A630.8.4.RB_DiazBrian

Tom Wujec's team building exercise or "marshmallow problem" is a challenge in which teams build structures with uncooked spaghetti, string, masking tape, paper lunch bags, and a single marshmallow.  The goal is for teams to work cohesively to build the tallest free-standing structure possible with the marshmallow on top http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html

Using this exercise in workshops Tom studied how various groups performed.  He looked at recent business school graduate, kindergartners, CEO's, and CEO's with assistants.  To my surprise (and to most likely to Tom's),Tom found that the group that was among the worst performers were the recent graduate students.  The group that surprisingly performed well were the kindergartners.  But why?  How could a group of business graduates, who learn strategy, organizational development, and problem solving skills fare less than kindergartners?  The results to me were pretty astounding.  But Tom noted he learned why.  It seemed that the graduate students spend time jockeying for position to establish a leadership role, lied, cheated, and were easily distracted.  I can see this occurring.  He mentioned that because the graduate students were so concerned with finding a "single right plan" that they often ran out of time, sending them into panic mode.

I think that in doing so the graduate students lose focus of the exercise.  The process is meant to be a "team" project and I can see that having someone in charge is definitely more important to adults than it is to children.  I don't think team activities are stressed enough at a younger age.  Sports is a good outlet but it can also breed competitiveness (not such a bad thing).

When I was in 6th grade I was a part of the Orange City Roadrunners soccer team.  One of my team mates and closest friends on the team was a boy named Wade.  Wade and I were the two best players on the team.  We were gearing up towards the regional championship game in a few weeks.  While at lunch one day Wade decided to remind me that he led the team in goals for the season (essentially laying claim to being the team's best player).  He was up on me by like 6 goals or so (a lot for soccer).  This ignited my competitive spirit as other kids overheard us and egged me on saying there was no way I could pass Wade.  I bet him that not only could I catch up to him but I could beat him in goals scored for the season.  Soccer is very much a team sport.  It requires 11 players to work together in order to be successful.  I let my ego get the best of me and I decided to play for me instead of the team.  Going into the championship game Wade was ahead by two goals.  There was no way I could catch him I thought.  But as the game got started the ball just seemed to find me and when it was all said and done I scored 3 goals, led the Roadrunners to a championship, and won my bet!  The local paper ran a story about the game and the headline read "Orange City Roadrunners rely on Brian Diaz to win Championship".  It went on to say how I scored a hat-trick (which I had no idea what a hat-trick was).  It was pretty cool but I most definitely did not do it by myself.  I had a team around me and if it wasn't for them we could not have won.  I want to say I was just lucky.  Looking back on this I must admit I am a little embarrassed.  Embarrassed by the fact that I thought I was the team.  We played an entire season as a team and in those last few games I became obsessed with "jockeying" for my position.  As I move forward in my career I vow to never lead a team like this but instead be an active participant working towards shared goals.

Children are inherently innocent by nature.  As opposed to their adult counterparts they are not consumed by who gets to make the decisions.  Children are just happy to play and I can see this marshmallow "challenge" as a fun, non-threatening, team-based game for children to work on together.  Whereas the adults find the challenge to be competitive.  As a parent of a 2 year old I can say that children are more imaginative than adults because their minds have not been made up about a lot of things.  To them the mechanical or engineering limitations are not taken into consideration when making the biggest spaghetti structure.  They are not bound by the rigidity that adults seem to impose on themselves based on their knowledge of science, mathematics, or engineering.  "Can't" and "won't" work are generally not something a child is concerned with or even associates with.  I think that children also do not take these "challenges" competitively as opposed to adults and are having fun with the process whereas adults might be looking for bragging rights or to say "Our team is the best!  Look at how tall we got our spaghetti sticks, we win!"  

CEO's that enlist the help of their  executive assistance are more successful than CEO's in a group without one because CEO's that work with assistants tend to empower teamwork.  Since CEO's and executive assistants work closely together it is not uncommon for the to travel together.  Each benefits from their symbiotic relationship because these individuals share personal and professional relationships that tend to make their pairing successful in a situation such as the "marshmallow problem".  The bigger question for me becomes why wouldn't a CEO with an executive assitant not want them on their team?

If I were to facilitate a process intervention workshop I think this video embodies and relates the following process intervention skills and promotes:

•  Communication and Summarizing
•  Synthesizing and Generalizing
• Probing and Questioning 
• Listening
• Providing Support

Brown (2011) notes that "The purpose of process interventions is to help the group become more aware of the way it operates and the way its members work with one another."  (p.199).  Using the interventions above can help a group to solve their problems as a unit and make the necessary changes needed to work in a more efficient manner and to more productive.

My takeaway from this lesson is that there are many different process intervention techniques that can be utilized in a team setting to improver its performance.  The interventions should be brief and decisive.  Groups that strive to be high-performance teams should contemplate how completing tasks can be affected through the use of interventions.  I intend to incorporate a number of these techniques within my group to solicit discussions in an effort for us to become more efficient.  As we always say, the only constant in organizational development is change and we should always embrace it.

Brown, D. (2011). An Experiential Approach to Organization Development. (8th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.