Today I write this blog with a new consciousness, I just feel like a new person who has taken rebirth post a violent murder. There is sadness of a victim that I carry, but I am not sure who was the persecutor, past life seems to have faded away.I am not even sure if it was a Suicide. There might be patterns that I may carry from my past but now I see myself being more aware of what I really want from Life. I have come to realize, that team work is one of the most difficult thing for a creative person who may also be an introvert. Yes I am talking about myself. Although my profession requires me to be a certain way and most people would believe that as a coach or a facilitator I would be an extrovert, I can say that I live the Polarity.
From that polarity, which also holds chaos inside of me, I bring you my learnings of team work.
Let me begin with the my understanding of ‘Murder’ in Team work, please hold patience while I reel out the details.
As we all know team work involves many or few people, it could also be a partnership of two. As soon as two or more human entities are in close proximity, even before dialoguing happens there is a gauging at subconscious level. The limbic brain starts looking for patterns that can be related to instantly between each other. When the relation is with a positive memory or a positive past experience, we feel joy in relating to the other human entity. However sometimes the brain is more programmed to look at data that could threaten survival and wellbeing. This is the point when we start looking for patterns that have harmed us in the past. Tuning in to this data and mining it for gold may have its own plus points and may help in risk management, but this gauging needs a higher level of consciousness. Any Human entity has a tendency to magnify fear so that the reaction can guarantee survival. A consciousness of self is a must so that the creation happens from a neutral Space (usually this is like infinity, we all want a neutral ground, we are all walking towards it but we may never reach it, we all carry ghosts of past, which pull us away from a neutral space. Self work is the only way to walk the journey, this is your own journey for which each of us has to take responsibility. Don’t expect others to walk it, you walk it). The space of neutrality transcends Blame, Shame, Guilt and Estrangement ). When we tune into the experiences that have not served us, we are energizing those experiences at a subconscious level and at that point in time we may not be aware of our own Amygdala* hijack. many times we project our past into our future validating our old patterns and hence murdering our own potential to create new. Also at very subtle levels we will or may start projecting our past negative experience into the team space and onto the people whom we are in constant interaction with in the team. This is an extremely violent process, because in the team members we then start projecting people and situations from our past which have not served us. For e.g. if a team member has had a bad relationship with an authority figure, like parents, teachers or other significant elders, the chances are that at an subconscious level this person detests any authority. So whenever there is a trigger related with any form of authority for self or others, this person would exhibit either a victim, rebel or rescuer stance. The point at which the projection starts in the mind team dynamic begins.
Team work is more complicated as there are more brains involved in an hijack, and the projection of our inner wars with self get projected onto the space. This can make the space very violent, team members consciously or subconsciously pick up wars from their past or a war for another team member. Once the war begins the human entities will try to kill each others spirit consciously or subconsciously, a drama of Murder mystery and suspense gets created. Sometimes there are no evidences and death of spirit doesn’t leave a dead body, only no spirit inside the body.
Most of the projections would be on the leader or a human entity perceived to be in power, The projections could also be on specific few team members who are perceived to be close to power. The team space then represents a deep forest, where each one is protecting themselves from the violence of the other and each one is just surviving. Many wounded sprit team members who escaped the Murder attempt, either leave the team or learn to live underground never bringing in their true potential or self. This leaves the leader sometimes feeling very lonely, also if the leader gets wounded due to constant bantering of the team members, this human entity may resign both in reality and metaphorically. There is constant denial of violence, which can make matters worse, only its acceptance in various degrees can lead to self realisations for the team members. In most instances everything gets clubbed under team dynamic and statement that, “it happens, everyone has to deal with it”. The team spaces hence end up being transactional, where keeping emotions and feelings at bay is easier than to deal with them. Sometimes only a few members in the team may be functional and the others may have either lost their spirits to a disempowering past or might have been murdered in the current team.
Different organizations in the past have found that keeping emotions and real conversations is effective in achieving short term goals that need to be focussed on. So real conversations between human entities may not happen also may not be required for an organisation to be able to achieve its short term Goal. An intervention is generally sought, when the team becomes dysfunctional and evidences or Murder of spirit start looming as ghosts in the organisation.
How then can the team be more functional? How can then the team bring in more performance and productivity in a sustained manner?
Organizations with a bigger and long term goal will work towards creating systems and processes to energize the spirit of any Human entity serving in the organisation. This begins with the recruitment process and the panel, which gets the human entity membership into the organisation. Every organisation has a spirit and it has a consciousness frequency, getting a match for this is an important part of an hiring process. If the process is not clear or is not followed there can be mayhem. Once the right Human entity is into the right organisation, a system which has health, well being and resilience check, would help in ensuring that the organisation or the leader has a feeling data for the team. The non-negotiables and values of each of the team member when brought into the team consciousness can help a team manage each other with respect and necessary care. Self-realisation interventions can support the team members to understand their projections, introjections and the violence towards self or others. The whole process creates deep engagement and long term membership. Standards of conduct in the organisation has to be clear to the organisation, a fall from the conduct should be dealt with fair, compassionate and equal manner. Allowing Self realisations to emerge through various projects or programs, Self-disclosures to happen in a safe and non-pressure environment, Healthy and positive Feedback mechanisms to bring light to the blind spots of team members, will bring more potential into the action zone where achieving a stretch goal is no big deal. Also remembering that not all individual high performers can be great team players, so don’t put them in a team without proper guidance and support.
This is not all I know there must be much more, and I am sure you hold some stories, I would love to hear your experiences and perspectives.
The Colored Mist 