I learned from a facilitator colleague a new way to give people an experience of belaying before their teammate climbs 40 feet up, where adrenaline and cortisol can flood the brain. In this model, the climber is attached into the rope system with their harness and helmet in place, ready to climb but standing on the ground next to the belayer. On the other end of the rope system is the belayer, practicing the PBUS belay method (Pull, Break, Under, Slide, if you’re interested), until the rope connecting them to the climber becomes taut. At this point, the belayer and the climber are standing side by side, with their connecting rope directed vertically to the pulley 40 feet above. Now the partnership counts down 3-2-1, and jumps up while the belayer pulls and brakes. And 3-2-1 again. And 3-2-1 again. Each time the system gets tighter, until eventually, both the climber and the belayer are hanging in the air, side-by-side.
This method allows both the belayer and the climber to become comfortable with the system, and with working together, as a step towards the final climb. And while it takes time to run, it actually makes the final climb that much faster, while helping participants’ experience to be less fight-or-flight.
I’d never seen this method before, despite belaying on and off for 28 years, and I was intrigued. How did this method come about? Well, as my facilitator colleague told me, it was a matter of extracting value from when things went wrong.
He told me that about 15 years ago, while teaching a college group to belay, the students realized that they could jump together and pull the rope tight to allow them to swing towards each other. But since they were standing several feet apart at the time, they would whack into each other like a Newton’s Cradle; obviously dangerous and likely to end in injury. The facilitator stopped it, and redirected, as most leaders would. But what a lot of leaders skip over is what this facilitator did next: he thought, “Huh, I wonder if there’s something useful here?”
So he took the lesson that the students were unintentionally teaching him, and for the last 15 years, if a group he’s working with is a good fit for this, he incorporates this safer experience of belaying. Now I do too, and I’ve been able to share it with other seasoned facilitators too. All because of some reckless college students, and more importantly the recognition that there was some value to extract.
This might seem reminiscent of those great inventions that stemmed from failure – the legend of Post-It Notes being a great example. I wonder how many potentially great inventions are lost to history because no-one stopped to wonder if there was something useful to extract when things went wrong.
How can this be helpful for you and your team this week?
This Week’s Tip:
- Incorporate debriefing into your daily rituals – even if just for a week. This could be something you do by yourself even if you’re not able to do it in a group. Ask yourself questions like “What did you notice during [x]?”, “Why does that matter?”, and “What’s one thing I/we will do differently in future?” For that last question in particular, get specific – not just in terms of what the change is, but write it down: put it on your calendar, add it to your workflow, or find another way to make it real rather than just a nice idea.
- Anytime you experience a failure or it feels like something’s going wrong over the next week, ask yourself, “I wonder if there’s something useful here?” This is a mini-debrief question that might spark some new ideas and thoughts. Who knows, maybe you’ll invent the next Post-It Notes!
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes. We’d love to hear from you!
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Building Bridges Leadership 