As a child, I wanted to make coloring books come alive. I dreamed of being an artist. As an adult, I have taken classes and made many attempts to create fine art. It wasn’t until this year that I found my medium – hot glass. And, little did I know that working with this magical hot liquid would be the experience that would bring teamwork vividly alive.
Glass Blowing Teams
Like business, glass blowing is filled with glorious inspiration and bitter setbacks. A glass blowing team can consist of two people or 11 people, depending on the design and size of the piece. The teamwork in glass blowing enables you to reach a creative potential that would have been literally impossible working alone.
Glass blowing, as I’m sure you know, is about manipulating very hot, molten glass. Glass is gathered from a Glory Hole onto one end of a blowpipe and then inflated by blowing into the other end. Shaped with wood and metal tools, the hot glass is then placed in an Annealing Oven. Movements like gathering, centering, blocking and marvering are just a few of the terms in this challenging and demanding process that embodies endless creative possibilities and is oh so rewarding and FUN.
This medium and process not only sets my imagination on fire, it has taught me new ways to collaborate ; the significance of clarity for what you want and how to ask for it ; the power of creative input ; and the critical nature of trust .
Working with 1900-degree magical liquid breaks down any personal and political barriers in the team. Shielding an arm from the heat with a wooden paddle, blowing hard or soft at the end of the blowpipe, shaping the glass with a pair of jacks are but a few of the hundreds of small steps involved in making a single piece of glass. For success, you must depend on your team to move smoothly through the process.
That’s why an effective glass blowing team really boils down to trust and communication.
The leader must pay attention not only to what she is doing, but also keep a third eye on what the rest of the team is doing. She trusts that each member of her team can not only do the task, but also do it exactly how and when they are told. It’s a lot like a being a third base coach.
When she tells you to go, you go. When she tells you to hit the dirt, you hit the dirt. When she tells you to stop, you stop! As a team member, you keep focused on the leaders signals. You are responsible for supporting and facilitating the process for successful end results.
AT WORK
The team concept is very important in most organizations. You frequently hear the expression “being a team player.” Yet despite all the talk about team effort, it may be true that most people, on the work scene or in their personal affiliations, have not actually had a true team experience. People can work in the same department for years, serve on committees, meet in management groups regularly, and still not be a part of a team.
The most distinguishing characteristic of a team is that its members have, as their highest priority, the accomplishment of team goals. Most non-team groups, on the other hand, tend to be collections of personalities with their own agendas, which may be more important to them than the agenda that the majority of the group members seek to fulfill. Discussions and relationships are often characterized by shifting agendas, power subgroups, a going along with decisions rather than a wholehearted commitment and even a win-lose orientation – one person or subgroup gains its agenda over another.
In effective teams, members must be flexible, trusting of the other team members, and wholeheartedly supportive of every member of the group in its progress toward its goals. Really high functioning teams amplify individual skills. They require each team member to be specialized and highly skilled. Each member knows that her success is dependent on the other members of the team and all are committed to the one objective: obtaining the desired results.
IN LIFE
If you’ve ever had the experience of participating on a sports team, you know that sports provide a training ground to practice and cultivate team work (and leadership). Sports provide the opportunity to play with integrity and support your teammates. Sports teams must create a culture that people want to be a part of, inspiring all players toward a common vision.
With highly successful teams, individuals produce magical results together and motivate one another to perform beyond their limiting beliefs.
If you’ve played a team sport you know: passion is fueled, learning is critical, and failure inevitable. As Michael Jordan, one of the greatest athletes and team players of all time said, “talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”
Those who have been involved in organized sports have discovered their strengths, developed their skills, and experienced that special satisfaction that sports can bring, win or lose. Positive effects can flow out of that experience across their lifetimes and, by extension, for the teams they lead or participate on.
THE BENEFITS OF A TEAM
Every team experience offers opportunities to discover and explore the complexity of working with others. I’m thrilled to have found glass blowing for it has deepened my understanding and facility around teamwork. I’m intentionally moving the learnings from working with hot glass into the teamwork I’m involved with elsewhere – and vice versa.
Some of the core benefits of teamwork across art, work and life:
- Collaboration – for the sake of the group goals
- Communication – people who support and trust one another share freely
- Resources – applied willingly and shared to fill gaps
- Decisions and solutions – simultaneous choices together and not sequentially
- Commitment – owning decisions and solutions; to the team itself
- Quality – all members look good to turn out the best possible work
K C Gauldine, Management Consultant, lives in Seattle and provides Interim C-Level services, Consulting and Executive Coaching to Small Businesses, Social Enterprise and Entrepreneurs. Connect with KC via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/pub/k-c-gauldine/7/81a/a93/ . The pictures of blown glass are her creations, accomplished with a team, of course.
Nice article KC.
I would only add that teams can provide shelter & defence to members in certain cases. Shelter sometimes become a priority to some individuals who are subject to harrassment at the work place. Those individuals may have to give up some of their beliefs in order to blend in and join a team. So joining the team and excelling at what one’s good at can grant them the recognition of the team accomplishments. The recognition that wouldn’t come by if the individual performed alone.