Build a Story

Ask the group to contribute one word at a time in sequence (staying arranged in a circle is probably easiest) to create a narrative.

This can be deliberately frivolous or deliberately serious.

The facilitator could begin a story with ‘Once upon a time there was a…’ to show that we are in fairy tale mode and encourage the group to introduce ‘random’ words that will force the story down a

surreal route.

For example: ‘Once upon a time there was a … spider … who … lived … in … Mexico ... and … had … giant … Wellingtons … but … no … bananas … she … felt … very … destabilized … and … craved … for … geraniums … fortunately …’, etc.

Or, to be serious, the facilitator could start the group off with

‘Today we want to…’

For example: ‘Today we want to … explore … how … to … work … better … together … across … departments … by … creating … new … communication … channels ... and …’ etc.

The non-serious game is a good ensemble builder that also gets people into a more creative frame of mind.

The serious version needs more facilitating. It can grind to a halt and go down blind alleys, but a facilitator should be able to restart a narrative, picking up on the general direction of the previous effort. In a willing group, it can reveal some interesting aspects of collective thinking.

In business, we tend to believe that ensembles will form naturally: that once we have created ‘a team’, that group of people will automatically bond together and become a genuine ensemble.

This can happen, especially if the team is set up following most or all of the preconditions set out by J Richard Hackman: the team has a compelling purpose; its task is challenging and consequential; it has a degree of autonomy in how it goes about the task; the organization gives the team the support it needs and gives clear and meaningful feedback.

But, even then, it is wrong to assume that the team will bond successfully just because they are working together. Every work situation has its small hierarchies, rivalries and dislikes. Bringing the team together in different social situations is a great ensemble-builder, as Tony Hsieh, founder on the online shoe retailer Zappos, discovered.

Tony Hsieh’s venture capital firm financed the launch of online shoe retailer Zappos, and Hsieh joined the company as CEO in 2000. In 2009, Zappos was bought by Amazon in a reported $1.2 billion allstock deal.

Hsieh believed that the company’s aim was to make its customers happy, so that they would spread the word about their good experiences – and he believed that the way to make customers happy was to have happy call-centre staff.

Hsieh encouraged a culture of ‘fun and a little weirdness’. Colleagues (‘co-workers’) were encouraged to decorate their work cubicles in ways that expressed their individuality, an offer that was taken up with exuberance. Staff were fully empowered to do whatever they felt was needed to make a customer happy. Calls were not time-restricted; epically long customer calls were even celebrated. In 2016, employee Steven Weinstein broke the previous record with a call that lasted nearly 11 hours. He took one bathroom break and his colleagues brought him food and water to sustain him. There is a picture of Weinstein celebrating at Zappos’ offices, standing in a small ball-pit full of blue plastic balls, alongside a model alligator and a model elephant with a small monkey on its back.²⁴

That is kinda weird. Hsieh also encouraged managers to spend time out of the office with their teams.

In 2010, Hsieh gave an interview to US radio journalist Kai Ryssdal.

Ryssdal: “I have to ask you the productivity question, because we are

here surrounded by people who are, many of whom are working, but

there’s another sizeable group that’s standing around chit-chatting.

There’s a party down the hall that’s been going on for an hour. How does all this affect actually day-in and day-out selling shoes?”

Hsieh: “Probably the easiest example to give is when we do new management orientations, we encourage new managers to spend

10 to 20% of their time outside the office. So what you are seeing now, consider that … maybe ‘away from their desk’ might be a better term. But a lot of that is actually outside the office, whether it’s going bowling with your team or happy hour with the people you work with

and so on.

“[…] And then we ask the managers who have done it, how much more productive and efficient is their team, because there’s higher levels of trust; communication is better; people are willing to do favors for each other ’cause they are doing favors for friends not just co-workers. And the answers we get back range from 20% to even

100% more productive.” ²⁵

Kai Ryssdal, ‘Zappos CEO on corporate culture and “Happiness”’

The culture at Zappos works because the company’s leaders genuinely value behaviours that other companies would see as ‘time wasting’ – hence the interviewer’s question about people ‘chit-chatting’ and ‘partying’.

This is another example of the ‘non-linearity’ of ensemble work. In the industrial mindset, time has a precise value – “Remember that time is money,” as Benjamin Franklin famously said in his essay, Advice to a Young Tradesman, Written by an Old One. “If a tradesman can earn ten shillings a day, but ‘sits idle’ for half the day, then he should consider that he has ‘thrown away’ five shillings.”²⁶

This makes perfect sense in a world where we make money by ‘doing things’. It doesn’t always make sense in the knowledge economy, where we make money by having ideas.

The creative process is non-linear. Building ensembles takes time. The time spent doing the things that create an ensemble – and allowing the ensemble to experiment and ‘play around’ with new ideas and new ways of doing things – is time well spent. There is, actually, an immediate ‘pay off’ in terms of trust and collaboration. And once the ensemble is fully functioning, new ideas will flow like water.