Sweating the small stuff

Why sweating the small stuff is super-important!

Your team, your business, is a system, and sits within a wider system of systems.  A complex arrangement of actors that has been interacting towards the present moment.

In complexity theory, there is a concept called Self Organised Criticality that describes how large, dramatic, and unpredictable events can occur through the collective impact of small, interdependent changes.

Nothing new really. You have heard the phrase, “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. Or “the tipping point”. And how avalanches can be triggered by a final snowflake. 

THE LEADERSHIP TEAM FELL APART…

One of our client teams on a short walk and talk. A colleague tripped and grazed a knee. On the face of it, a minor incident.

Months of resentment has been building up to this moment. One half of the team sought to “rescue” their colleague. The other half encouraged the colleague to “just get on with it.” 

Voices were raised. Accusations were made. Months of “stuff” came spilling out.

It was pretty unpleasant!

And yet this presented an opportunity for the team’s new leader with our support to do the work the team and previous team leader had been avoiding. 

All those previous moments of friction had made the team increasingly unstable. Moments unnoticed by some colleagues. Wrapped in resentment by others. Feelings that were dismissed.  Swept under the carpet. “Small stuff.”

SO WHAT?

Your team needs to look after itself. It needs care and maintenance. It needs the small stuff attending to. Not necessarily in a big song and dance way. But there needs to be recognition and some way of dealing with emerging issues early.  It is everyone’s job!

NOW WHAT?

We can help you live the behaviours and develop the ways of working needed to keep you all operating at your collective best.

Let’s get to work on the small stuff before it becomes an avoidable drama.

Get in touch now.