There is nothing more interesting than reality itself. A physicist, psychologist, sociologist, and environmental scientist out to dinner are all likely to agree on this point, even if they all think about reality in different ways (and even if some harbour a secret preference for science fiction novels). The physicist, digging into their couscous salad, might naturally become very excited as they describe how gravity, electromagnetism, and both strong and weak nuclear forces can be understood by reference to a single String Theory. Indeed, they might vibrate with excitement while illustrating mathematically how the universe is comprised of miniscule vibrating strings, and they might even use their couscous to illustrate the dynamic structure. An hour later, when the physicist has finally stopped talking, the sociologist and environmental scientist might hammer out a different view of world dynamics, while the psychologist nods and smiles and listens along, perhaps telling a joke or two to keep everyone buoyed up. 

Certainly, we all see something different when we engage with reality, but deep down, we know there is something fundamentally shared in our reality. We talk to one another, use the tools of science, and we figure things out.  Regardless of our background or the particular scenario or problem we face, we all see the dynamics of reality play out and we often play an active role in shaping those dynamics. Sometimes we work together in teams to shape our reality.

Over the past decade, I have worked with groups and teams on a variety of collective intelligence design projects. My primary role is to facilitate collective intelligence (CI) design work using tools that help groups design new systems and reshape their reality.  I work with leaders, brokers, stakeholders, and experts from many different backgrounds.  When facilitating a team, I often work with a team of facilitators as the work is often complex and requires many tightly coordinated actions in order for CI sessions to run smoothly.  My team facilitates the work of the project team and, collectively, we operate as a powerful team-of-teams.

We all recognise the importance of teamwork. When teamwork is ‘working’ well, we can achieve more together, sustain our work for longer, be more creative, impactful, productive, and powerful.

Teamwork isn’t easy, and yet it is needed now more than ever given the complex problems we face in work contexts, in organisations, communities, and society. Our education system doesn’t prepare us well for teamwork. We focus on training individual skills rather than teamwork skills.  As a consequence, we are not drawn to teamwork in the natural course of events.  Beyond clichés and idealist thinking, we need real practice, real training, real tools, and real evidence that our ‘teamwork can make the dreamwork’. 

Nobody understands this better than Pamela Hamilton. This blog post is written in praise of Hamilton’s excellent and practical book, Supercharged Teams: 30 Tools of Great Teamwork.  As I was reading about each teamwork tool in turn, my mind returned again and again to the word Supercharged in the title of the book. The reference to a supercharge reminded me of Frank Wilczek’s book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality — in particular, Wilczek’s account of quantum physics dynamics.

The world of quantum physics and the world of ‘social physics’ (i.e., where we work to understand the dynamics of groups and teams) might seem like “worlds apart” (as one physicist once said to me), but perhaps the language of physics can be useful when talking about teamwork.  This is the direction I will take when outlining Pamela Hamilton’s 30 tools of teamwork.

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In quantum physics, a supercharge transforms bosons into fermions, and vice versa, thus shaping the dynamics of our physical world. This quantum level of reality is mysterious to say the least, but physicists have made incredible strides in understanding quantum dynamics, in large part due to the new tools of experimental science.

In ‘social physics’, we can begin with a simple scalar (i.e., quantitative) assumption that teamwork can range from (a) non-existent (i.e., 0 magnitude on the teamwork scale), to (b) massively powerful (i.e., approaching infinity). In our current and past reality, across many teams, a specific range of team power has been observed, none of which approaches the infinite power potential of teams. However, at the upper end of measurement, we can observe the most effective (i.e., supercharged) teams and analyse factors shaping these teamwork dynamics.  By understanding these dynamics, we can further supercharge teams with specific tools derived from our science.  This process of moving from basic to applied science is much the same in every field of study, only the tools of system measurement and system transformation differ across different fields.  And much like quantum physicists have done, it is clear that social scientists have made incredible strides in understanding teamwork dynamics over the past few decades.

Pamela Hamilton’s 30 tools are designed to help group facilitators, team leaders, and team members manifest supercharged team dynamics.  I will use the language of physics to shed light on the range of tools presented in the book. These are generative reflections.  But let’s be clear, my first observation and reflection is that everyone should read Pamela Hamilton’s book.  I have no doubt you will find the book very useful and illuminating. My goal is not to describe each of the 30 tools in detail. My goal is to prompt you to read the book, and to help you appreciate the dynamics at play, such that the infinite power potential of teamwork manifests as something real and substantive in your mind.  In the language of physics, it is only something real and substantive that can generate any potential energy that moves you.

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Two electrical charges moving in the same direction

I met Pamela Hamilton on a recent trip to Cambridge University. Within seconds of meeting, walking down the street from Hughes Hall to Parker’s Piece, it felt as if a magnetic force pulled us together into an aligned state of attraction, like two electrical charges moving in the same direction, sharing a common purpose.

As we crossed by the traffic lights and walked through Parker’s Piece (the expansive 25-acre park cited as the birthplace of soccer), our conversation turned rapidly to teams and teamwork.  Pamela, much like me, has been working for many years to facilitate teams.  We have been using complementary tools when working with teams. The tools I use are designed to facilitate collective intelligence (CI), and the way I facilitate teamwork (i.e., prompting group processes and actions) operates implicitly and in parallel to a primary process focus on implementing CI methodologies.  Pamela’s tools focus directly and explicitly on the teamwork dynamics – they make explicit what is needed to activate, guide, and sustain supercharged teams. Our tools are different and certainly complementary, and my view and the view of my facilitation team is that expanding the repertoire of tools we use is very important and valuable. Every unique action in an expanding repertoire adds a new electrical charge, adding greater force to our work, much like multiple electrical charges moving in the same direction create a larger magnetic field force.

Let’s consider Pamela Hamilton’s tools now, and let’s expand our ‘social physics’ thinking as we reflect on each tool in turn. 

1. To team or not to team – the force of gravity (F_g)

When we think about teamwork tools, we’re thinking about applied social physics – the tool is applied in a group context to transform group dynamics.  In an applied context, where teamwork may arise as an option for doing work, the first thing we need to know is whether or not a team is needed. To team or not to team, that is the question.Does the prospect of teamwork really draw us in? 

The first tool in Pamela Hamilton’s book is a diagnostic tool that helps group members reflect on whether or not teamwork is necessary. Group members are asked a series of questions, broadly clustered as follows: Do you have the knowledge, skill, decision-making authority, and management know-how to achieve an objective alone? Or do you need the distributed input and support of a team to achieve your objective? 

In reality, many problems we are working to address (e.g., in organisations, communities, and society) are ‘complex’, in the sense that a large number of actions and distributed role dynamics are needed to tackle ‘the problem’.  In order to ground ourselves in a realistic effort to tackle these problems, we are often drawn to teamwork.  The idea or prospect of teamwork acts like the subtle force of gravity that can draw people together.  I use the word subtle, because gravity, although ever-present in the Universe, is what physicists describe as a weak force.  In physics, the force of gravity (F_g) drawspieces of matter together, but it tends to be a significant force only when no other forces are in play, or when considering large agglomerates of matter (e.g., planets). 

So, yes, when two or more large agglomerate organisations like Google, Microsoft, and IBM compete with one another to innovate new artificial intelligence (AI) products designed to dominate the global market, each organisation operates with a team of teams who are drawn together by virtue of their shared innovation goals and, of course, the significant force created by their critical mass. But these organisations are a rarity in the broader social (problem field) landscape, and indeed teamwork might be mandated and reinforced by a managerial intelligence that recognises its value, even if the gravitational draw (F_g) of teamwork is felt as a relatively weak force initially by individual workers at Google, Microsoft, and IBM. 

In a smaller organisation that is less single-minded in its focus on ‘innovation’ and ‘global dominance’, F_g may appear to vanish from the everyday group dynamics equation – the draw of teamwork approaches zero.  For example, a group of academics hired to work in a University department may have a diverse set of teaching, research, and administrative objectives, and thus they may experience a diverse set of forces that move each of them in many different and non-aligned directions. This may weaken F_g — the draw of teamwork has little or no force, or it simply cannot be felt in the context of the powerful push and pull of other forces.  Without teamwork being mandated or somehow reinforced, the group of academics may gain no substantive teamwork experience and, drawing upon their own well-exercised kinetic energy, they may find themselves ‘running for cover’ when the impulse (J) to teamwork is proposed.  Perhaps a sub-set of larger, shared projects gain sufficient critical mass to pull them together into a pattern of teamwork. But how will they fare without prior experience of teamwork dynamics? Only time will tell.

2. Turning a group into a team – the social physics of impulse (J)

A work group, committee, think tank, information-sharing group, etc. can all take on the appearance of ‘teamwork’ without really being a team (i.e., they don’t engage in real teamwork behavior).  The second tool in Pamela Hamilton’s book provides a framework for thinking about what is needed to turn a group into a team.  In the language of physics, we need a tool that helps us identify any impulse (J) that might align vectors of individual action into a coordinated and directed set of teamwork actions.  For example, a committee that normally meet to share information and check on roles, responsibilities and ‘action done’ between meetings will only become a real team if they (i.e., the committee members) agree to work together toward a shared goal (e.g., a new project or initiative).  They need to work as a collaborative team beyond committee meeting times to achieve this goal. 

In physics we say that the impulse (J) applied to an object will be equal to the change in its momentum. A static, standing group with no impulse will have no momentum.  Indeed, people are often averse to committees and other group meetings that feel motionless and lifeless (or ‘dead’) with no sense of direction – groups that meet and talk but never act together to achieve any shared goals.  And when people conflate the deadening activity of these motionless groups with the activity of ‘teams’, they may formulate a view that ‘teamwork is a waste of time’ and they are ‘better off acting alone’.  Unfortunately, this negative view of teamwork is common, and this view can in turn inhibit the search, identification, and ultimate force of any impulse to teamwork.  

While Tool 2 does not focus on the specific action (or goal) that provides the impulse (J) for a group to transform into a team (or simply move a group into a field where F_g begins to act as a directed force drawing people together), the tool helps group members to identify whether or not J is latent (or simply absent) in the system.  If group members can perceive their system clearly, they can reflect on the specific J that might operate as an effective source of momentum.

3. Choose, avoid or separate – choose your team and optimise energy use in orderly action states

Tool 3 can be used after some impulse (J) has been applied which has moved a group into the field where F_g can act as a directed force drawing people together.  Tool 3 helps us to anticipate and minimise entropy (S) in our teamwork system, specifically, by selecting the right team members and designing our teamwork structures well.

We all recognise the basic dynamics at play: the behavior of a group can be more or less coordinated, more or less orderly/disorderly. Contrast the group dynamics observed when ‘the lights go on at the end of the disco’, with the group dynamics observed when ‘a surgical team are working together under the bright lights of the operating theater’.  Teamwork involves high levels of coordinated behavior amongst group members. When we observe highly effective teamwork dynamics, what we see is that the behavioural energy generated by group members during their interaction is effectively converted into work (W).  W is defined as the energy transferred to an object via the application of force along a displacement.  There is zero work (i.e., in the form of coordinated teamwork) in the group dynamic that emerges when the lights go on at the end of the disco, but there is a powerful directed force of teamwork ongoing in the operating theater.

Importantly, the energy transferred into work is a function of the level of order (S) in the system of coordinated group behavior.  In the language of physics, the level of disorder (or randomness) in the system of interacting individuals – the level of entropy (S) – is relatively low in the operating theater when compared with the nightclub floor at 2AM.  While it may look very complex and even chaotic from the vantage point of the novice observer, there is systematic order in the ‘apparent chaos’ and ‘complexity’ of the operating theater.

Minimising entropy, and converting group behavioural energy into more orderly, efficient and effective teamwork patterns is not easy. But core and central to this process — after establishing the impulse (J) that begins draws a group together with greater F_g,— is the selection of group members for teamwork. Who are the people you select for your team? And how many people will you include? Empirically, we know that team size (not too small, not too large), team diversity (more diversity), and the right mix of skills and dispositions (maximizing problem-specific coordinated action potential) are important for effective teamwork. Tool 3 allows you to focus on who to include, who to avoid (people who have no time to commit, no interest in learning, etc.), and how you might split a group into sub-groups (e.g., a core project team coordinating their activity with sub-teams available for reporting, feedback, etc.).  The purpose of this team member selection and group design process is to maximise future opportunities for group behavioral energy to be converted into work (W), specifically, by miminising the non-functional entropy (S) associated with selecting the wrong people or the wrong team-of-team structure for the project of work.  Design and plan and think it through well. Don’t assume order will ‘magically arise from chaos’.

This takes us to the next tool, Tool 4, and the related idea from the physics of efficiency (η).

4. The timetable – measure where you spend your time and stop wasting it (η efficiency)

In physics, we talk about mechanical efficiency (η_m), which is defined as the ratio between the power input (P) minus the mechanical power loss (P_L.m) and the power input itself.  Much of the power we generate as individuals (i.e., the power generated by ongoing emotional, cognitive, and behavioral action) can often be reasonably classified as ‘power loss’.  We classify some portion of the power we generate as ‘power loss’ if it is not channeled efficiently in the direction of our valued actions (i.e., the actions we value and wish to sustain), such as action directed toward some object or objective.  For example, if we value lifting heavy weights at the gym for an hour, or running 26 miles across town, it is important to have good posture and form such that we’re not using or tensing muscles which generate power that is ‘lost’, specifically, by not operating as a force that moves us in the direction of our valued action. Similarly, there might the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral ‘power loss’ associated with perusing social media feeds (e.g., scrolling through twitter posts), specifically, when our valued action during that time period is an important work-related task (e.g., writing a blog post).

Tool 4 is designed to help team members measure where they spend time and stop wasting. The tool ultimately helps to increase efficiency (η), even if the total power input (P) you and your team generate in any given day remains the same.  The specific tool introduced is the timetable.  As Pamela Hamilton describes it: “Supercharged teams prioritise their time to maximise impact”.  But this tool isn’t about timetabling your life away or becoming a slave to the tick-tock of the clock, it’s appreciating this key resource – time – and making it more readily available to you and your team members. In simple terms, you record the number of hours you spend working on different tasks. You then color code the impact and importance of each task based on much they help you achieve your main objectives (green directly helps; orange less so; red takes time away).  You then create an action plan to reduce red tasks, manage time spent on orange tasks, and ultimately create more time for green tasks. It’s simple and effective, and it works to increase your power — much like correcting your posture when weightlifting.

More generally, as Pamela noted in a recent correspondence, it is important to recognise the finite nature of time as a resource. We are drawn into more teams than ever before, thus risking collaboration overload and paralysis.  Some of these collaborations and teams actually arise through ‘laziness’ (i.e., where it is decided that we should ‘get a team’ to look at a particular issues or problem, rather than think through what is really needed – remember Tool 1: teams and collaboration dynamics need to be designed with a clear purpose). And finally, as Pamela says, you can only be great team member if you have the time to be. Time is important and it enters into many equations in social physics.

5. Meeting sharpeners – make meetings shorter and sharper

When it comes to efficiency and the best use of our time, people often perceive meetings as a waste of time.  And often they’re right – meetings can be a terrible waste of time.  As alluded to, the impulse (J) to teamwork, and the gravitation draw (F_g) of teamwork may be dissipated if a group anticipates, based on past experience, significant power loss or reduced efficiency (η) associated with meetings that are poorly designed.  Indeed, poorly designed meetings might increase behavioural entropy (S) in an already chaotic work situation, and you can follow the equations from there.

By improving meetings, making them sharper and more functional, we enhance our potential for powerful teamwork.  In the process, we can also begin to reinforce a positive feedback loop where S is steadily decreasing, η is steadily increasing, and F_g and J start to operate more consistently as forces that can bring people together into team structures as new problems present.

Naturally, whether it be a simple 30-minute team meeting, or a more complex 2-day team-based system design exercise, someone needs to take the lead in the group process design. One way or another, we all recognise how improving our meetings can enhance our workflows. Tool 5 prompts us to think carefully about our group process designs.  When it comes to team meetings, this might involve the use of highly structured and highly functional advance memos; prompting people to arrive to meetings with solutions; timely advance meeting set up when using technology and bespoke team interaction tools; use of short walk and talk small group meetings to energise group members, etc. 

In the language of physics, we might say that meeting sharpeners serve to increase the mass flow rate in the system (q_m.), specifically, the mass of functional team behaviour that passes per unit of time.  This is about getting as much done as possible in the time available, and it comes down to effective group process design.  And when we think about the mass flow of structured energy/information/behaviour over time, we can also begin to think about the frequency with which different team behaviours manifest.  We might decide to alter these frequencies to establish more functional and energy-sustaining patterns of mass flow.

6. Email agreement – optimising the frequency and amplitude of information exchanges

Tool 6 prompts us to think about a particular category of team behaviour – the back and forth frequency (f) of the messages we exchange via email. A commonly reported source of stress and strain for many people is the mass flow rate of email information exchanges (q_m,e), that dominate work time, and the increasing frequency (Hz) with which these email exchanges occur, particularly when we add more groupwork to our daily mass flow of work behaviour.  Tool 6 involves establishing rules that structure the frequency and mass flow rate of information exchanges via email using a ten-point checklist. 

When do we reply to emails? When do we phone rather than email? When do we ‘reply all’? When do we collate messages and later provide a single group update (i.e., to curb the back-and-forth of high frequency and disorderly information exchanges)? When do we use shared folders for document exchange?  Much like any other pattern of group behaviour, it’s important to reflect on the rules that govern our behaviour, and the contingencies (often unrecognised) that shape our behaviour (e.g., the individual ‘feeling of reward’ that comes from answering lots of emails, even if higher S is the ultimate outcome at the team level). It’s important to reflect on the behavioural pattern, and make changes as needed, to ensure that high frequency and incoherent multi-channel behavioural dynamics don’t significantly increase entropy (S) to the point where coordination of the total team behaviour dynamic breaks down.

Email is certainly very useful, and like other rapid information exchange systems it can be used to generate more efficient and tightly coupled, highly coordinated team member interactions. But it should not dominate the mass flow of our team behaviour.  This is particularly important given the range of multi-channel and coordinated parallel behaviours needed to address complex teamwork problems.  Importantly, when we talk about the mass flow rate of functional team behaviour in the system (q_m.), we need to think of this in terms of the aggregate mass flow across a diverse, potentially infinite set of coordinated behaviours (q_{m(0, ∞)}), specifically, the full set of behaviours needed to address the complex work challenges we face as a team or team-of-teams.

Across the diverse set of behaviours occurring and co-occurring in the group, each behaviour has a unique wave function. If we think about the social physics of information exchange — the number of waves of information exchanged across a single or multi-channel system in unit time (f) and the amplitude (A) of the information packet carried in each wave — it’s important to stand back and consider the wave function of information exchange  created for our teams.  The email ‘culture’ we establish as a team is designed to optimise the frequency and amplitude of information exchanges such that the wave function of email exchanges contributes to the overall power (P) of the team.

Returning to the broader set of equations, power (P) is the product of mass flow rate and specific work (q_{m *} W).  Recall that work, W, is defined as the energy transferred to an object via the application of force along a displacement. As such, following the power equation, mass flow rate can be large, and even increasing, but if team energy is not transferred to a specific object or objective, if it is lost or dissipated or transferred in non-specific directions, W is reduced, and P is reduced.  

Rather than dominate or dissipate P across the aggregate team behaviour wave function, can information exchange via email and other information channels add coherence and power to the total system of team behaviours?  As we’ll see, this depends on the clear-sighted vision of team members and the way in which vision creates directed spring energy (U_s). It also depends on the way in which team members can torque (τ) zero energy-transfer objectives into objectives that generate real spring energy (U_s).

7. Five futures – define a successful vision for your project

As Pamela Hamilton notes:

“Supercharged teams have a laser focus on a shared goal, and everything they do is in service of it. However, sometimes people think they’re working towards the same goals, but either haven’t agreed on them, or interpret the same goal differently” (p. 49). 

Tool 7 is all about creating a successful vision of a project. It involves reflecting on: (a) the five best outcomes, (b) the five best ideas or initiatives created, (c) the five people (or groups of people) who benefit from our work, (d) five lessons learned, and (e) how the five most successful decisions unfold. 

Again, we can describe vision in the language of physics, specifically, by reference to the potential energy (U) that vision creates for the team.  And because the five futures tool provides a specific structure that wraps outcomes, ideas, people, learning and decision-making into a multidimensional enfolded visioning process, we can say, more specifically, that vision provides the potential energy of a spring (U_s) that stores potential energy for team action.

The act of developing a vision extends or stretches the collective mind of team members, beyond narrow confines into a larger space.  Without stretching the mind in the direction of a shared vision (much like leaving a spring in its usual position, without stretching it), there is no U_s created.  But when we stretch our minds and establish a structured vision for the future, much like when we stretch a spring from its usual position, we store potential energy.

The raw material of our team, much like the raw material of a spring, is important in the U_s equation.  Based on past experience (e.g., practice, training, learning from successes and failures), the tensile strength of teams and team members is either increasing or decreasing (and oscillating) over time.  At any given moment in time, every team has a spring constant (k) that feeds into their U_s equation.  Following the equations of physics, we say that the potential energy a team vision generates is a product of this spring constant and the distance (x) team members are stretched by their vision (i.e., U_s = k*x).  Assuming the raw material holds together as a spring (i.e., assuming the spring/team structure is not broken), then k will have a value greater than 0.  In this context, even a vision that generates a small stretch will thus generate some potential energy. The larger the spring constant and the larger the stretch, the larger the spring potential (U_s). 

Ideally, as the tensile strength of teams grows as a function of ongoing development and reinforcement, k will be increasing and the ability of the team to stretch their vision will grow. This vision then sustains the team daily as they come together and spring into action.

8. Reframe your aim – add torque (τ) derived from perspective to increase the U_s of your objectives

A group of people may come together and state a new project objective (e.g., “To Digitally Transform Our Company”), but, somehow, the objective may provide no substantive impulse (J) for teamwork. Why?

One common problem is that the objective (as stated) is not linked in any way to a substantive vision and thus it provides zero potential energy (U_s) as a stand-alone objective. 

The team that comes together around this zero energy objective may have no basis for translating the objective into a broader vision, and thus, again, their talk may appear a little random and disordered (i.e., high levels of S in the group communication pattern) with low levels of efficiency (η) and power in their action, and low mass flow rate (q_m.) observed in the overall teamwork behavioural profile. 

Sometimes, an easy corrective is to reframe the objective, specifically, by viewing the objective from multiple different perspectives or angles.  In the language of physics, we might describe this process as akin to adding torque (τ) or rotational force to a somewhat flat or linear objective and turning into something coiled like a spring.

Tool 8 helps group members apply a form of torque force (τ) to an objective, continuously turning it around and around from different perspectives, in a way that reshapes it into something that ultimately enfolds a vision that can be further stretched to generate potential energy (U_s).  This process of creating potential spring energy is derived from the way group members think about and reword the objective.  Pamela Hamilton facilitates and empowers the torque process by asking teams to consider how they might reword their objective, for example, as if they were explaining it to a five-year-old child; and now reword it again as if you had all the money in the world; and now reword it as if you had no money and no resources; and now reword it again the way you think [famous person X] would reword it, etc. 

Much like how you would make a spring from a straight piece of wire, you torque and you torque again.  The combined torque around your original objective allows for the development of a reframed objective for your project.  Now, quite rapidly, the team discovers that they are working with something that has greater U_s.   

9. Project navigator – align on a project scope from the beginning.

If vision supported by reframed objectives helps to enhance potential spring energy through the application of torque force, a well-developed project scope goes further: it adds greater force for teamwork by building real substance to a project. 

By scoping out the real substance and detail of a project, the substantive mass and potential impact and power of teamwork becomes evident.  And borrowing physics, we say that the emergence of this substantive mass increases the gravitational potential energy (U_g) of teamwork. 

As noted above, the draw of teamwork (F_g) is ever-present as a weak force – it exists before (Tool 1), during, and after the establishment and disestablishment of any team.  Prior to any impulse to teamwork (J, Tool 2), prior to the selection of a team (Tool 3) designed with principles of low entropy in mind (S), and prior to establishing a scope for a project (Tool 9), the gravitational pull of teamwork as a metaphysical possibility (F_g) is likely to remain weak.  It is weak because there is no mass in either object (i.e., no substantive team and no substantive scope for the project of work).  Visioning tools (Tool 7), coupled with any effort to torque objectives (Tool 8) such that they generate potential spring energy (U_s), provide a good starting point, there remains a danger that any such vision and clarified objectives will be experienced by some team members as ephemeral and metaphysical.  What quality scoping can and should do is to add concrete and specific detail and real substance to a project.    

When we generate a substantive team (Tool 3), and couple this with a substantive project scope (Tool 9) that provides a birds-eye view the project details, across (i) context, (ii) objectives, (iii) team beliefs, (iv) resources, (v) plans, (vi) traps, (vii) projected outputs, and (viii) outcomes, this results in the emergence of two very real objects, both of which have substantive mass (i.e,. the team, and the scoping detail).  This in turn generates gravitational potential energy (i.e., the energy an object has in relation to another object due to gravity, U_g). 

In physics, gravitational potential energy is computed as the product of mass, acceleration due to gravity, and height. In social physics, we can say that a critical mass of capable team members may stand ready to act in the project landscape, but first they must elevate themselves to a height that provides a substantive view of their project field. Greater height coupled with greater scoping detail adds to the substantive mass of the project scope generated. U_g is then converted into kinetic energy when the objects (i.e., substantive team and substantive scoping) accelerate towards each other across multiple vectors of team action, directed toward multiple well-scoped points on the problem/project landscape.   

Tool 9 helps teams by providing a scoping frame of reference. This tool is very useful but, in the end of the day, it’s up to team members to generate a substantive scope for their project. Again, this requires work, W. In the language of social physics, the potential energy U_g at a height h above the landscape (where team members stand ready) is equal to the work required to lift the object (the substantive scope) to that height.  Teams are not always willing to do this work, or they may simply not know how to do it well.  In these situations, teams can benefit from group facilitation support.  Teams need help and we can’t expect them to do everything on their own. They have limited energy that can be transferred from one object to another.  A well-designed team-of-team structure allows for both greater energy and more directed energy transfer in the system as a whole.   

I certainly recognise the challenge here.  Much of my work as a group facilitator involves using the tools of applied systems science to help teams with the heavy lifting and hard work of systems thinking, in essence facilitating the team effort to understand the dimensional space and features of their problem/project landscape in the service of applied system design.  So, Tool 9 in Pamela Hamilton’s book certainly resonated with me here – it’s hard work.  In fact, I think it’s time for a cup of tea and a lie-down!

Tools 10 – 12: The social physics of buoyancy (B) – purpose, value, and motivation

As described above, the scoping of a project is a way to elevate a substantive view that guides team actions during the navigation of a project. But what about the buoyancy that sustains each team member?

We have to consider how each team member sustains a substantive project view and the potential energy it generates, and we have to think about this in relation to their individual vectors of teamwork action. 

While U_g generated from project scoping can be seen as a force that acts upon the team as a whole, specifically, by drawing team members into much stronger alignment across multiple vectors of coordinated action, it can nevertheless remain a relatively weak force (again!?), yes, again.  We understand this when we consider U_g in the context of the full set of forces acting upon an individual and its contribution to an individual’s total kinetic energy. 

While excellent project scoping will elevate all team members and accelerate collective action in the direction of substantive project objectives, each team member can also generate their own kinetic energy, for instance, by walking, running, hopping, skipping, and jumping in any direction they like. By focusing on action intentions (i.e., why people appear to be like moving in one direction or another) — and by ignoring for a moment the ultimate source of these intentions (i.e., the ‘ultimate’ forces at play) — we can begin to clarify individual drivers of action for team members.  Here, we will cluster these intentions together using the words purpose, value, and motivation.

Tools 10, 11, and 12 focus broadly on proximal and individual drivers of action, as team members define for themselves: (Tool 9) what their purpose is and how they will respond to challenges or forces that direct them away from that purpose; (Tool 10) why their work matters and how people will benefit from their work; and (Tool 11) what the key personal motivators are for each team member. 

Here, we will think about Tool 10, 11, and 12 by reference to the physics of buoyancy (B), in particular, the force of buoyancy (F_B) these tools can generate for team members. 

Given all we know about the links between purpose and wellbeing, it is useful to consider our individual and shared sense of purpose as providing buoyancy – putting a bounce in our step as we go about our day.  And because our sense of purpose naturally extends (and often broadly incorporates) the way in which our actions benefit others, the link between the buoyancy of purpose (Tool 10) and the value and benefits we bring to others (Tool 11) are closely coupled. 

A team is comprised of individual members, and each team member carries substantive mass as part of their personhood.  By taking a deep dive to embrace their team purpose (Tool 10), recognising how their actions will benefit others (Tool 11), and ways in which these actions motivate them personally (Tool 12), team members can draw the substantive mass of their personhood ‘deep into the waters they swim’ and generate F_B aligned to project objectives and actions. Much like plunging one’s body under water at the beach, before driving upward and outward like a dolphin, dancing and bouncing over the waves, it doesn’t necessary take that long to coordinate the action of Tools 10 – 12 — we can all go deep and connect with our purpose, values, and motivation (PVM),and we can rapidly and repeatedly revisit these depths and experience the buoyancy and upward force of PVM. In this way, we drive on key vectors of action, we bounce upward toward our ideals, connecting our PVM with the objectives established in the vision and scope of our team project.

In physics, we say that the buoyancy force on an object is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object (i.e., the fluid that would otherwise occupy the submerged volume of the object).  We add more volume and weight, and we create more buoyancy force, by expanding our sense of purpose, expanding the space/value occupied by our mass flow of work, and by allowing personal motivators to take us deeper and drive us higher.  

Once we’re clear on this, once the PVM space is clarified, we waste no more time and we bounce into action.

13. The journey plan, … and the Poynting vector

With a substantive scope established that draws team members together and aligns them with the substance of the project (Tool 9, U_g) — and after we ensure that everyone has added bounce in their step and has aligned their PVM and F_B with the project objectives (Tools 10 – 12, B) — now is the time to develop the journey plan (Tool 13): the roadmap to your goal and milestones to track your progress.  

Now that we’re talking about a journey plan and specific paths of movement, we draw upon the physics of Poynting vectors to describe the team dynamics. In physics, the Poynting vector represents the directional energy flux of an electromagnetic field. The Poynting vector is usually denoted by S or N.  Given that S is used to denote entropy above (see Tool 3), we will use N here when referring to the Poynting vector.  

As Pamela Hamilton notes, when creating a journey plan it is important to define your destination clearly, consider the challenges you are likely to face as you move toward your destination, plan the route you will take to get there, and identify milestones and signposts to track your progress.  The journey route and set of action vectors can be complex, and the energy transfer dynamics can thus be complex.

Whenever we talk about vectors, we consider two independent properties: magnitude and direction.  This is the case for any type of vector we describe (e.g., when we talk about velocity, momentum, force, electromagnetic fields, etc.).  And thus magnitude and direction are important properties when we talk about teamwork, where the work of teamwork denotes the energy transferred in multiple, coordinated directions via the application of forces along multiple displacements.  While we must think of total team power (PT) in scalar terms, implicit its computation are the specific vectors of work and their coordinated mass flows (i.e., the q_{m *} W of teampower).  

The Social Physics of vectors are useful to apply here because whenever you define your destination clearly (e.g., I will _______ as measured by ___________), you establish (i) a clear sense of direction and (ii) you can calibrate the magnitude of energy transfer needed to move toward your ‘destination’.  When the ‘destination’ has properties that are open to measurement — for example, the authoring of 5000 lines of C++ code; an organised excel spreadsheet documenting data extraction from 200 randomised controlled trials; building 3 alternative prototypes for design product X (x1, x2, x3), etc. — we can begin to understand and perhaps reverse engineer how a set of team behaviours moving across a coordinated set of vectors will generate an aggregate energy transfer that is equal to the magnitude of energy accumulated at the destination.  

Of course, there is power loss along the way, and the physics of Poynting vectors will again factor power loss into its equations. Tool 13 is used to anticipate challenges and plan a journey route that will maximise efficient power flow and total team power (P_T). 

In physics, N (i.e., the power flow of an electromagnetic field) is computed as the vector product (1/μ)E × B, where μ is the permeability of the medium through which energy is transferred, E is the electric field, and B is the magnetic field.  

We can think about permeability across different systems, but the logic of μ and its effect on energy transfers is much the same. Consider a team moving through a more or less permeable jungle, for example, moving easily along a well-trodden path (high permeability), or working hard to chop away at thorns and thistles and bushes in an effort to create a new path to a new destination (low permeability). In social physics, lower permeability could arise as a result of any system property within an organisation that is making it more difficult to transfer team energy into work, for example, the level of ‘bureaucracy’ in the organisation (e.g., the average number of discrete vectors and total cumulative energy transfers needed to realise any given action Ai in a project-relevant action series A1, A2,… An).  We sometimes describe this situation as ‘having to jump through many hoops’, or ‘work around’ many constraints, which is energy-consuming, adds travel time, and leaves us a little more exhausted by the time we reach our destination.  Higher levels of bureaucracy defined in this way will reduce permeability of the medium through which teamwork energy is transferred, which in turn reduces teamwork power.  

Effective navigation is critical here, and we always have to think on our feet, … think and act on the move.   Effective teams learn how to reflect and accelerate (and accelerate and reflect!) as they move along their journey together.  

14. Accelerate and reflect – create a timeline that prioritises actions and includes time for reflection and refinement

As Pamela Hamilton notes:

“If our time expands to fit the available tasks, the risk is that we can spend the whole project journey only just keeping up with our actions and leave no time for reflection” (p. 91). 

Tool 14 is a very interesting tool as it prompts the team to look at the project journey they have designed and work out where to accelerate the work to provide space for reflection afterwards. It’s very interesting because we sometimes assume the ‘nice’ or ‘clever’ thing to do is to design project work such that there is a steady pace throughout – a steady and consistent and even flow of distributed teamwork power.  But this often amounts to simply spreading work tasks across the allotted time with team members doing each task at the latest possible moment they are required. This work design may initially seem ‘nice’ and ‘clever’, but it may leave no space for reflection and acceleration. If we can learn to change pace, and accelerate workflows when it is optimal to do so, we can also create time and space and use this time and space to reflect and make good teamwork decisions that help us to further accelerate workflows when it is optimal to do so.

Think about another scenario, where a team is playing football or hurling (my favourite!).  Imagine a coach is working with the team and preparing them for their next match.  Would the coach advise players to run around the pitch at a steady pace throughout the whole game?  No, certainly not. A winning play dynamic involves patterns of deceleration and acceleration to win possession of the ball — and knowing when and how to do this. Different phases of play involve different sets of players accelerating in different directions as they work to find space, win and hold possession, and, eventually, move the ball to the back of the net for a goal (or over the bar for a point in hurling). Following patterns of deceleration and acceleration, there are moments where the pace slows a little (allowing a moment of ‘reflection’, a zig-zag of the hips, creating and finding space), a new vector is established, and then a player wishing to receive the ball will accelerate to meet the incoming vector of the pass and secure possession.

A good team ‘moves the ball well’, and they change their pace throughout the game in order to do this.  Tool 14 brings this to life in the context of project work, and the principles are much the same. 

Again, accelerations are vector quantities — acceleration is the rate of change of the velocity of an object with respect to time. As Tool 14 essentially involves intelligent application of both acceleration and deceleration in the service of more efficient and powerful teamwork, we will simply denote it using the standard symbol for acceleration (a) …. and we move on swiftly from there.

15) Measuring success checklist – what do we really mean by team power?

We can think about team success as the total teamwork power (P_T) transferred throughout the duration of a team project.  In this context, we are adopting a very ‘pure’ definition of success, in the sense that we assume that teamwork power refers to the total mass flow of specific work that achieves valued objectives for the team.

Tool 15 is all about measuring success and it involves using a checklist of questions that help a team clarify the results of P_T applied in a specific project, including key project deliverables, broader project outcomes, and the project journey itself.

Planning to measure success at the beginning of a project is important. In the language of Social Physics, the precise ‘what’ and ‘how’ of our measurements tells us in advance how much energy and power is to be transferred, and it tells us what ‘successful’ power transfer amounts to in terms of the key changes we have brought about to the system we are operating in. The measuring success checklist questions that Pamela Hamilton uses all begin with the word ‘How’ or ‘What’, which is helpful as it orients teams to both process (How) and product (What) in the power transfer function (e.g., How will we know we have achieved deliverable X?  What difference will we be able to see outside of our company if we are successful?  How will we know we have worked well as a team?).  Any checklist and process of measurement can be established here, but the key thing is that it is fit for purpose for the team. 

People in organisations will often complain when measurement systems are imposed on them by outside groups, particularly when these measurements systems are seen to distort the force field and disrupt energy and power transfers that are valued by individuals and teams within the organisation (e.g., consider the University Ranking system, which many academics consider a distorting influence, and they would not ‘sign up for’ if asked directly). 

When we think in terms of the ‘fundamentals’ of social physics, there is nothing wrong with measurement systems that a team develops when it is a ‘fit for purpose’ measurement that helps them to calibrate and direct P_T. Much like you *might* be interested to measure your mechanical power when training on an ergometer in the gym (e.g., as you prepare for the national rowing championships), you only do this because it provides useful information at a time when that information is deemed useful to know.  You don’t waste your time obsessing over the ergometer power outputs every day while you’re training, as there are many other vectors of action (and possible measurements you could use) that feed into your success as an athlete.  Similarly, a project team does not need to become obsessed with team power or the measurement of team power, but an effective team will always be interested in working with ‘useful information at a time when that information is deemed useful to know’. By clarifying the ‘How’ and ‘What’ of measurement using Tool 15 or a version of same, we have a much clearer picture of what we mean by team power and team success.  

Simply put, for any given team project, it is very useful to know what “Team Power” really means.

Tools 16 – 18 – flow dynamics

Chapter 7 in Pamela Hamilton’s book introduces three tools that focus on ways to work together in teams. I’m going to group the three tools in Chapter 7 together here and categorise them under the physics of flow dynamics.   

Tool 16, the three-point check-in, recognises the importance of building trust and develop empathy between team members.  Three dimensions of working well together as a team are identified: building personal relationships, sharing professional empathy, and committing to work together well.  The tool involves engaging with team members at the beginning of a project, and throughout, using (a) personal, (b) professional, and (c) productivity check-ins.  When teams do this regularly together, trust and empathy are reinforced and this helps to sustain successful workings, or smooth flow dynamics.

Tool 17 builds upon this by asking teams to tune into the language they use and to develop ‘language rules’ or ‘ways of talking’ about their project, along with ‘process rules’ (i.e., how we agree to work together productively) and ‘behaviour rules’ (i.e., the behaviours we commit to). Again, thinking together about language, process, and behaviour is designed to enhance communication and workflow dynamics.  These are not activities that we should be afraid of as a team, and they should not constrain teamwork or reduce P_T.  When applied well, Tool 17 will increase P_T.

Tool 18 responds to the modern reality of work, where team members may be working remotely and flexibly in ways that require new thinking about the dynamics of effective teamwork.  The tool prompts reflection on the specific behaviours and meeting patterns that will work for a team working remotely or online some or much of the time.  As they work through the detail, the team establish a distance culture code (i.e., the best ways of working together when working in different locations).   

As I thought about these three tools, it reminded me of the way in which trust, empathy, and the flow of aligned communication and constructive ways of working together operate as part of the essential flow dynamics of the waters we swim when we work together. This prompted me to think about the Reynolds number (Re) used in fluid mechanics.

While a project of teamwork sets up specific vectors for energy and power transfer, if we look at the broader social science evidence, factors identified across Tools 16 – 18 point to a set of very powerful forces.  Consider, for example, a situation where a team is functioning reasonably well, but then one team members experiences a significant violation of trust and subsequent lack of empathy when this violation of trust is raised with the team leader.  This operates like a rip tide that suddenly pulls the team member out to sea, sets them adrift and destroys the smooth flow dynamics that were previously present.  The whole team will be impacted by this force in one way or another.

I draw upon the physics of fluid mechanics, in particular, the Reynolds number (Re) as a way to conceptualise the large forces at play here.  High levels of trust and empathy and aligned communication are essential to the flow dynamics of successful teams.  In fluid mechanics, low Reynolds numbers indicate that flows are likely dominated by laminar flow (i.e., where the motion of fluid particles is orderly, moving in straight lines parallel to the surface upon which water is flowing). Conversely, high Reynolds numbers generally indicate turbulent flows.  When trust and empathy are pulled away from the team, or when confusing or disruptive patterns of language arise in exchanges, this is akin to the turbulent push and pull of differences in the fluid’s speed and direction, whereby different flows are intersecting or even moving counter to the overall direction of the flow.  These eddy currents churn the flow and use up energy in the process, and in terms of teamwork power flows what we see is a significant reduction in P_T.

Tools 19 – 22:  conductivity (k) and drag (D)

We will group Tools 19 – 22 presented in Chapter 8 as, collectively, they are designed to address team conflict.  However, they are somewhat distinct and thus I group them here by reference to the social physics of conductivity and drag.

Vigorous, challenging, and constructive patterns of interpersonal engagement are a feature of supercharged teams. As Pamela Hamilton says:

“Supercharged teams aren’t ‘nice’, they are clever and able to deal with the conflict that is bound to happen, even in the best of teams. But when teams work in conflict all of the time it is attritional. We must prepare for conflict, as we are likely to disagree over decisions, have personality clashes, and have small misunderstandings. But we must also deal with conflict well and early to keep the positive momentum of our journey towards our goal” (p. 117).   

Tool 19 (Opinions and instincts) is used to identify and work through sources of disagreement and misalignment at the early stages of a team project. Team members answer a series of questions individually, in writing (e.g., “If you were the sole decision-maker, what single thing would you do to make us achieve our goal?”), and then a facilitator works with the group to cluster answers and identify key themes and areas of disagreement. The tool helps team members to disagree in a structured, neutral way, such that they can move on with their work and get to know one another along the way. 

Much like cooling the physical environment can enhance the thermal and electrical conductivity of materials, so too can cooling of the teamwork environment (i.e., removing excess heat generated by undercurrents of disagreement) enhance the conductivity of energy transfer between team members, and energy transfer between the team and their project environment.  In the language of social physics, as the process of recognising disagreements cools the heat of team conflict and increases system conductivity (k). And now, increasingly, the system can effectively transfer heat – but this is the heat of requisite energy transfer associated with the mass flow of specific and targeted project work.  There is no heat wasted on excess or non-functional conflict.  Of course, what is excess and non-functional in the team dynamic is something that needs to be worked out.  We use the tools of teamwork to figure this out along the way.  

Tool 20 (Conflict predictor) is further used to predict and avoid conflicts that might arise. While Tool 19 (Opinions and instincts) is used to identify and address sources of conflict and misalignment along vectors of project-specific teamwork, Tool 20 addresses discrete and intersecting sources of conflict and drag in the waters we swim (i.e., the environment through which project-specific teamwork vectors are moving). Coupled with the powerful forces of trust, empathy, and aligned communication and their aggregate influence on Re and teamwork flow dynamics (see Tools 16 – 18), we have to address a multitude of discrete and potentially recurrent forces that can impose drag (D) on specific vectors of workflow. Tool 20 monitors the landscape to identify and avoid these sources of drag, which might include how we avoid being misunderstood when communicating via email, how we can plan ahead for busy periods and support busy people, how we can share the load of training new people, etc. The tool can be adapted to any project but the goal is to predict sources of conflict.

Drag force is a force that opposes the relative motion between an object and the ‘fluid’ through which the object ‘moves’.  Sometimes the drag force is so strong that it forces a moving object to ‘stop’ or even ‘reverses its direction’ of movement.  We can think about conflict in terms of discrete vectors of opposing force that slow, stop, or reverse the movement of specific team member actions (Di, Dii, etc.).  This is a potentially useful way of looking at the system.  We can also consider the cumulative drag inherent in the total set of relative movements in the system (D_{(0, n)}), which we might label Dt.  High conflict systems have higher total drag (Dt) – movement is ‘harder’, may be less ‘agile’ and it requires more energy to move any given distance, and possibly requires completely new movement strategies to be developed (i.e., as we reflect and accelerate, Tool 14).  In a system where ‘every’ movement becomes difficult as a result of high concentrations of conflict, we might see a state shift whereby the system is transformed into a high-density fluid system.  In physics we note the dynamics at play: as fluid density increases, drag increases.  Your team members might all be very strong and capable movers, but if their interpersonal exchanges create a high density, high drag conflictual scenario, much of their strength and movement potential is restricted.   

Consider the scenario where the ‘strong and forceful movement’ of a kung fu master is manifest in air, water, or quicksand.  In air, the kung fu master moves with great speed and agility as there is very little drag in the fluid (gas) through which the master moves.  In water, they move much slower, but the power of their movement is visible in the way they churn the water and work vigorously against the drag of the higher density fluid through which they move.  In quicksand, the kung fu master quickly recognises their dilemma: the strength and direction of the drag force is life-threatening – a new type of movement is needed to counter the downward pull of the quicksand.

As noted, Tool 20 can be modified and adapted to any project situation, but at an aggregate level, if a team can predict and remove as many sources of conflict as possible from the system, it can be very liberating for team members — like moving from quicksand, to water, to air.  Team movement is increasingly free flowing, liberated from sources of drag, and team power becomes visibly manifest in the substantive mass flow of targeted teamwork behaviour across the project landscape.  In practice, this involves a process of ongoing learning, which takes us to Tool 21.

Tool 21 (Six reasons why) is used to learn from recent issues and prevent them from reoccurring.  The tool helps teams “to address situations that went badly, understand why they happened, and learn from them for the future.” (p. 126). To begin with, each team member reflects on something that went well, and then they list three reasons why it went well.  Next, team members reflect on something that did not go so well and they list three reasons why. Reasons are posted in a facilitated group session and clusters of related reasons are identified across positive and negative situations. By beginning with an analysis of what’s working well, before focusing on what’s not working so well, Tool 21 provides a constructive set-up that helps to prepare teams for an analysis of problematic issues.  And by focusing on clusters of inter-related reasons, this helps to elevate the analysis of issues or problems to a more objective space, which in turn promotes learning from past experience.

Tool 22 (Individual intervention) is used when one team member is causing tension and conflict in the team. The key is to focus on a specific behaviour and the behaviour change needed.  This could be something simple like [Behaviour] ‘Team member A is disrupting team workflow by answering emails continuously throughout team meetings’, and [Change] ‘Stop doing email and engage with team members during the meeting’.  The best team member to intervene is selected; a conversational setting is selected; a script is prepared focusing on the reason for the meeting, the team members positive contribution, and the behaviour team members are finding difficult; a phase of listening and question asking follows that builds understanding of the person’s behaviour; then the conversation converges on the behaviour changes that will improve the teamwork situation, before commitments and agreements are drafted. If the person’s behaviour is more extreme, for example, sustained patterns of aggression of bullying, then it is better to remove the person from the team. As Pamela Hamilton notes, to make your work successful you have to “deal with conflict, don’t ignore it” (p. 133).  

As we are describing it here using the language of social physics, by forestalling, predicting, and dealing directly with conflict as soon as it arises, we are sustaining and potentially increasing conductivity (k) and reducing drag (D) in the teamwork system.  To do this well in practice, and to support many other vectors of teamwork in practice, we need to get quality support from leaders. This takes us to Tools 23 – 25.

Tools 23 – 25:  Leader support and centrifugal force

A good leader operates at the centre of action in a system.  They provide a centrifugal force (F) that drives vectors of teamwork outward across the project landscape. The leader provides a central, coordinating and rotational force that supports the work of team members across directions of travel in their journey. As such, from a pure social physics perspective, the leader is part of the power flow of the team. 

From the equations of Physics, we know that centrifugal force can be increased by increasing either the speed of rotation or the mass of the body being rotated, or by decreasing the radius, which is the distance of the body from the centre of the curve. In order for a leader to become a ‘good’ leader (i.e., where they generate a ‘real force’ that drives vectors of teamwork outward) they need to place themselves ‘in the middle of things’, align with the purpose of the team and stay close to team. 

Consider leadership in an academic school, for example, where the primary purpose of the team is to deliver teaching and learning experiences to approximately 1,000 students across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.  A good leader will operate at the centre of this vector field, rotating at speed to support all vectors of teaching and learning activity, working throughout to stay close to team members, and thus contribute to their greater outward force and ongoing teaching and learning deliverables. If the leader aligns their force elsewhere (e.g., pursuing their own personal goals), the team will recognise this and will be both directly affected (i.e., no ‘leader’ force contributed), and indirectly affected (e.g., power loss associated with the non-functional team member ‘search for leadership’; and power loss associated with conflict caused by the entropy resulting from the absence of ‘leadership’, etc.).  The aggregate effect is P_T reduction. 

In order to correct this problem, a team needs to either (a) replace the ‘leader’ with a new leader, or (b) get support from the leader.  Pamela Hamilton focuses on (b).  Often (b) is the better option, and sometimes (b) is the only option (e.g., in public sector organisations where ‘leaders’ cannot be easily replaced).

Chapter 9 in Pamela Hamilton’s book addresses these dynamics and includes a focus on (i) how to effectively ‘manage up’ to influence your leaders, (ii) how to get a clear direction of travel from your leaders, (iii) how to motivate your leaders to help and support your team, (iv) how to connect your leaders with your customers, and (v) how to support your leaders to give you perspective. 

As Pamela Hamilton notes, many of us have come across leaders who are evaders of direct questions, slippery, flip-flop, or “their hands are tied”, and it’s clear that they “don’t want to be held accountable in case they are found to be wrong later” (p. 141).  Tool 23 is all about working with leaders to clarify what they see as the ‘direction of travel and teamwork’, how this work ‘fits within the broader organisational strategy’, how it ‘aligns with their personal targets’, and what that means for the direction the team takes. The tool is very interesting when you look at the set of questions Pamela Hamilton uses to structure working with leaders. If leaders engage honesty and fully with the exercise, Tool 23 will certainly help with three vectors of action that increase a leader’s centrifugal force: (1) it forces leaders to ‘rotate’ and develop awareness of the full set of team action vectors, (2) it forces leaders to clarify the ‘direction’ of these teamwork vectors and how they align with their direction of movement as a leader, and (3) it forces leaders to ‘get close’ (i.e., decrease the radius) to the substantive mass flow of teamwork (i.e., by drawing the leader close to the substance of what team members are actually doing). 

Of course, leaders need to turn up for the conversation, and if they continue to flip-flop and avoid engaging with the team, Tool 22 might be needed.

A leader may not act like a leader in part because they have never received any training and they simply don’t know how to lead.  Indeed, it is not uncommon to see a regression and childlike immaturity emerge in the behaviour of ‘leaders’ in situations where they simply don’t know how to handle their newfound power.  Part of the process of ‘managing up’ can include helping ‘leaders’ to become real leaders, specifically, by empathising with them, listening and learning more about what motivates them.  Organisations that invest heavily in ‘leadership training’ sometimes neglect the fact that the primary focus of training in the organisation should really be ‘teamwork training’, and ‘leadership training’ is simply a part of this – in the sense that the leader is part of the power flow of the team.  Ultimately, the leader has to function amidst the more powerful mass flow of teamwork power, which sustains the work of the organisation.  When Pamela Hamilton describes the process of ‘managing up’, this refers to a very constructive process that ultimately enhances P_T.  Part of ‘teamwork training’ should include ‘managing up’ (i.e., where teams learn now to support leaders to develop leadership power P_L that enhances P_T). 

I have met and worked with many leaders and also many coaches who work with leaders. Unlike group facilitators (i.e., the work that my team usually does), coaches often work with individuals, and they often work one-on-one with leaders.  Coaches tell me that they often need to help leaders overcome ‘imposter syndrome’, which really just amounts to a leader not being very confident in their role. This lack of confidence is perfectly understandable much of the time, as a leader may have simply ‘landed in the job’ without any leadership experience or training.  However, lack of confidence doesn’t by default lead to behaviour change focused on the task-specific sources of low confidence. This type of behaviour change, like any type of behaviour change, needs to be directed by specific patterns of energy transfer and work.  For example, rather than accept that they simply need to practice, train and work hard to cultivate specific leadership behaviours (i.e., like a coach might tell an athlete who is working to cultivate a new swimming technique) leaders in public and private sector work organisations may shy away from practice, training, and hard work, and they may even become defensive and aggressive if their relatively low P_L is pointed out to them. But, again, it’s important to remind the unpractised leaders that there is no inherent problem with ‘lack of experience’ in a leadership role as everyone has to ‘start somewhere’ (i.e., at the starting point, where they have ‘no experience in the role’). Confidence comes with practice, and the key thing when listening to and supporting leaders is to figure out how to support their engagement, skill development, and confidence as purposeful and powerful leaders that contribute to total team power. The real vector set we want to see operative in organisation is one that begins and ends in team power, and moves in the direction of increased PT supported by increased PL (PT -> PL+ … PT_∞). Again, when organisations see this dynamic clearly, they will realise that ‘team training’, in the broader sense, is the primary area of resource and energy investment, as ‘leadership training’ will is likely to be waste of time and money, and will be viewed negatively by the larger group, if there is no teamwork dynamic or culture in place.  A good leader can begin to create this teamwork dynamic, but they need to apply the tools of teamwork to do so, and they need help along the way. This takes us to Tool 24.

Tool 24 (Leader listening tool) is useful to consider here.  Tool 24 involves a process of engagement and listening to leaders. The goal is to listen and document (i) success-makers (e.g., understand how leaders talk about success, the type of successes they prize, and words team members can use when talking to leaders about team objectives, deliverables and outcomes), (ii) profile-raisers (i.e., how do leaders like to be seen?), (iii) currency-creators (i.e., given the stories they tell, case studies they refer to, etc., what would leaders like to say about the team project?), (iv) capability-boosters (i.e., listen out to understand what leaders want to learn from this project), and purpose-generators (i.e., how does this project fit with their values?).  

Tool 25 (Customer quiz) can further be used to connect leaders with their ‘customers’ (which can refer to any number of stakeholder groups benefiting from the work of the team). Tool 25 is implemented with a sense of fun and competition that supports learning and connection.  Customers (or stakeholders) are interviewed and asked a series of questions pertinent to the work of the team (e.g., this could be about the products, or services, or key team deliverables, of customer/stakeholder preferences and interests and activities).  The interviews are video recorded such that the answers customers provide can be viewed by leaders, but only after they are asked to guess what the answers are (…pause video…).  Leader answers are scored based on how accurate they are, and the quiz can also involve multiple leaders competing with one another (…who knows best?…), but the point is that an engaging learning experience is created where leaders connect with their team and, indirectly, their customers; and they learn more about themselves (and what they really know about customers/stakeholders).

Tools 26 – 28: Engage your stakeholders and add magnetic force (B) and flux (Φ_B)

While leaders provide a centrifugal force for teamwork, stakeholders provide a magnetic force that pulls team members in the direction of service and the benefit of others. Stakeholders include anyone who might be affected by the project – and team members need to identify them, understand them, and engage with them regularly in cycles of project update, check-in, and the back-and-forth of collaborative influence.  For all the best and most powerful teamwork projects we find ourselves working on, we will find that we are drawn towards stakeholders with magnetic force and flux — our purpose and teamwork vectors operate in the service and direction of stakeholder benefits. Pamela Hamilton describes three tools that are useful to consider here.

Tool 26 (Secret stakeholder survey) is used to help teams understand what their stakeholders think. Team members do not understand the magnitude and direction of magnetic forces until they reveal the motion and charge of stakeholder’s minds. The stakeholder survey is used to gather anonymous and individual input from stakeholders, including their view on the main benefits or opportunities the team project could create, the challenges that need to be overcome in the work, their wish list of possible outcomes, dead-ends the team should avoid, and any issues and concerns they have about the work. Analyse responses to identify themes, question by question, and present key themes and quotes during a full team and stakeholder project kick-off meeting. This supports connection, transparency, dialogue and ongoing collaborative engagement between the team and stakeholders going forward.  

Tool 27 (Building session) sustains the magnetic force of interdependent influence by allowing team members to engage with stakeholders to build on the team’s work. This tool is about getting forces to align – aligned magnetic attraction, which contributes to magnetic flux, which, as we will see is ultimately directed and shaped by the culture (Tools 29 and 30). Tool 27 involves bringing stakeholders together to share ideas or progress so far. Stakeholder are then facilitated through a process that allows them to identify what is right or good with the progress so far, what needs improving (and suggest those improvements), and what is wrong or missing, and agree actions going forward. The focus is on improving the ideas/solutions/action pathways that are central to ongoing teamwork, such that they ultimately better serve stakeholders. Tool 27 can be combined with Tool 28, which is a tool that Pamela Hamilton always uses.

Tool 28 (Start well, end well) involves starting and ending the interaction with stakeholders constructively.  The interaction starts with two questions that all stakeholders and team members answer: What are you looking forward to today? What concerns would you like us to cover today?  And it ends with two questions: What have we achieved today?  What are you still concerned about? At Pamela Hamilton notes, starting well is “a great way to get a ‘temperature check’ in the room, especially if you’ve not met everyone before. You can immediately understand people’s attitudes in how they answer both questions, and it puts everyone, team and stakeholders, on an equal footing with each other as they all know what each other’s feelings, intentions and concerns are from the start” (p. 179). Ending well questions allow people to acknowledge what has been achieved, while also giving people a chance to express their worries openly.

As Pamela Hamilton concludes: “No matter how brilliant you make something, if people don’t feel part of it, they will reject it as ‘not invented here’…A supercharged team wins stakeholders’ hearts and minds, and gives the project the best chance of success” (p. 180).

Magnetic flux is a function of the number of field lines passing through a surface (i.e., the teamwork landscape). Increasing magnetic flux involves increasing the net number of field lines moving in the same direction (i.e., team members + stakeholder moving in the same direction). Much like Pamela Hamilton and I walking through the streets of Cambridge, two objects containing charge with the same direction of motion have a magnetic attraction force between them, while objects with charge moving in opposite directions have a repulsive force between them, and the magnitude of the magnetic force between them depends on how much charge is in how much motion in each of the two objects and how far apart they are. (Yes, that’s a little tricky, but you get the idea!)  Creating magnetic force in the broader teamwork environment is not easy, much like its not easy to activate the centrifugal force of leadership.  A critical factor influencing the magnitude and direction of all forces in the field is what Pamela Hamilton calls culture.  Sometimes we need to build a new culture to allow supercharged teams to emerge.  This takes us to Tools 29 and 30.

Tools 29 and 30 – Code and Create your Teamwork Culture

Thinking back to Frank Wilczek’s book, Fundamentals, and thinking across levels of analysis from non-living to living to human systems, at one end of the analysis spectrum are the mysterious (and increasingly revealed) dynamics of quantum physics and at the other end are the mysterious (and increasingly revealed) dynamics of human culture.

As biologically evolved systems, one can hardly say humans are born as ‘blank slates’ or that our behaviour is ‘fully programmed’ by culture. Neither can one easily ‘rewind the clock’ to understand the full process of biological and gene-culture co-evolution that has brought humans to their current state of behavioural variation in this world. But we can say two things with confidence: culture shapes our lifespan development as humans, and culture can be changed. 

Analysed through the lens of ‘social physics’, culture is an aggregate or higher-order construct and thus we have to describe it by reference to a collection of forces.  Much like we have to move beyond Newtonian or classical mechanics to understand the broader set of interacting forces in the Universe as a whole, we have to move beyond a narrow focus on discrete forces to understand the aggregate dynamics of culture.  Culture can be defined as ‘the way of life’ of a group, as manifest in their language, values, customs, beliefs, institutions and social behaviours, as revealed in the ‘cultivated behaviour’ of individuals in the group.  We can consider the culture of small groups, or the culture of large group (e.g., ‘societies’), but our social physics analysis will include a collection of forces that, together, influence the ‘way of life’ and ‘cultivated behaviour’ of the group.   

I opened this blog post by noting that we all see something different when we engage with reality, but deep down, we know there is something fundamentally shared in our reality. We have noted that the language of physics can be useful when talking about teamwork, and although the analysis presented in this blog post operates as ‘a system of social physics metaphors’, there is a certain solace in the recognition that fundamental dynamics are at play when we examine the behaviour of groups. Measuring and understanding those dynamics is the task of science, and social scientists have made incredible strides in understanding group and teamwork dynamics over the past few decades. Our social physics metaphors presented here can be generative, even if they simply provide an impulse (J) to further team science activity. The tools of teamwork presented in Pamela Hamilton’s book are designed to transform group dynamics into supercharged teamwork dynamics.  These are tools that Pamela Hamilton has used and tested and modified for over 20 years.  Fundamentally, they are tools of culture, and they can be further developed and tested as artefacts of culture. Together, these 30 tools can be used to transform ‘the way of life’ and ‘cultivated behaviour’ for the groups and teams that are empowered to use them – and evaluate, iterate, and develop them further.  

Before I describe the final two tools in Pamela Hamilton’s book (Tools 29 and 30: Code and Create your Teamwork Culture), let’s be clear again: my primary goal in writing this blog post is to prompt everyone to read Pamela Hamilton’s book, consider the group and team dynamics at play, and make use of Pamela Hamilton’s teamwork tools.  In this final section, I will not formulate any equations of teamwork culture. I’d like to open you to the mystery of this level of analysis. I’d like to prompt you to explore, investigate, and test. 

You have read this far, and my sense is that you will now move to the next level of analysis and application. You will figure out how the forces of gravity and electromagnetism interact; you will compute and adjust the equations of efficiency, entropy, buoyancy, and drag – and you will see how these equations lead you to identify the mysterious integral, and the infinite power potential of teams.  You will experience this as something real and substantive, because you will analyse and apply in the context of your own groups.  You will identify sources of potential energy that provide an impulse to action for your teams, and you will move from here, slowly but surely, to work out the more complex equations of your teamwork culture.

When it comes to culture, Pamela Hamilton recognises and embraces the complexity of system diagnostics and design. Tool 29 is designed to help team members code their culture.  This involves profiling (1) What people value, what is held to be true, and who is admired and why; (2) How do people behave, how do people work with each other, and what is considered acceptable or unacceptable behavior, and why; (3) How do people communicate, what kind of language do they use, how do they share information and talk with each other; and (4) How and where do people work – the different locations, spaces, logistics.  Analysis across this multidimensional profile reveals patterns of interaction, teamwork barriers and opportunities, and pathways to greater teamwork power. This work is best approached in a systematic way, as outlined by Pamela Hamilton in her book.

Tool 30 builds upon the application of Tool 29, as teams move forward to create their culture.  Pamela Hamilton documents a series of small, pragmatic steps that can be taken. (1) Tool 29 is used to identify barriers the team faces and options to overcome these barriers; (2) the team then leverages the power of narrative and story to clarify and reinforce amongst team members why culture and behavior change is needed; (3) Set, agree, and make clear what the new behavioural expectations are; (4) Lead by example and support knowledge and skilled practice of specific behaviors; (5) Repeat and reinforce “until people understand the story, know what’s expected, see other people doing it, and experience it repeatedly in every experience. You will need to keep doing this for far longer than you think, and you will see progress” (p. 193 – 194).

As Pamela Hamilton notes: “Supercharged Teams is really a book about supercharging culture change, starting with what you can control, your team and the people on those teams, and eventually having an impact on the wider environment they work in.” (p. 198)

In the closing chapters of the book, Pamela Hamilton outlines a positive view of the future of teamwork, noting that teamwork will likely become increasingly purpose-driven and stakeholder-engaged, with cultural evolution driving continuous teamwork skill development, and with artificial intelligence (AI) team members increasingly supporting team power. Human collaboration and creativity will remain preeminent, even in a machine-led world, and teams will keep supercharging.

The final chapter showcases a variety of different approaches to using the 30 tools.  This provides additional structure that really helps with ongoing use of the book as a guiding resource.  I’m so grateful to Pamela Hamilton for taking the time to write this book, and I look forward to working through the detail with my students in our new module, Group Dynamics, Teamwork, and Design, hopefully with a guest visit from Pamela Hamilton!

We’re all on a journey in life and we shouldn’t be surprised to meet many lovely, friendly, helpful, wise, and supportive people along the way. People you meet on your journey will often connect you with other people who they think you’ll grow to like and love. There’s a certain magic in the way this happens, and we should embrace the magic. 

I had to think back carefully to recall the magicians who connected us way back in 2014, but I’ll never forget meeting Christopher Boyce for the first time at a conference in Stirling, Scotland.  I immediately recognised him as a friend and a fellow journeyman. Little did I know at the time that Christopher would undertake the most amazing journey ever, just a few years later, when he cycled around the world!

As with many powerful moments of connection, I recall the event in Scotland like it was yesterday.  I had facilitated collective intelligence on a project consulting with Irish Citizens, where we had asked citizens and wellbeing experts to identify key objectives that should be included in a national wellbeing index for Ireland. Although the work was somewhat academic and abstract, it did eventually feed into a bigger conversation on the way our government plans to embed wellbeing objectives and measures as part of national policy and project work going forward. Christopher was interested in this work and he was also working on a range of projects and publications that highlighted the limited benefits of money and wealth as a means to achieving greater happiness.  In the bubble and buzz of conversations, I also heard from others that Christopher was living a very frugal life.  He spent a lot of time living in a tent in the hills outside Stirling.  He cycled everywhere on his bike and he was taking on the tough challenge of a vegan diet, while also pushing out hard with his research and academic work at the University.  Christopher was clearly very passionate and principled, and he was clearly a lovely fellow, but I could sense he was often hard on himself as he tried to live up to his own principles and as he battled to get his message out on the fundamental perils of materialism and the pursuit of GDP and economic growth as the primary purpose of human systems.  Human systems are complex and wellbeing is not easy to achieve, but Christopher knew that the worldview of governments had been tainted and misguided by the dictates of economics. He understood he was facing an uphill battle.

Not long after visiting Stirling, I invited Christopher to Galway to present his research to our psychology and economics students and staff.  His talk was a big success. But even if I had not intuited it before, Christopher made is clear to me when he visited Galway that he was not happy.  He was not happy with his work, his life, and the societal systems he was operating in. This was no simple dissatisfaction with one aspect of his life – it was a deeply-felt unhappiness with his connection and place in the universe.  Passionate and all as Christopher was about vegan food and cooking, I did cajole and joke with him about trying out the deep-fried battered mars bars with his non-vegan girlfriend in Scotland. While he laughed and got the joke, and while he understood why I joked and cajoled, I could see that humour alone was not going to jolt him out of his unhappiness. Something bigger was afoot, and I could sense Christopher was on the move. His vision may have been slightly clouded at the time, but deep down I could sense he had plans for significant life changes.  The journeyman would not sit still or stand idly by in the face of his existential unhappiness.

It was a few years later, in 2017, when the news came through: Christopher planned to quit his job at Stirling University and cycle around the world – he was going to cycle from Scotland to Bhutan!  It is hard to fathom the courage that this decision involved, never mind the strength of spirit and tenacity to see it through.  As far as I was concerned, Christopher had elevated himself to the status of hero.  But the real story of every hero and heroic journey is that there is pain, challenge, frustration and countless problems and difficulties to face.  As he set out on his long journey, which took 18 months and covered more than 20,000 kilometers, Christopher could not have anticipated all the pain and challenge and frustration and the countless problems he would face.  Overcoming his initial embarrassment, he began documenting his journey in a series of blog posts as he travelled.  His posts were humbling to read and as I followed along, I empathised and grew to love Christopher even more.  Through layers and layers of pain and anxiety and doubt and challenge, Christopher slowly but surely transformed.  This transformation occurred not only during the 18 months of cycling and journeying — all the hours reflecting alone on his bike and connecting with many different people and places and adventures along the way — but also when Christopher returned to Scotland.  When he returned, it took him time to decide, but we’re so glad Christopher decided to write a book about his adventure – A Journey for Happiness: The Man who Cycled to Bhutan. 

This book is a masterpiece by any standard and every standard.  It transcends the genres of academic text, autobiography, and travelogue by transporting us to a new place – a place where the person meets the world and embraces the whole of their reality.  The reality of their past, the reality of the world systems that shape their life, the reality of what science tells them and what science helps to achieve, and the reality of all the different people and places they connect with on their journey. By taking us there with the fullness of his personality and the honesty and authenticity of his perspective, Christopher allows all of us to journey to this new place, too.

Christopher travelled south on his bike from Scotland through England, France, and Spain, across to South America, up the west coast of North America, through Canada, traveling west across the North Pacific to Asia and continued south west through Vietnam all the way to Bhutan. As he set out on his journey, Christopher had a purpose: he wanted to create a journey with happiness at its core. He wanted to understand how other countries value and experience happiness and wellbeing, and how they create cultures and societal infrastructures to support happiness and wellbeing. He wanted to learn about Bhutan, a somewhat mysterious country that has eschewed international economic agendas to develop its own model of governance oriented toward the happiness of its citizens.  And he wanted to go slow and connect, leaving a minimal carbon footprint, so he chose his trusty bike as his mode of transport. He prepared in advance by learning every aspect of bike maintenance, and he planned carefully as he packed his camping equipment and only the essentials needed to sustain himself. And throughout his journey, he also kept a log of his spending and his experiences from day-to-day, including his emotional experiences, which he subsequently charted in his book.

As an academic immersed in the science of wellbeing for many years, Christopher understood how to coordinate his purpose with this world of science. For example, as documented in his book, he was aware of significant variation in reported happiness and wellbeing across nations. He wanted to visit places and connect with people in countries that are not completely dominated by economic, GDP, or growth-oriented models of wellbeing. He documents with great joy his time in Costa Rica, and all the wonderful people there, who share a national pride in being able to live happily and healthily with less. He travelled through Canada, which is culturally unique and distinct from the United States of America (where Las Vegas left Christopher feeling ill).  Like many other wellbeing researchers, Christopher was aware of how Canada has fashioned one of the most progressive wellbeing measurement systems and he wanted to learn more.  And then there was Vietnam, which Christopher describes as one of least underdeveloped countries in the world if we adopt a broader lens of wellbeing measurement.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book for me when I was reading was the way in which Christopher was learning and developing as a person on his journey.  Central to happiness and wellbeing science is the person and their connection with others, and of course the places and societal systems we fashion are critical for understanding how happiness and wellbeing are experienced. In his own process of development, Christopher has to transcend many of the constraints to happiness and wellbeing that have been shaped by his life history and the systems he has lived with. 

In the early stage of his journey, his past experience and the presumed expectations of society provoke a great deal of anxiety, sadness, and embarrassment.  Christopher is embarrassed to talk about his journey, he is anxious about leaving his job, and he is sad about the state of his relationships with others and his broader feeling of disconnection with the world around him.  But he grapples with these feelings and learns to understand their deeper roots, and thus gains a new perspective that transcends many constraints.

As he cycles through South America he learns how to let go of the destination: he comes to understand how goal-driven behaviour and his own expectations in relation to goals have often been an unnecessary source of frustration, anxiety, and unhappiness. It comes like a revelation when he sees this clearly and truly understands the nature of this source of unhappiness.  He also learns what it takes to deal with crisis, after being bitten by a dog in a remote area of South America, and having to make his way to the nearest town, navigate alone the available health services and obtain a rabies shot while being extremely ill and in great pain.

Beyond theoretical and empirical accounts of the psychology of wellbeing, Christopher also describes the reality of becoming more present focused or mindful, and listening to the full range of his emotions – from joy to anxiety – and learning how to respond.  Again, discovering this newfound mindfulness is a critical milestone in Christopher’s development on his journey.  He also brings to life and makes clear through his honest reflections on the ups and downs of his journey that any such process of development in far from linear – we cannot expect too much of ourselves are assume that newfound understanding or skill will always serve us well.

It is later in his journey, and after the crisis of the dog bite and other challenges that Christopher, who inherently values independence and competence, begins to really and truly lean into people’s willingness to give, share, and help. He fundamentally learns to appreciate this and he sees how it operates in Costa Rica and elsewhere. He starts to slow down and share more of himself, and he starts to open up to other people and the world and connect in a new way.

As he slows down, leaves go of maladaptive goals, becomes more mindful and connects more with other people, he also starts to connect more with the world.  He begins to appreciate nature in a new way – in direct contact with its beauty and wonder.  This is something fundamentally different from valuing the environment and having goals focused on reducing one’s carbon footprint.  This is about wonder, beauty, life, and connection with land, sea, sky, stars, the Universe and the road ahead.

As he travels through North America, he also comes face-to-face with the stark reality of societal system designs – recognising the extent to which the economic and social system encourages mistakes. He has a visceral negative response to the Las Vegas experience and all that is represents for him. He has to move on swiftly, but he reflects on the nature of the underlying societal designs.

As he travels on, Christopher digs deeper into his life and learns more about what it means to face personal life trauma.  In parallel, he is learning to unconditionally accept all before him.  Moments of transcendence and bliss merge with insights and new perspective that begins to consolidate.  Throughout, Christopher shows his authentic self and he somehow transmits to his reader something more than is documented in the book itself – he transmits and prompts a deep sense of compassion and humanity and love.  While Christopher moves forward to the next stage of his journey, back working in Scotland while also visiting and talking with people about his book and his journey, he appreciates now how his actions are aligned with a deeper life purpose.  As for me, his friend, cajoling and joking with him about battered mars bars, my most striking sentiment as I finished the book – lying on the bed in an apartment in Lanzarotte back in April at the end of a tough academic year – was that Christopher has truly provided a wonderful gift to the Universe.  And now the Universe will return the gift.  

Christopher, you have a home in the universe wherever you go.  You are deeply loved and we are very grateful to you for sharing your journey with us.

* * *

Christopher’s book can be purchased here, and you’ll find reviews of his book here. I hope you have a chance to read it on your journey.

Recently, while walking around the University campus, I spotted some graffiti – not particularly artistic – but I did empathise with the artist: “Resist!”, I was told.  After reading Jason Hickel’s book, The Divide, last week, the sentiment certainly resonates. The deep societal and structural issues we need to address to promote global equality and sustainability are now obvious to many people. We need to resist and ultimately replace the neoliberal ‘rules’ that govern international trade, taxation, and wealth distribution.  In their battle to abolish every rule that constrains free trade, the neoliberal elite have surreptitiously created a set of rules that benefit themselves to the detriment of everyone else.  It will take a sustained team effort to replace the existing rules and there is no guarantee the disempowered and deprived masses will win that battle.  And somehow, when I saw that graffiti on campus, my hopeful imagination later conjured not a single artist, but rather a group of artists, now deep in animated conversation – a group of Morisots, Monets, Renoirs, Cassatts, spilling coffee and cheering together in café 37.  I hear them cheer and chant above the neoliberal powerbrokers: “Persist!”, they say.  And I agree.

You see, in order for a team to become truly effective, they need to persist and learn together as a team.  The process of team learning helps team members overcome an inherent inertia, which operates almost like an iron law of groups.  The inherent inertia we refer to here is social loafing: the behavioral tendency, and powerful lure, for an individual to “contribute less effort” than other members of their team.  Of course, in the battle for equality and justice, or the introduction of new regulations and taxes, this is what the neoliberals want to sustain – inertia amongst those who seek to impose any rules – and a cultural focus on the individual self, coupled with the allure of social loafing: “Relax, do less, care less [for collective effort]”.  In the battle to sustain collective effort, the true, deep culture of teamwork is fundamentally different: it implies interdependent working to achieve a common goal, and it involves sharing responsibility for team outcomes.  

Social loafing is a common dysfunction of teams. It can lead to a downward spiral of distrust, lowered morale, and low team cohesion and performance; and it may bottom out in a grinding, halting inertia and the failure of a group to move, collaborate, cooperate.  We see it everywhere, and don’t be surprised if we see more of it before we rediscover the way out.

But there is hope, and a new study by Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers (2022) highlights a key dynamic that may arise when we persist. Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers note that social loafing is not a static phenomenon, it can change over time.  In particular, it can change as a consequence of team learning.

Previous studies highlighted other ways to combat social loafing: improve task management and reward; increase team familiarity and identifiability of team members; decrease team size; build cohesion; and foster within individuals a mastery or learning orientation. Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers posit a different way, specifically, by increasing team learning, they argue, teams develop strategies to reduce social loafing.  They demonstrate this effect of team learning in a sample of 675 business students who were working together in three- or four-person teams (195 teams in total) over the course of a year.  Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers measured social loafing and team learning at three timepoints during the year, while team members worked together conducting literature reviews, developing conceptual models and hypotheses, working on case study reports and other challenging academic tasks.

Team members tracked their own learning using rating scales, reflecting on key aspects of team learning: “We learned from our mistakes in our tasks,”; “We learned how to improve at our tasks,” and so on.  Team members also provided self- and peer-ratings of social loafing, using scale items that asked them to reflect on their tendency to defer responsibilities and put forth less effort than others, let the others do the work, and so on.  

As expected, the analysis of social loafing over time revealed that loafing is not static, it fluctuates significantly. And while the study also included measures of individual goal orientations, the only significant predictor of change over time in social loafing was the team-level variable: team learning.  Specifically, an increase in team learning lead to a decrease in social loafing.

Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers note that their study findings highlight the need to consider the temporal aspects of team operations, including team development and the dynamics of team socialization. Indeed, more research is needed to examine team dynamics generally (i.e., the way teams change over time), as the majority of studies focused on teams simply take a snapshot of the team at one point in time. 

Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers also note the limitations of their research. For example, by using self-report measures of team learning, they can only speculate as to the underlying nature of team learning.  Objective measures of team learning are needed. Also, research will need to examine the factors that influence how an increase in team learning results in a decrease in social loafing.  Does this occur as a result of positive interdependence, an increase in group-level information processing and regulation, or the perception of team learning as a form of reward that prompts effort? Or perhaps team learning reinforces a sense of community and cohesion that motivates and sustains effort?  There are many questions for future research to consider, but for now I think Gabelica, De Maeyer, and Schippers have struck a chord with a valuable empirical contribution.  For now, I think we can return to café 37 and the ongoing battle between the valorous artists and crestfallen neoliberals and we can shout across room, one last time before closing time – “persist in your team learning, my friends. Good things will come!”. 

Featured Study: Gabelica, C., De Maeyer, S., & Schippers, M. C. (2022). Taking a free ride: How team learning affects social loafing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(4), 716–733. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000713

When we reflect on the many different local and national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the significance of unfolding group dynamics and the impact of leadership in particular rises to prominence. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, and leaders around the world responded. The systems put in place and the nature of the collective intelligence and collective action that informed system designs varied significantly from nation to nation.  We can contrast the response of New Zealand under Ardern with the response of the U.S. under Trump. Ardern and her team clearly perceived the severity of the threat and moved swiftly to implement a national lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19, establishing a set of initiatives to support the people of New Zealand. Ardern’s leadership style balanced direction-giving, meaning-making and empathy, and her approach to communication and public deliberation recognised the complexity of the situation and the need for collaborative action. Overall, Ardern’s response demonstrated a masterclass in crisis leadership. While New Zealand has seen recent outbreaks and is slow ramping up their vaccination programme, as of today (24 August 2021), the WHO reports 2,698 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 26 deaths from coronavirus in New Zealand.  This stands in stark contrast with the 37,408,329 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 622,459 deaths in the U.S.  Central to the tragedy and ongoing crisis in the U.S. was a fundamental failure of leadership in the months following March 11, 2020. Not only did Trump fail to perceive the severity of the COVID-19 threat, under his leadership the administration attacked and undermined health experts. There was a fundamental lack of direction-giving, meaning-making, and empathy; the complexity of the situation was not openly embraced, voices were suppressed, conflict was rife, and collaborative action was limited.

Working together to cope with COVID-19 clearly requires a sustained group effort and a focus on the collaborative group dynamics that support adaptive responses and ongoing system redesign work. Leaders, stakeholder representatives, experts from a range of different disciplines, group facilitators, systems engineers, and a range of public and private partnerships are needed to coordinate collective action.  In the broader societal context — as it plays out in both large group and small group dynamics — leadership is very important.  But it’s also important to recognise leadership as one element amongst many elements that influence system design work. The broader group dynamics are complex.  This focus on group dynamics and system design is central to this blog series. This is a long blog series and it’s very important to read the first three blog posts before moving forward.  Here are links to the first, second, and third posts in the series.

Central to our blog series is a simple idea: we need to understand group dynamics if our goal is to facilitate groups engaged in system design work.  We have argued that this is an important pillar of systems design education.  It seems like an obvious idea, but systems thinking practitioners are sometimes a little too consumed by their own interpretive powers, the wonders of their big data, the magical allure of their systems thinking methods, or any number of other ‘distractions’, and they simply neglect the group dynamics that are central to system design work, and the complexity of the people they are working with.  As noted in blog post 2, the group is greater than the method.  There is no system design without the group.  Indeed, there is no human system without the group dynamics.

Our short framework paper, which is the basis for this blog series, argues for a stronger focus on group dynamics in system design work. Our framework highlights different aspects of group dynamics that are important during different phases of system design project work. In our previous blog post, we focused on Antecedent and Contextual Dynamics, located to the left of Figure 1.  Here we talked about the dynamics of Inclusion and Identity, Power, and Structure.  We identified a number of guiding questions that will influence your preparation as a group facilitator, in advance of engaging in systems thinking and design groupwork. Here, in our fourth blog post, we will focus on Transition Dynamics. Central to transition dynamics is a focus on leadership.

Figure 1. Our group dynamics framework

The transition

As a group facilitator, working with multiple groups across a variety of different projects, you need to get comfortable with transitions.  For those of you who have experience working on projects, it’s easy to appreciate the scenario – we are always on the move, in transition from one activity to the next.  You may find yourself working simultaneously on three or four major projects, each of which is unfolding at a different rate, at a different point in the overall project timeline.  Projects move forward and you move forward with the group. As a group facilitator, you facilitate the group’s movement and you help guide the group to desired outcomes.

Imagine a three year project where you’re working with stakeholders and experts, across six countries, and your design challenge is to develop an open data platform that allows citizens and public administrators to make good use of open data while addressing a variety of different national and local problems.  Your goal is to facilitate the group as they engage in system design work.  In each country, a team needs to come together to understand the design challenge they face and specific requirements for an optimal system design.  In our group dynamics framework, the key transition we are referring to here involves movement from a point in time when you have developed an initial understanding of the design challenge and knowledge of the people you will be working with, [……..] to a point in time when you will meet with a group of stakeholders and experts to facilitate their systems thinking design work. During this transition, the group facilitator builds upon their understanding of Inclusion and Identity, Power, and Structure dynamics (see blog post 3), to a new level of group dynamics understanding, specifically, by focusing on (1) Leadership, (2) Group Formation, and (3) Influence dynamics.  

In this blog post, I will focus exclusively on leadership dynamics and the ways in which group facilitators can come to understand leadership dynamics in their efforts to help guide the group to desired outcomes. My reflections here represent my own perspective and experience.  Again, a reading of the empirical literature on leadership is important, and close consideration of leadership dynamics is critical for every group facilitator working in their own unique contexts.  I offer only a sub-set of my thoughts on leadership and transition dynamics in this context, and I value ongoing dialogue with other group facilitators and the knowledge I gain from reading the scientific literature in the area. 

Transition dynamics involve the move to productive groupwork, and this varies across groups, contexts, and design problems. However, leadership is always important.  Every group facilitator and every group leader brings something unique to the table in terms of their personality, which we characterised in blog post 1 as our distinctive behaviour in interpersonal contexts.  The leader’s interpersonal behaviour (i.e., their ‘personality’) also has a profound effect on the group, and, of particular interest to the group facilitator, the way in which a system design project unfolds.  As we’ll see, when facilitating systems thinking and group design efforts, the facilitator must adopt a very specific set of behaviours that extend far beyond the interpersonal domain of ‘performing the steps involved in their method’.  System design projects unfold over months and often years, and the core systems thinking and design work is one small phase of this project work (e.g., typically involving 2 days of intensive workshop activity, after which a report is generated to provide a basis for project implementation work).  Across the full time span of the project, a broad set of interpersonal behaviours are important for successful group workings. When it comes to system design project work, the leader can either support or impede these behaviours.

Leadership

As mentioned in blog post 3, when working with groups we sometimes use a systems thinking and design method developed by John Warfield, Interactive Management (IM).  It’s important to mention John Warfield’s book here, Societal Systems: Planning, Policy, and Complexity, which is an absolute masterpiece.  Warfield published Societal Systems in 1976, and he was ahead of his time in terms of his core focus on collaborative system design. Indeed, without Warfield’s vision, we would not have developed our applied systems science curriculum for University students and we would not have developed our group dynamics framework.

In his book, Warfield draws our attention to three ‘functions’ of system design teams and 12 ‘elements’ central to these functions.  Given our focus on leadership, it’s useful to note how leadership is positioned in Warfield’s set of 12 elements.  The three functions we need to coordinate in system design work are (I) enabling, (II) implementing, and (III) managing.  What follows is a brief description of these three functions, coupled with a listing of the 12 elements that need to be coordinated.  

• The ENABLING function, says Warfield, is critical for establishing (1) the team that makes use of a system design approach, and a specific (2) methodology to address a societal problem. This enabling function involves (3) a sponsor who controls (4) funds, and who has sufficient interest in (5) the ideas related to a specific (6) societal issue. 
• The IMPLEMENTING function, says Warfield, involves coordination between (7) the stakeholders in the societal issue and (8) the doers who decide to act and carry out the proposed actions based on (9) the results of system design work. 
• Finally, the MANAGING function involves (10) leadership in identifying issues to focus on and (11) planning and designing a scenario for the future, where ultimately, “Through (12) brokerage among the sovereign entities involved, including the sponsor, the team, the stakeholders, and the doers, plans that incorporate the results of exploration of the issues are translated into results in society” (1976: p. 34).

In summary, Warfield argues that addressing societal problems involves the synergistic sum of 12 elements. Immediately, we anticipate the coordination challenge, and I’ve always found fascinating Warfield’s specific commentary in 1976.  In particular, Warfield notes that some elements are ‘abundant’ in society [sponsors, ideas, funds, issues, stakeholders, doers, planning], and some elements are ‘in short supply’ [teams, methodology, leadership, brokerage, and results]. 

As such, leadership is in short supply, says Warfield. This is an interesting observation. Think about your own project work, your own organisation, region, and even your nation as a whole – what, from your perspective, is in short supply?  Does your list of elements ‘in short supply’ resonate with Warfield’s list drafted in 1976?  

Warfield’s list of elements in short supply certainly resonated with me when I first read his book.  Over the past decade, I have focused quite a lot of attention on methodology and teams, and over time I’ve come to learn more and more about the importance of leadership.  As a group facilitator, it’s important to work closely with leaders and foster a productive working relationship.  Leaders will have a unique understanding of the team they are working with, but they will not necessarily have any understanding of systems thinking methodologies. In the first instance, a group facilitator will often serve as a teacher/educator in explaining to sponsors/brokers/leaders what can/will be done and how much time will be required for system design work.  As the group dynamics needed to optimize collective intelligence, systems thinking and systems design work are quite specific and not necessarily consistent with the project management approach adopted by leaders in their organisation, a natural tension between group facilitators and group leaders can arise.  Indeed, central to a productive working relationship with leaders is the cultivation of a natural, cooperative and open, reflective tension in relation to group process facilitation.  Leaders and facilitators may naturally clash as they navigate through the project work together with the team.  I’ll try to explain a little more as we move forward here.

As noted by Warfield, there is no system design without leadership.  The role of leaders in supporting system design capabilities and collective action is critical. For the group facilitator, understanding the behaviour of leaders is critical. This includes the relationship that leaders have with their group, their specific leadership style and skill, leader-follower exchanges, co-leadership dynamics, and the vision and goals the leader communicates in leading their group.

In the transition to working with a design team, group facilitators need to meet with leaders as part of the process of brokerage.  You’ll recall brokerage as one of Warfield’s 12 elements.  Brokerage involves a number of activities, including (1) reflecting with leaders on the issue the group seeks to address, (2) clarifying system design objectives, and (3) discussing different systems thinking and design methods that may be useful to support group work.  

As noted in our second blog post, systems thinking design methods are many and varied. Group facilitators need to be able to describe the procedural details of each method in turn and weight up the pros and cons of different methods. It may take time for leaders to understand and appreciate the methods, and they will naturally be sceptical in relation to methods and the amount of time, planning, and resource investment needed to implement methods. As such, brokerage is often hard work.  But it should be hard work, as it always requires the practice of due care and diligence in selecting and optimizing methods that are fit for purpose in each project context.  It’s also hard work because facilitators need to empathise deeply with the group members they are working with, including leaders. Empathy here refers to perspective taking in relation to all relevant issues, and immersion in the world of the group.  Facilitators also need to reflect deeply on the challenge of leadership itself, as it manifests in the local problem contexts they are working. 

As mentioned previously, we are always doing two things as we work: we are analysing the group dynamics literature to understand the types of dynamics that have been observed across different study contexts; and we are analysing our local problem situation in an effort to understand group dynamics that are operative, while also working to anticipate and plan for the different group dynamics that may play out when groups come together to engage in collaborative project work.  When it comes to leadership in particular, it’s also valuable to monitor cultural trends and variations. Awareness and perspective in relation to the broader historical context and research on leadership is important.  While historical shifts in the definition of leadership can be observed in the literature, for example, with Mumford (1902, p.221) emphasising “the pre-eminence of one or a few individuals in a group in the process of control of societal phenomena”, which is later transformed into the behavioural focus of Cartwright and Zander (1953, p 538) emphasising “…the performance of those acts which help the group achieve its objectives”, in recent decades, the relational and cooperative aspects of leadership are increasingly prominent.  However, at the core of almost every definition of leadership in an emphasis on influence – which may involve mutuality, for example, as Rost (1993, p. 102) describes it, “an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes”.  And sometimes we see mention of group facilitation, for example, as Yukl (2013, p. 7) has it, “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives”.

Of course, the role of the group facilitator is very different from that of the group leader.  Facilitating teams using applied systems tools and methods is challenging work that requires a sophisticated understanding of the role of the facilitator, acquired both through training and learning from the experience of working with different teams and different problematic situations. During their training as facilitators, we emphasise to students the distinction between context, content, and process, which are always clarified with system design teams in advance of any project work:

• Context: A system design team are working in a particular context and focus on a particular issue and have specific goals
• Content: The primary role of core design team members (i.e., stakeholders and content experts) is to provide ideas relevant to the context and the particular issue they are addressing
• Process: The role of the facilitation team is to manage the flow of activities, including the implementation of various methodologies that allow goals to be accomplished. Facilitators do not contribute ideas or make judgments about the content of participants’ ideas.

In our role as group facilitators we adopt a unique stance.  While we work with leaders and other team members to clarify goals and manage workflows in a way that supports shared understanding, systems thinking and the production of system design products, we do not seek to influence the content of the group in any way.  We stand outside of the content the group is focused on, and we focus instead on the group process and the implementation of the group system design methodology.  As such, on the face of it, the group facilitator may have certain things in common with the group leader, for example, a shared focus on project and team facilitation.  But the group facilitator is not a group leader, much like the leader is not a group facilitator in the way in which we define the facilitation role in our work.  This will become increasingly clear as we move forward.

Another key difference between facilitators and leaders is that, while leader might naturally be interested in the specific behaviours of facilitators, once methodologies are agreed and a plan for system design sessions put in place, the leader’s focus on the behaviour of the facilitator is not a significant requirement for the implementation of the systems thinking process.  Conversely, the group facilitator pays close attention to the behaviour of the leader, along with other members of the group. 

Notwithstanding differences in the style or skill of leaders across different contexts, the specific objectives that leaders voice, and the influence that leaders exercise, needs to be understood by systems thinking facilitators.  As noted, during the process of brokerage, the facilitator will seek to clarify a variety of issues related to project goals, the nature of the design challenge, the stakeholders and experts involved, key group dynamics at play in the broader design context, and so on.  These initial meetings will always include group leaders and sometimes a number of co-leaders and stakeholders.  The issues clarified during these initial meetings will invariably be coupled with further reading and analysis of problem situation reports that have been disseminated to the facilitation team.  (Reading problem situation reports and studies in the domain area is very important, as facilitators need requisite knowledge to support reflective dialogue, and to understand the language and factual/technical details that are likely to be communicated in collaborative exchanges between stakeholders and experts in a system design session.)  But the core focus in terms of managing group dynamics in brokerage meetings is to ensure clarity in relation to system design objectives, the nature of leader influence in pursuing these objectives, the impact of leader style and skill on the group they are leading, the specifics of leader-follower exchanges, and any co-leadership dynamics that are critical in shaping objectives and influence dynamics. 

Throughout this process facilitators need to maintain a curious, reflective, and neutral stance in relation to all aspects of groupwork, and on occasion, if the leader influence is too dominant or dysfunctional for groupwork, the facilitator will provide feedback on the conditions that need to be in place to maximize group intelligence and collaborative systems thinking and design work. Sometimes, the facilitator will politely decline further work on a project if these conditions cannot be achieved.  The decision to engage in system design work is not taken lightly, nor is the decision to disengage – and in either case the facilitator should seek to make a useful contribution, drawing upon their methodological, process, and group dynamics knowledge and skill. 

Using Warfield’s language, it is important that brokerage prompts an active, constructive, and hopeful process, where, in the long view, systems thinking and design work is oriented toward “plans that incorporate the results of exploration of the issues that are translated into results in society”.  This sense of hopefulness also runs throughout all subsequent stages of groupwork.  For example, a group dealing with difficult issues will sometimes become discouraged, and a facilitator’s understanding of what can be accomplished through continued groupwork becomes critical. Supporting a sense of hopefulness can encourage the group to continue in the face of difficulties.  This hopefulness needs to be coupled with resilience in order to make it through the tough times. As we have noted elsewhere, when a facilitator demonstrates steadfastness in the face of adversity, this can help a group through difficulties.  This also acts as a form of additional facilitation support for leaders, who can sometimes struggle to maintain resilience in the face of challenges their group or team is facing.  In the overall process of system design work, the relationship between facilitators and leaders – although contentious at times – is very important in efforts to overcome challenges. While facilitators will make mistakes along the way, by reflecting on these mistakes and by staying true to the core principles and best practices of system design work, facilitators will learn over time how best to work with and support leaders.

As noted by Warfield, funds are needed for system design work (recall the 12 elements above), and leaders will often play a central role in securing funds and in the related brokerage of activities linked to spending. In this sense, by the time a group facilitator is invited into the process, leaders are already invested in the project.  They are naturally concerned that time, funds, and collective energy invested in the system design work bears fruit and is useful in supporting team goals.  But levels of ‘investment’ vary from project to project and facilitators are primarily interested in maximizing the investment of their time and energy by achieving the greatest possible success for the group in terms of collective intelligence and productive outputs from system design sessions. Direct and intensive engagement between the group facilitator and group leader is needed to understand the leader’s levels of motivation, influence, problem-specific knowledge, and history of project work in the area.  The group facilitator may prompt the leader to focus attention on particular areas (e.g., communicating goals more clearly to team members, circulating problem-specific reports to support knowledge growth in advance of the session, emphasising their collaborative role with team members to transform influence dynamics in advance of system design work, and so on).  

In a situation where a leader commits to the application of systems thinking methodologies to support group project design work, in principle, they are agreeing to empower collective intelligence and pass over a degree of influence to experts and stakeholders in the overall system design and implementation process. However, it is important for facilitators to understand that, depending on the political and organisational context, leaders can maintain varying levels of influence that shape project implementation of the outputs from system design sessions.  In efforts to uphold freedom as non-domination for the purpose of maximizing knowledge sharing, collective intelligence, and design thinking, as noted, the group facilitator operates in a state of natural, cooperative, and open tension in relation to any domineering influence.  But the facilitator must also recognises that their influence in this regard is primarily operative in the core groupwork phase (i.e., during the facilitation of group dynamics at stage 3 in figure 1).  This groupwork phase is the phase during which systems thinking and design methods are implemented with the team in a workshop setting. We will return to those dynamics in a later blog post.

However, it is worth noting here that this state of natural, cooperative, and open tension in relation to any domineering influence, including that of the leader, is sustained throughout the whole project — from beginning to end — to maintain and uphold the integrity of the design process. The way in which leaders respond in this situation varies, and facilitators must operate with mindfulness and resilience and adaptability throughout, that is, in their efforts to maintain a curious, reflective, and neutral stance in relation to all aspects of groupwork.  This is a difficult stance to maintain – it requires requisite reflection and rest throughout cycles of engagement – and behavioural adjustments in response to the consequences of facilitation behaviours are invariably needed.  Fundamentally, the facilitator is oriented to the issue, the team, their methods, and their group process.  In this context, the facilitator recognises the leader as one member of the group – an influential member in the overall group dynamics and in the ultimate success of the project.

We’ve mentioned that transition dynamics include not only a focus on (1) Leadership dynamics, but also (2) Group Formation, and (3) Influence dynamics.  The formation of groups for the purpose of system design thinking is somewhat unique. Facilitators need to understand key group formation dynamics: joining, affiliation, attraction, and membership dynamics. Influence dynamics extend beyond the influence of the leader to the set of influences across the whole group. We’ll talk about these influences in more detail in the next blog post.

Part III: Contextual and Antecedent Dynamics

For those of us who were teenagers in the 1980s, the teen comedy classic, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, was a classic movie for many reasons. As teenagers, we could relate to the stifling school environment that Ferris Bueller sought to escape from, and we all wanted a day off …. anyone, anyone?  Ferris worked hard and he worked smart to engineer a great day off school.  We admired his relaxed approach to adventure, his skilled use of gadgets and computers, and his ability to get along with everyone. Ferris also offered us his simple version of mindfulness, illustrated in the classic opening and closing lines to the movie:

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

My kids certainly appreciated the sentiment when we watched the movie recently.

Indeed, life moves even faster these days. Information outputs and exchanges have accelerated. The number of apps and gadgets and ‘systems’ we use to manage information complexity and life challenges is mind boggling.  Mark Zuckerberg’s philosophy of “move fast and break things” seems strange to those of us who grew up in households where our mother reminding us regularly ‘not to break things’.  And the manic pace of ‘disruptive technology’ design seems, well, a little disruptive – and certainly a world away from Ferris Bueller’s relaxed approach to life design.

Well, in this blog series, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, system design work isn’t easy.  It’s not easy because system design work requires systems thinking, and systems thinking takes time.  Some people say that the era of “move fast and break things” is over.  Thank God, I hear my grandmother say! But is it really over – really?  We need to stop and look around.  In reality, it’s not easy to slow down and design better systems when everyone around you is running around distractedly looking for ‘new ways to be disruptive’.  The drive to “move fast and innovate” is ever-present — even if you think you’re not breaking things.  Perhaps what we really need is more speed and less haste.  Perhaps, as we make the move from ‘breaking things’ to working cooperatively to design quality systems, we can keep in mind the words of Mitsuyo Maeda: “Slow is smooth. Smooth is Fast”.  A quality system design process might seem slow, but it’s much faster than one hasty mess after another. A critical mass of people need to slow down together for the era of “move fast and break things” to be truly over.  This involves culture change, and culture change takes time.

As we mentioned in the previous blog post, the (slow) learning and application of systems thinking design methods can help groups. And group facilitators can help groups. Facilitators can help design teams with the application of systems thinking methods and the group dynamics involved in the application of these methods.

Good, we can debate this further, but slowing down is often a good start. It allows groups to experience something akin to the ‘extended now’ moment Eckhart Tolle talks about. Now, at least, the design group can begin to embrace the reality that societal systems are complex – there are many elements that need to be considered. This seems obvious when we think about it – particularly when we embrace the systems thinking process – but, still, people are reluctant to slow down and put aside the time needed for systems thinking design work.

We’ve mentioned the excellent book by Michael Jackson, Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity, and all the systems thinking methods a group might use to get a handle on technical complexity (e.g., Operations Research, Systems Engineering), process complexity (e.g., the Vanguard Method), structural complexity (e.g., System Dynamics), organisational complexity (e.g., Organisational Cybernetics and the Viable Systems Model), people complexity (e.g., Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing, Interactive Planning, Soft Systems Methodology), and coercive complexity (e.g., Team Syntegrity, and Critical Systems Heuristics).  Another method we can add to this list is Interactive Management (IM), an applied systems thinking method developed by John Warfield. We have used Warfield’s method in number of projects, including technology design projects. We’ve also combined IM with scenario-based design methods, and, as mentioned, we recognise that methods are not ‘separate’ from one another — they can be usefully combined. We recognise that group facilitators need to continue learning new methods and help design teams think through an optimal synthesis of methods to support project work. 

There’s great joy in trying out new methods. Of course, this joy manifests – even if only for brief moments – in the context of complex groups dynamics.  Let’s enter this complex space now.

Enter the Group, Enter the Dynamics  

Given the quality of communication and collaborative action required, the application of systems thinking design methods often involves working with small groups (e.g., 5 – 20 people). However, methods can scale to larger groups (e.g., organisations, communities) and the influence of systems thinking design projects can scale to global level impacts.  Regardless of what you think of their products, it’s worth nothing that the “move fast and break things” community are often, at their core, comprised of relatively small design teams, but when they push their designs out into the world, the global impact of the designs — as my granny might say – ‘can be a little disruptive’.

Regardless of the system design methodology selected, it’s important to note that groups will have varying levels of past experience working together and regardless of the size of the group working together, their {small group dynamics} are always embedded in {larger group dynamics} that influence their functioning and societal impact. 

From a group facilitation perspective, given the process focus of systems thinking and design work, we make a distinction in our paper between {proximal} and {distal} group dynamics, that is, dynamics that play out in the proximal interactions between group members during the systems thinking groupwork phase (located in a central position in Figure 1), and the broader antecedent, contextual, transition and post-session group dynamics within which systems thinking groupwork interactions occur. 

As we move to talk about group dynamics, I want to make something clear: Michael Jackson’s book, Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity, is a brilliant book.  I can’t recommend it enough. But you may notice an interesting gap as you read – the book says less about how to facilitate groups in the use of systems thinking design methods.  Yes, I hear you, this is the type of ‘interesting gap’ that perhaps only a group facilitator would notice.  While often ignored, the role of the group facilitator is important.  Now this varies across approaches, but the application of systems thinking methods in a group design project generally involves working with a facilitator, and sometimes, a facilitation team.  The facilitator(s) work closely with the expert and stakeholder group, helping them apply methods in a way that is fit for purpose.  From our perspective as group facilitators following Warfield’s method – and we are strict in this regard – the facilitation team focuses exclusively on method and process, and thus we adopt a curious, reflective, and neutral position in relation to systems thinking content.  In other words, the ‘content’ of system design work is exclusively the product of the stakeholder and expert group.

While most of the skilled engagement of the facilitation team centres on supporting groups in the application of systems thinking methods, facilitators also need to understand, monitor, and manage the proximal groupwork dynamics that play out within the group during the application of the method. And facilitators need to understand, monitor, and manage more distal group dynamics. This includes the antecedent, contextual dynamics that influence how systems thinking sessions are brokered and organised in advance of groupwork. It includes the transition dynamics that influence the coming together of a group and their initial productive functioning.  And it also includes the post-session group dynamics that influence the ongoing systems thinking and design process and outcomes.  

We’re going to talk about all these different phases of work as we move forward here. The main reason for this wide lens of analysis and engagement – where we focus on distal group dynamics in addition to proximal group dynamics – is because, very often, facilitation teams are embedded as part of a project for an extended period of time.  As such, the facilitation team needs to maintain a focus on group facilitation in a principled and informed manner and in a way that serves the productive and successful workings of the group.  Overall, this implies understanding distinct but overlapping aspects of group dynamics during different phases of working with a group.  While these phases can vary depending on the method used, systems thinking project work tends to have a duration that extends from months to years, and even decades in some cases (Broome, 2006). 

Our group dynamics framework is presented in Figure 1.  The relevant scientific literature for educational programme designers can be accessed across a variety of textbooks (e.g., Forsyth, 2014, 2018; Levi & Askay, 2020). I’ll include a few hyperlinks in the flow going forward, but they are largely for illustrative purposes and to give you a sense of where analysis and exploration can take you in your group dynamics adventures. My advice is to begin by reading the textbooks – they’re ideal for reflective thinking and as a prompt for context-specific analysis work. 

Antecedent and Contextual Dynamics

Let’s begin by noting a few key considerations in relation to Antecedent and Contextual Dynamics, located to the left of Figure 1.  The key aspects of group dynamics we focus on here relate to (a) Inclusion and Identity, (b) Power, and (c) Structure.  It should be noted that we are doing two things as we work.  First, we are analysing the existing empirical group dynamics literature to understand the types of dynamics that have been observed across different study contexts.  Second, we are analysing our local problem situation in an effort to understand group dynamics that are operative, while also working to anticipate and plan for the different group dynamics that may play out when groups come together to engage in collaborative project work. 

In simple terms, in advance of inviting a group to engage in a systems thinking design session, we need to do our homework and engage in some advance planning.  A curious, reflective, and neutral stance in relation to all aspects of engagement, analysis, planning, and simulation of groupwork is sustained throughout, in advance of working with a group, while working with a group, and in follow-up work with a group.  To begin with, we need to understand Inclusion and Identity dynamics. This often begins with a process of mapping the stakeholder and expert ecosystem.  This is essential if you want to design a process that is truly collaborative and cooperative, including and engaging key stakeholders and experts.  In this context, the group facilitator needs to understand the effects of inclusion and exclusion on group behaviour, the influence of group identity on behaviour, and inter-group interdependencies including in-group and out-group dynamics.  Key questions you might ask here include:

• Have you a clear understanding of the stakeholders and stakeholder groupings for whom the problem you are addressing is directly relevant? 
• Do you have an understanding of the key expert groups and domains of knowledge and skill that are relevant to address the problem?
• Do you have an understanding of how different group identities influence the perception of the problem situation?
• Do you have an understanding of how people with different group identities perceive one another and behave in relation to one another?   
• Do you have knowledge of the history of inclusion and exclusion of different stakeholder and expert groupings in the context of past efforts to address the problem, and the impact of inclusion/exclusion dynamics on current experience and behaviour within and across groups?
• Can you perceive and anticipate inter-group interdependencies that are important for modelling both the current state of the system, and future transformations of the system?

Also critical for brokerage and planning of systems thinking groupwork is an understanding of Power dynamics, including the group dynamics linked to status, compliance, and power use and sharing within and between stakeholder and expert groups. While systems thinking facilitators need to manage and monitor equality of input and influence during groupwork, they also need to understand how power dynamics influence group activity and productivity throughout the whole lifecycle of a project.  Key questions here include:

• How are status and power differences between group members likely to influence their communication and collaborative engagement during a systems thinking session, and during follow-up system design implementation work?
• Do you have an understanding of compliance histories between groups and members, and can you simulate how past and present dynamics will influence future power use and power sharing dynamics that are proposed as part of system change? 

Importantly, a comprehensive understanding of inclusion, identity, and power dynamics cannot be achieved without an understanding of group Structure, including the roles, norms, and network structure of groups. Immersion in the working context of groups is needed to understand the specific dynamics at play.  Members of the facilitation team will often use the word ‘immersion’ in this context, as it highlights both the depth of reflective engagement — and time — needed to develop an understanding of groups and their organisations in advance of bringing stakeholders and experts together. 

Systems design project work is often initiated on the assumption that partnerships across stakeholders, experts, and implementation teams will be established. From a naïve point of view, they might be assumed to be ‘a given’ — but these partnerships play out across multiple group structures and organisations, which often operate with different norms, across a diverse role landscape, and with a collection of stronger and weaker network ties within and across groups and organisations.  Understanding the overall structure of groups across this landscape is important for effective group facilitation. 

None of this is easy, and indeed, it’s only the beginning.  In the next post, we will consider the transition dynamics, as we seek to facilitate groups to work productively together – assuming we can get them to the design room in the first instance!  

References:

Broome, B. J. (2006). Applications of Interactive Design Methodologies in Protracted Conflict Situations, in Lawrence Frey (Ed.), Facilitating group communication in context: Innovations and applications with natural groups, pp. 125-154, Hampton Press.

Part II: The group is greater than the method

System design work is not easy.  Sometimes, when you’re out walking or cycling your bike, or maybe simply pouring a glass of water while taking a break, an idea or aphorism might arise in your mind. For example, I was pouring a glass or water this morning and the following idea popped into my head: the pathway to success is through method.  I was thinking about many methods that same day – the research methods my students are using for their project work, the method the builders would be using when they arrived later to fix our leaking roof, the online teaching methods teachers have been using recently when working with our kids, the methods young career researchers would need to master to progress and succeed in academia.  But I was also thinking about systems thinking methods and the broader challenges we face in working together collaboratively to address societal problems.  Indeed, as noted in the previous post, there are many methods we can use to help with our systems design work.  We mentioned Harry Stack Sullivan and Jeffrey Masson, and the problem of ‘psychiatry’:  how to design a system of interpersonal relations that helps people adapt to various problems in living. In a loose narrative, we suggested that the capacity of the system to empathise and help is a critical issue, and we wondered how to approach the design challenge.  My water-pouring aphorism, the pathway to success is through method, prompts further reflection in relation to the design methods we might use. 

The Magic of Methods

I read an excellent book recently, which I will recommend at this point. The book is written by Michael Jackson, and has the weighty title: Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity.  The book showcases a range of systems thinking and design methods for working in the context of technical complexity (e.g., Operations Research, Systems Engineering), process complexity (e.g., the Vanguard Method), structural complexity (e.g., System Dynamics), organisational complexity (e.g., Organisational Cybernetics and the Viable Systems Model), people complexity (e.g., Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing, Interactive Planning, Soft Systems Methodology), and coercive complexity (e.g., Team Syntegrity, and Critical Systems Heuristics). 

Of course, these methods are not ‘separate’ from one another — they can be usefully combined.  For example, when thinking about ‘the problem of psychiatry’, looking in particular at long waiting lists for mental health services and the poor operating capacity of the health service in your region, you might apply the Vanguard Method to understand and optimise the process of referral, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up; and you might apply Strategic Assumptions Surfacing and Testing to understand potentially conflicting assumptions regarding service delivery from the perspective of different stakeholders. You might build upon your Vanguard analysis and use methods from operations research to mathematically model queuing, inventory, allocation, replacement, and coordination problems; and you might use system dynamics methods to analyse the financial and human capital requirements into the future, modelling the impact of demographic changes. Looking more closely at infrastructure and specific organisations across your region, you might use a viable systems model lens to map and reflect on the viability of organisational structures and operational activities in collaboration with front-line staff, management, and regional and national mental health leaders working to optimise viable organisational deigns.  Working with others across a series of interconnected design projects, you might engage in what Michael Jackson calls Critical Systems Multimethodology, that is, where you apply multiple methods as needed to redesign your mental health systems and services.  Or you could engage in some loose thinking, or ‘follow the leader’ behaviour, where you introduce some changes that few people have considered deeply.  This can even include the type of loose thinking where leaders advocate system-wide changes in mental health services based on the evidence from a set of ‘promising’ randomised controlled trials coupled with a vague implementation framework that frames practice considerations across a narrow set of contextual variables. 

It might seem a little scary at first for psychologists, who generally have little or no disciplinary training in any of these methods, but critical systems multimethodology is open to learning.  Indeed, we can begin this methodological training in our undergraduate psychology programmes.  Across multiple programmes, at the group level, we might naturally begin to see cumulative growth in the range of methods available to us.  Prompted by Harry Stack Sullivan, we might argue that the design challenge requires engagement from many different ‘personalities’, in particular, different people possessing a variety of different methodological ‘skills’ and associated ‘behavioural repertoires’.  Naturally, these ‘personalities’ are not – and should not be — isolated from interpersonal relationships with one another. Together, as their methodological skill set grows, they have the potential to design ‘psychiatry’ as a system of interpersonal relations that helps people adapt to various problems in living. Ultimately, their system design methods shapes their implementation and operational methods – their practice on the ground, the way they help people in need of help. 

The group is greater than the method

It seems like a simple vision, but the usual problems arise: the disciplinary training is too narrow; the disciplines operate in silos using different methods; and transdisciplinary systems methods, including those described by Michael Jackson, have no home in any of the disciplines, and ramble about the houses looking for friends and partners. Meanwhile, the stakeholders wonder what we’re doing and what progress we’re making.  Psychology as a discipline, much like other disciplines, simply needs to broaden its horizons a little; and then, with growing confidence and skill, we can collectively experiment with Critical Systems Multimethodology.  It will not take us long to see where it all fits together – we will see the natural extension of our critical thinking abilities and our capacity for skilled tool use.  We will see the group rather than individuals alone.  We will see synergies and new opportunities for partnership.  We will see the potential to advance our collective intelligence and collective capacity to address the ‘problem of psychiatry’ and other, related societal problems. 

Of course, as we expand outward, we will also see the context in which we work. We see more than the ‘problem situation’ itself – now we see all the people operating within, across, above, and beyond the problem situation.  We see the deeper truth in relation to method – the action of our multimethodology takes place within the operation of our group dynamics.  The field of group dynamics rises to prominence.  And so we turn our attention now to the group dynamics, but please, continue to learn more about the systems thinking and design methods, because our aphorism still holds true — the pathway to success is through method – only now we know that methods only function to the extent that the group using the method functions.  The group is greater than the method.  

Understanding the interpersonal dimension of the design process

As a young teenager rambling around my house in the 1980s, back in a time when there was nothing on TV and no internet, I recall coming across a copy of Harry Stack Sullivan’s book, Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry.  Our house was peppered with thousands of books that caused my mother some difficulty every time it came to repainting.  I was more of a browser and less of a reader back then – more content moving the stacks of books for my mother, weeding the garden, waxing the car, climbing trees, anything active. But Harry Stack Sullivan immediately struck me as interesting and I paused for a time to read. Indeed, browsing had exposed me to many ideas, and I never took to the intrapsychic focus of Freud. In the opening section of his book, Sullivan pointed urgently to important truths, specifically, that ‘personality’ cannot be isolated from interpersonal relationships and that the field of ‘psychiatry’ is the field of interpersonal relations under all circumstances in which such relations exist. 

Being Irish, I agreed immediately.  Deep in my bones, I always viewed ‘personality’ as our distinctive behaviour in interpersonal contexts, and it made sense to me that ‘psychiatry’ should be defined as a system of interpersonal relations designed to help people adapt to various problems in living, particularly when they present to the community as suffering or struggling in some way. It was only later I realised, but it was interesting to discover that Harry Stack Sullivan had Irish parents too, although he himself didn’t experience the best of Irish community life, growing up in the anti-Catholic neighbourhoods of Norwich, New York, where he struggled as a consequence of the interpersonal milieu.

There’s no doubt, we all struggle at times and another book that struck me as interesting as an undergraduate studying psychology was a book by Jeffrey Masson, Against Therapy.  The book offered a critique of therapy, and psychiatry more generally, noting the fundamental problem of imbalanced power relations between the ‘therapist’ and the ‘patient’.  While offering no alternative to the systems of therapy and psychiatry on offer at the time, Masson somewhat vaguely alludes to the value of peer support systems.  A reasonable suggestion perhaps, even if no reasonable societal design was proposed by Masson. 

Alas, Masson’s book was essentially a critique of existing systems. And you might say that a critique of existing systems is an important catalyst for system design work. Sure, and few will disagree in principle – the voice of dissent, critique, and ‘opposition’ is fundamental to the political process — but you still have to engage in design thinking, and you have to further implement and evaluate your new designs. 

When faced with the inadequacies of societal system designs, poor infrastructures and poor support systems, it’s perhaps too easy for the bulk of our energies to be directed at a critique of the system, and the danger here is that this leaves us with less energy for system redesign work. A balance needs to be struck. We simply need to be aware of our limited energies and proceed as best we can.

The Work Required for System Redesign

What would a reasonable system of ‘psychiatry’ look like – that is, reasonably feasible, impactful, sustainable?  Some initial thoughts may come to mind while you’re talking with others. For example, you might say it needs to have capacity to empathise and help address many different forms of suffering and struggling that community members present with.  Indeed, observable empathy and help are needed as a signal to community members that they can present to the community without fear of stigma or rejection, and they will indeed be helped.

In conversation with others, we might expand upon the idea of ‘capacity’ and propose that ‘requisite capacity’ implies that there be a set of practices, norms, roles, tools, methods, medicines, and patterns of interpersonal relating that fundamentally help members of our community who are suffering and struggling. That may be more of a system specification than Masson provides in his book, but it’s clearly not enough.  A vague wish-list is not a system.  Of course, the conversation has to start somewhere.

Notwithstanding the challenge of simply identifying a set {of practices, roles, methods, etc…} that help community members (e.g, by drawing upon the evidence from randomised controlled trials), requisite capacity, even in a system that abolishes the problem of power relations, implies requisite capital {finance, assets, infrastructure, etc…}. In an ideal world, the capital investment is considered a public good, and thus the funds used are public rather than private funds, and there is no ‘for-profit’ dimension in the public good. 

But we also need a form of human capital that not only delivers on a system design, but fundamentally takes ownership in innovating and reengineering the set of {practices, tools, medicines, patterns of interpersonal relating, etc…} the community is using, in a way that sustains a reasonably feasible and impactful operating system over time.  The broader community and group dynamics are important here, and it’s not just power relations that need to be considered in the overall design.  The financial and human capital investment is significant.

Principles That Shape the Design Process

And thus you might ask, what principles will shape the system design process?  An academic might excitedly jump in, following John Rawls, and say, well, the system should be designed in a way that empowers its members, but that the liberty of any one member should not infringe on the liberty of others; differences in socioeconomic status across members of the community, if they cannot be eradicated completely, should be transformed in a way that is beneficial to the community as a whole – and any inequality that does exist should have no bearing on the potential political power of any one member of the community.  Some people in the design room may nod their head knowingly, others may smile kindly and quizzically and ask the speaker to repeat the statement, and others may look upon the speaker with mild scepticism or even mild distain, perhaps, because the principles voiced are too abstract, do not match the reality, are insufficient for transformative design work, or simply don’t go far enough. So, how far will the community go, what will the community do? 

Perhaps it’s useful to return again to Harry Stack Sullivan’s starting point, and ask how we — as a collection of ‘personalities’ with our distinctive behaviour in context — can establish a system of interpersonal relations that allows us to design a feasible, impactful, sustainable system that helps us to adapt to a host of different problems in living.  Over the next six blog posts, I’m going to return again to a focus on systems thinking and collective action capabilities needed to address societal challenges.  I’m going to expand on a recent paper we wrote and focus on system design project work, and more specifically, the importance of understanding the group dynamics and interpersonal relations that shape project work. I think it’s useful to note as we proceed that it’s somewhat understandable from a historical, and indeed evidential, perspective why communities, groups, and teams are not often very skilled in managing their own group dynamics.  We don’t have a long history of integral enquiry in this domain — the basic research we have access to often simply provides a basic understanding, which in turn needs to be negotiated in any implementation effort.  At the same time, if we want to enhance our collective intelligence and system design capabilities, we need to do our best to understand, monitor, and manage group dynamics during system design project work.  We need to start the conversation.

Given the nature of systemic societal challenges focused broadly on issues of well-being, sustainability, productivity, and innovation, in some of the work we have previously published in this area we have argued that educational training focused on group process facilitation should be included as part of broader, integrated programmes focused on applied systems science and the management of complexity (Hogan, Harney, Broome, 2015; Hogan and Broome 2020).  When thinking about the group dynamics that play out in system design projects, our recent paper suggests that it’s useful to consider the proximal interactions between group members in their efforts to understand the system they are operating in and the type of system redesign they would like to see; but it’s also useful to consider the broader group dynamics within which project work unfolds over time.  This implies understanding distinct but overlapping aspects of group dynamics during different phases of working with a group.

There are many different methods we can use when approaching the challenge of systems thinking and system design work, but these methods are applied in the context of exceedingly complex group dynamics. Our ability to understand, monitor, and manage group dynamics will always be limited and constrained in certain respects, but we can usually work constructively within these constraints and limitations. One way or another, in order to facilitate groups and help them along the path to the design of better systems, we need to immerse ourselves in the process and speak openly about the dynamic waters in which we swim.

References

Hogan, M. J., Harney O., & Broome, B. (2015). Catalyzing Collaborative Learning and Collective Action for Positive Social Change through Systems Science Education. In: Wegerif, R., Kaufman, J. Li L (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Research on Teaching Thinking. London: Routledge.

Hogan, M.J., Broome, B. (2021).  Facilitation and the focus on process. Systems Research and Behavioral Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2639

As noted in a previous blog post, the dominant view amongst scholars is that team trust is beneficial for team performance. Trust helps team members to suspend their uncertainty and vulnerability in relation to teammates and allows them to work more effectively and efficiently, using their energy and resources in ways that contribute to team performance.

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