When a building collapses, investigators first look at the foundation. When a bridge collapses, investigators look at the support that held up the bridge. What do they find? They find cracks in the foundation.
Isn't this true in just about every area of life as well? If a marriage, friendship, working relationship, company, or industry fails, it always falls back to the foundation. Something was cracked in the foundation that caused the relationship to start to crack, eventually leading to the collapse.
If you don't consistently look at, reevaluate, and honestly look at the cracks, it catches up with you over time.
Years ago, my management team started bickering, relationships were breaking down, and the stress was getting to be too much. People were blaming each other. Cracks were accumulating water, the water was freezing, and the cracks were expanding. We had ONE choice. The choice was to fix the foundation, build it back up, and make it more robust than ever.
I gathered everyone together for many successive weeks to review, debate, and honestly discuss each other's weaknesses, and how we could work together better. We used the book "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" as a basis to work towards this unity.
This is the thing...we were all on the same team. We all wanted to succeed, but we had gotten so underwater that we couldn't see through the muck. We had to SLOW DOWN to move faster. It wasn't fun. It was hard. There were hurt feelings, tears, anger. But we pressed on. By doing this exercise, we became a solid and united team. We pushed through it. We filled the cracks. We had to part ways with the people who didn't want to work on the team. We came out the other side of this exercise with one of the best management teams in the business. But, our mission was clear. We were ONE TEAM and knew we needed to work together to ensure our foundation was always solid.
We went forward with a sense of oneness. Obstacles no longer broke our foundation. When you become part of a team, do it with honor and respect. Face the scorn, forget the past, find forgiveness, figure out what is broken and where the cracks are, and START MOVING FORWARD towards ONENESS.
As James Clear says, "Every action you take is a voice for the person (company, family) you want to become."
What step or action will you, your company, or your family take today toward the person, company, family, spouse, parent, or friend you want to become?
When you go to work tomorrow, enter a meeting, or talk with a friend or family member, enter each encounter with a mindset of unity and harmony. The unity and harmony you need to maintain or create a solid foundation. A foundation of unity.
It starts with you. YOU can be the difference. Fill the gaps and fix the foundation.
Side Note: I will be forever grateful for the structure of Patrick Lencioni's book for saving our company and helping us build our first team. We had to do the work, but it gave us a firm foundation.
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