What role does discipline play in group consolidation Or How do you build “the smell of the place”? Through discipline Just like me, maybe you are also preoccupied by your team’s health, coherence, endurance. Due to the fact that the team is, I believe, the biggest concern and the most valuable asset that an entrepreneur can own, after the brand. That is why, I will share some ideas and considerations, from my personal experience, on this subject. I recently found the photo from the article opening. It was taken in 2013. I was following a yearlong leadership development program at Insead and, on one night, some of us had to set the table for our colleagues. We were at a restaurant in Barbizon, where the staff organized us in teams: some were preparing the appetisers, others the main course, some the second course, and others the dessert. I was in the appetisers team and I can remember just a few ingredients: Camembert, Calvados, apples. As I have two left hands when it comes to cooking, I would be at a loss to tell you what we cooked back then and how I managed to do it. I remember that night with a lot of joy, about how we worked together with great care to make something good, the fun we had, how great we felt and how connected we remained, even after seven years. We were 21 people from various countries: apart from me, there were also people from India, New Zeeland, Australia, Thailand, Russia, Great Britain, Finland, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Hawaii, Denmark, Malaysia. Apart from that exercise, we had many interactions in class, at school, where we were in situations where we had to present ourselves, to tell our story, many times painful, to receive feedback, to learn from our teacher and from one another. The sessions were not easy. But always, during lunch break, we also had a period when we were encouraged to go to a forest, at Fontainebleau, and talk about ourselves, about what the interactions in the course revealed, about what we read. From that moment, we were left with a discipline in our journey to become better leaders. Together, this discipline and way of learning made us reunite every year and gave us the ability to recreate the space from Fontainebleau, wherever we were. We took with us what professor Sumantra Ghoshal named “the smell of the place”, the atmosphere from Fontainebleau, in various countries: Denmark, Switzerland, Russia, India, Thailand. Now, we recreate it online. Even if we do not speak weekly, we feel as if only one month has passed since we last saw each other, as if we have lived a lot and we cannot wait to tell people who understand us, who care and who want and know how to contain us. This method of learning together, of travelling together towards ourselves, of becoming better people and leaders, has great power, leaving profound marks, but in a pleasant and constructive way. Team development, in any company, can be done in a similar way. I do not think grand team events are useful, if they do not contain a good deal of sharing and learning. Think about it: you organize a large teambuilding, you send everyone somewhere, at great financial costs, but when you get back to the office, nothing changes. It is as if we are stretching a rubber band, releasing it, letting it go back to its original form. For learning and development to occur, it takes discipline in meetings, the sharing of ideas, good practices, experiences. In my firm, I have implemented for about 10 years what we call the discipline of excellence. Once a month, on a Friday, we gather for 3-4 hours to learn from one another, to share different ideas, to become better. Sometimes, we make a test in order to get to know each other better, other times we have debates, or we watch a short film as a starting point, or we test some new concepts, or have a guest. We have a colleague who organises these sessions, however, all of us contribute. It should not be organised by the leader; they could do it, but it is better for someone else to get it done. Or to do it in turns, each member of the team. The leader’s job is to ensure a framework where the road to excellence is a discipline. Ah, and to create in the organization that “smell of the place” in which to work with pleasure. To learn more about the concept from professor Ghoshal, click the following link: https://youtu.be/UUddgE8rI0E
