When we bring together intelligent, passionate people to share a big vision, our tendency is to think, This will be awesome! We’re going to change the world.
But that doesn’t always happen.
More often, all those smart people have different opinions—and they all think they’re right. Tension builds and people grapple for control and get caught in the power struggle of the right-wrong trap. The result? Even more tension and ambiguity.
This lands us smack dab into an oh, sh*t! moment.
There is good news, though. This oh, sh*t! moment is the source of a team’s potential creative energy.
The bad news is that it’s called an oh, sh*t! moment for a reason: conflict feels uncomfortable. We feel incapable of responding to the situation. This is a critical choice point for leaders and teams. It’s the crossroads between, Do I play it safe and opt out, and do I opt in to create something innovative and transformational?
What if your team doesn’t experience these moments of tension and discomfort? If your group always gets along, it’s time for a wake-up call. You are in the business of making things happen, and that requires some juice.
You want to run into oh, sh*t! moments. You need to run into oh, sh*t! moments!
In this section, we’ll discuss why teams fail and get into the gory details of some of our client’s oh, sh*t! moments. As we’ve said, don’t worry, the identifying details have been changed to keep our client’s situations private.
Our goal is to normalize the oh, sh*t! moment because, for humans working with other humans, it is bound to happen. How you handle those moments will make or break your team’s short- and long-term success. We aim to help you and your team be consistently successful. Read on!