Locating Leadership (Sandcastles and Skyscrapers)
Brian Siegel
Sandcastles and Skyscrapers
I start my diagnosis amongst smiles and giggles at the start of their freedom on the playground. The world, swing set, and sand box is their oyster. Some assist on sand renovation and innovative castle building and truck relocation. Some throw football, some assist on the swings.
Arguments occur over the next person to have toy, swing, and have a chance to throw the football. Attention is needed, more introvert children remain calms, and to themselves. The extroverts demand attention, the “squeaky wheel gets the grease”, and the demand/receive their way without hesitation. Whatever it takes to maintain the peace from maturing to mayhem. Some children have enough maturity at a young age to share toys, switch on the swings, and share the football.
As adults we aren’t far off from the children. Jealousy of positions and pay, comparisons, and not getting what we want. The toys are just bigger like yachts, expensive cars, larger homes, and other things that create noise. It was like they could build sandcastles like adults form together to build skyscrapers. They had a leader, manager of ideas, workers, someone spouting off ideas, someone working the ideas, and other facilitators. We like our comfort, some are hospitable and share in their sandbox of life, but others clinch to their coach purses and overpriced golf clubs like they fulfill the water and blood your body needs to live. We could learn from watching our own interactions, and those of children. There are many groups we could metaphorically diagnose, define, and document their design, model and interactions of teams. Like Indians, how they form circles, and have community living. They stored and used a JIT system before any six-sigma presentation. Monkeys care for their children almost as humans, just without blackberries and the Internet. There are many other groups we can learn from. Sports teams need to develop all links, bring along the weakest link, and strengthen their fundamental movements. After their learned, the basics applied and understood, they are shaped and formed into the persona of the movements of individuals, and then interaction proceeds to the team. The team then consists of different personas, all acting as one unit. They need to understand, respect, trust, work hard, and interact in an efficient manner to win.
Adults and children resemble each other greatly! We all need to acknowledge, support, interact, engage, and respect each other. The toys and stakes just get larger! More money, jobs become important, and toys go from Tonka to upscale SUV’s, P&L statements, and homes. We need to refocus and regroup sometimes and realize the more important things and picture, which we learn on the playground and from each other.
Forming, norming, storm, dissolve, and performance. Where are they?! Where is this group of students, children, and how many subgroups to they encompass? It seems as if they floated, moved, and reacted like water seeping through cracks. How I wished I could adapt to situations and life in the same manner some of these kids coordinated and collaborated with groups between the teacher, sandbox, and playground. Amazing, the way they’re smiling at each task. How wonderful would that be to find the joy inside every task and interaction with each person?! The forming stage of getting together, norming and interacting, meeting, making eye contact, playing, storming when trying to take turns on the swings and use toys, and performing when creating a sand castle masterpiece and jumping off swings. Roles defined when the projects of sand castles and swings were being managed. You had the group supervisor, spouting off ideas, the support when the person pushed a friend higher on a swing, small arguments over how to proceed with the castle plans and how to precisely jump off the swings. The “break up” or dispersion of the teams arrived when recess was over, and like the business world, the “boss” , in this case teacher, ordered everyone back to the grind.
The groups were diverse, racially, ethnically, and gender related. It didn’t seem to matter the age, race, color, or gender of the members to other members. How I wish the world could be seen and interacted with at this tender age when these things aren’t poisoned by misconceptions, prejudice, and tainted visions. Through the lens of children, we could learn a lot about love, respect, truth, and fun. Feedback was provided by other members, some were a little louder about it, and others gently participated in assisting others. In one instance I formed a vision of how sales and operations interact. It seems that on our GE team that sales starts a sale/project, operations jumps in the middle of the deal and supports, answers to cost, and then sales takes credit and answers to the end result and financial reward. It seems as if none of these line or barriers existed with the groups or sub groups going on with different activities. Different children required more attention or demanded more time, but it was for self seeking and learning, and it’s respected that sometimes there is a selfish person who is seeking to “take his or her marbles home” and leave the sand box, but I thought of business and if our team was in this sandbox too. They children all had identities, provided feedback either vocally, interacted, or with body language. It was so transparent their needs, but the time for the leaders to dedicate individual time to each kid was difficult, just like the business world. The introverts seemed to find their way more, while the louder extroverts commanded the attention of the teacher and her assistants.
I rather enjoyed the parody between the kids in the sandbox and the business world. The teams, make up, individuals, and interactions were very similar. The way the children reacted defined how they were, just like adults. That was universal, and will never go away. Some people take their marbles, threaten to go home, are loud, quiet, demanding, unselfish, selfish, kind, caring, and many other adjectives, just like the way we interact as adults. They formed, normed, stormed, and performed just like any six-sigma group or team in business. It was as if they even went through the process faster, more efficiently, facilitated faster, got things done due to not having built up obstacles to their personality over time, reacted to change well, and had fun doing it. The form, norm, storm, and perform stages seemed to continually develop like perpetual motion, and it was beautiful. I couldn’t quite define the many amoeba’s going on, but I could put staggered lines between the stages, and quickly move to the next stage. Improvements were made by feedback, if the leader had time to interact, and the ability of the child to interact. This seemed to stem from their upbringing, personality, and environment they happened to be in and from. It was interesting, and the simple tasks metaphorically related to the business world aligned greatly. We could learn a lot from watching children, and ourselves. Sometimes we may be just like one of them. We can build skyscrapers just the way sandcastles are built.
Sandcastles and Skyscrapers
I start my diagnosis amongst smiles and giggles at the start of their freedom on the playground. The world, swing set, and sand box is their oyster. Some assist on sand renovation and innovative castle building and truck relocation. Some throw football, some assist on the swings.
Arguments occur over the next person to have toy, swing, and have a chance to throw the football. Attention is needed, more introvert children remain calms, and to themselves. The extroverts demand attention, the “squeaky wheel gets the grease”, and the demand/receive their way without hesitation. Whatever it takes to maintain the peace from maturing to mayhem. Some children have enough maturity at a young age to share toys, switch on the swings, and share the football.
As adults we aren’t far off from the children. Jealousy of positions and pay, comparisons, and not getting what we want. The toys are just bigger like yachts, expensive cars, larger homes, and other things that create noise. It was like they could build sandcastles like adults form together to build skyscrapers. They had a leader, manager of ideas, workers, someone spouting off ideas, someone working the ideas, and other facilitators. We like our comfort, some are hospitable and share in their sandbox of life, but others clinch to their coach purses and overpriced golf clubs like they fulfill the water and blood your body needs to live. We could learn from watching our own interactions, and those of children. There are many groups we could metaphorically diagnose, define, and document their design, model and interactions of teams. Like Indians, how they form circles, and have community living. They stored and used a JIT system before any six-sigma presentation. Monkeys care for their children almost as humans, just without blackberries and the Internet. There are many other groups we can learn from. Sports teams need to develop all links, bring along the weakest link, and strengthen their fundamental movements. After their learned, the basics applied and understood, they are shaped and formed into the persona of the movements of individuals, and then interaction proceeds to the team. The team then consists of different personas, all acting as one unit. They need to understand, respect, trust, work hard, and interact in an efficient manner to win.
Adults and children resemble each other greatly! We all need to acknowledge, support, interact, engage, and respect each other. The toys and stakes just get larger! More money, jobs become important, and toys go from Tonka to upscale SUV’s, P&L statements, and homes. We need to refocus and regroup sometimes and realize the more important things and picture, which we learn on the playground and from each other.
Forming, norming, storm, dissolve, and performance. Where are they?! Where is this group of students, children, and how many subgroups to they encompass? It seems as if they floated, moved, and reacted like water seeping through cracks. How I wished I could adapt to situations and life in the same manner some of these kids coordinated and collaborated with groups between the teacher, sandbox, and playground. Amazing, the way they’re smiling at each task. How wonderful would that be to find the joy inside every task and interaction with each person?! The forming stage of getting together, norming and interacting, meeting, making eye contact, playing, storming when trying to take turns on the swings and use toys, and performing when creating a sand castle masterpiece and jumping off swings. Roles defined when the projects of sand castles and swings were being managed. You had the group supervisor, spouting off ideas, the support when the person pushed a friend higher on a swing, small arguments over how to proceed with the castle plans and how to precisely jump off the swings. The “break up” or dispersion of the teams arrived when recess was over, and like the business world, the “boss” , in this case teacher, ordered everyone back to the grind.
The groups were diverse, racially, ethnically, and gender related. It didn’t seem to matter the age, race, color, or gender of the members to other members. How I wish the world could be seen and interacted with at this tender age when these things aren’t poisoned by misconceptions, prejudice, and tainted visions. Through the lens of children, we could learn a lot about love, respect, truth, and fun. Feedback was provided by other members, some were a little louder about it, and others gently participated in assisting others. In one instance I formed a vision of how sales and operations interact. It seems that on our GE team that sales starts a sale/project, operations jumps in the middle of the deal and supports, answers to cost, and then sales takes credit and answers to the end result and financial reward. It seems as if none of these line or barriers existed with the groups or sub groups going on with different activities. Different children required more attention or demanded more time, but it was for self seeking and learning, and it’s respected that sometimes there is a selfish person who is seeking to “take his or her marbles home” and leave the sand box, but I thought of business and if our team was in this sandbox too. They children all had identities, provided feedback either vocally, interacted, or with body language. It was so transparent their needs, but the time for the leaders to dedicate individual time to each kid was difficult, just like the business world. The introverts seemed to find their way more, while the louder extroverts commanded the attention of the teacher and her assistants.
I rather enjoyed the parody between the kids in the sandbox and the business world. The teams, make up, individuals, and interactions were very similar. The way the children reacted defined how they were, just like adults. That was universal, and will never go away. Some people take their marbles, threaten to go home, are loud, quiet, demanding, unselfish, selfish, kind, caring, and many other adjectives, just like the way we interact as adults. They formed, normed, stormed, and performed just like any six-sigma group or team in business. It was as if they even went through the process faster, more efficiently, facilitated faster, got things done due to not having built up obstacles to their personality over time, reacted to change well, and had fun doing it. The form, norm, storm, and perform stages seemed to continually develop like perpetual motion, and it was beautiful. I couldn’t quite define the many amoeba’s going on, but I could put staggered lines between the stages, and quickly move to the next stage. Improvements were made by feedback, if the leader had time to interact, and the ability of the child to interact. This seemed to stem from their upbringing, personality, and environment they happened to be in and from. It was interesting, and the simple tasks metaphorically related to the business world aligned greatly. We could learn a lot from watching children, and ourselves. Sometimes we may be just like one of them. We can build skyscrapers just the way sandcastles are built.
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