For Something Special, Optimize Your Team for Harmony
Motivated, happy, teams get you something you want, but only teams in harmony get you something special
Talking with Your Manager, Fast and Slow
In the omnipresent tome of wisdom that is Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, we are presented with two modes of thinking. Making my best effort to not murder with simplification the life’s work of a Nobel laureate, it works like this: without noticing, we are either employing System 1, the fast talker, intuitive, sensitive and generator of impressions, or System 2, the calculating, careful, logic lover, and validator of impressions. System 1 is eager to help, System 2 is lazy. If you think this explains a lot about too many things, I know the feeling.
Now, let’s do a quick exercise. We are both talking at work and I ask you the question “How is the team?”. Quick now, think! What is your most immediate answer? Or, even more important, what are the gauges that you look at, in your imaginary team dashboard, that will inform your answer? If you are like me, you would, without a second thought, look at morale, followed by a close second, happiness.
That was System 1 talking and answering a very different question.
