Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Bridge Design

The history had been frustrating but, ultimately, illuminating, he recalled. Lack of formality leveraged camaraderie. Primitive mechanisms invisibly guided group behavior in a fashion conducive to progress. But they started breaking down after a breaching a 'load' threshold in virtually every case he could remember.

In our attempts to harvest group effort we are nearly universally confronted with competing egos. Structure can mitigate the effects but, unfortunately, brings along baggage as a function of how much depends on the structure over time.

Interpersonal clashes of unaware egos brought down many an organization. In others it just first ground down productivity and then all to often played a leading role in bringing about the organization's demise. He knew that neither of the foregoing was appealing if indeed there was a choice. There was good reason to believe that such a choice existed here.

A few actually wondered out loud what self-calibration really meant. A term he had used for some time because of its application in bi-directional messaging. The sequence of words seemed to trigger a primitive cautionary filter in otherwise aware people. Too technical for some, non-sequitor to others but fundamental, even pivotal, to communication.

He liked the bridge metaphor in situations such as these. Not just any bridge. She really understands though. When he broached the subject with her, both were on the same front page, she enamored of the visual presentation, graphics, music and such, he more enamored of the text. But there was just one story about a very inviting frontier.

He could replay in his mind her critique. She had a knowing smile that clearly indicated she still had questions and, given time, was highly motivated to ask them. But her words, they were simple and meant more in this situation than any tome replete with glossary, bibliography, table of contents etc. She said, "Its good."

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