Neuroteamwork

Neurobigcheese Zack Lynch recently wrote about delusions, madness and love as follows:

"The defining feature of madness is delusion, however, where the affected person holds a fixed, unrealistic belief despite persuasive contrary evidence.

People in love are notorious for their unusual beliefs and, indeed, research has shown that we tend to hold unlikely and overly positive beliefs about our lovers."

No great surprises there. Though 'overly positive' seems a touch loaded. Nor in the conclusion of the research he links to:

"The results revealed that intimates in satisfying marriages perceive more virtue in their partners than their friends or their partners themselves perceive."

These are the very murky waters of UPR and Positive Thinking/Reframing that Carl Rogers and NLP have been fishing in for some time.

I'm wondering about applications of this type of thinking to teamwork like that of Project Red Stripe (see many previous posts).

Observing a conference call between the team and consultant Javier Bajer, I was struck by the chill factor that accompanied Javier's "this is the biggest question you should have asked for the last two months" (my emphasis), and the radiator effect of his later suggestion that the team "consider being part of something that can change the lives of millions of people".

Over the last eight weeks I have seen (and been excited by) the enormous enthusiasm that can envelop team members at different times. And I've noted the ease with which that enthusiasm can be discredited or lost in the face of technical hitches, criticism from outside, delays and the inevitable tedium of doing something even as riveting as changing the world. This isn't a group that's going to hold hands and count down to the start of the working day whilst chanting, "let's change the world". Praise the lord. But I want to jump out of observer status for a moment and say, "Let me see you change the world. Even just a little. I really, really want you to succeed". On second thoughts, I'd better not.

But there's a reminder of the blindingly obvious here for all teams, everywhere. If we maintain a higher regard for our job/project than others around us have for it, we'll love it more, do it better and get better results.