Teams and organizations must emphasize cooperation, collaboration, and consensus to succeed. Each is a configuration of support.
BY MICHAEL F. BROOM, Ph.D. | CEO, Center for Human Systems
Many leaders have the notion that it is lonely at the top. Like so many things, if you believe it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact is no one has ever accomplished anything of any significance alone. Think about that.
I think about my first successful, unassisted step as a toddler, but then I think of all the support and caring I had before taking that first wobbly step alone. Can you think of anything you accomplished all by yourself? If you have, I would love to hear about it!
The founding fathers of applied behavioral science understood the essentiality of support. Teams and organizations must emphasize cooperation, collaboration, and consensus to succeed. Each is a configuration of support.
There are different ways to improve organizations, such as team building, strategic planning and process re-engineering. Each involves improving communications, developing mutual understanding and sharing decision-making. All are core parts of effective leadership practice as they actualize support for whatever goals are the target.
All successful human endeavors have resulted from successful support systems. John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and other “captains of industry” did not build their business empires alone. Nor did Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Paul Allen build their megalithic companies alone.
Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela did not free their countries by themselves. We hold such people up as individually powerful with little acknowledgment of the considerable support systems that surround them.
The puny human race dominates the planet because of our ability to support each other. Yet, the intentional building of support systems has become problematic. Regardless, building strong support systems is crucial for the success of all leaders. In fact, leaders are leaders because of the support of their followers.
Two ways support systems are critical to leaders
- Leaders require the support of their followers to accomplish their goals. In fact, they create a critical mass of support. This is the bottom line for successful organizations. Failing to achieve critical mass, the organization and its projects will fail.
- Leaders also need personal support systems. They need them to stay focused on using the skills of self-mastery when their egos, stress, and the demands of other parts of their lives would distract them.
The challenges of building support systems
The importance of building and maintaining support systems makes sense. However, developing support systems puts us considerably outside our comfort zones. Here are three challenges we have to the intentional use of support systems:
Cultural belief systems
Our society strongly emphasizes individual freedom and strength: “You can pull yourself up by your own bootstraps!” This belief, however, restricts our willingness to ask for support. If you are really good enough, you can do it by yourself. In the world of organizations, individual effort garners more reward than teamwork and supporting others.
Asking for support gets little recognition. More often than not, we seek growth and advancement independent of our team or organizational unit.
We’re taught that anything is possible, and if we work hard enough, we will succeed. We’re not taught that there are severe limits to how much we can do by ourselves. Nor are we taught that the best results will come about through supporting others and being supported by others.
It is easy to understand our aversion to seeking support. They did not teach us to seek support. From grade school, the Western education system increasingly focuses on independent academic proficiency. High school and college years bring about an increasing demand for independent performance. It created an atmosphere of competition and rivalry among peers.
We strive for individuality. We base our sense of self on our unique skills and capabilities. We’re not taught that the path to success is through collaborative and supportive relationships.
Most of our education emphasizes individual effort, with only a token amount of group work required. Teachers and professors often discourage group work and teaming. They prioritize preventing plagiarism and cheating over promoting support for significant achievement.
University classrooms allow and even encourage adversarial discussions and debates. This reinforces the idea that success is a personal achievement. Grading on a curve rewards those with the highest grades while disciplining those with lesser grades. We’re taught that our peers are our competitors. If you succeed, then I cannot. Ivy League institutions accept only so many.
Some educational environments emphasize cooperation and encourage support. They follow the theories of reformists like John Dewey, Rudolph Steiner, and Horace Mann. Still, most of us have little or no advocacy to build or use support systems.
Ego issues
Many of us perceive seeking support or asking for help as a sign of weakness, causing concern that others will perceive us negatively if we ask for help. The higher up the organizational ladder one goes or the greater one’s claim to expertise, the more we are supposed to know already.
It’s “lonely at the top” is a moan I’ve heard from many high-level clients. Managers at any level are often reluctant to admit they don’t know everything to their employees. They make asking for or accepting help when offered difficult.
Many leaders believe doing so would reveal their vulnerabilities to others who might take advantage. Building personal support systems of trusted friends and colleagues is a powerful antidote. We often willingly support others but are too reluctant to accept support. However, leaders need sturdy support systems to withstand the many stresses of being a leader.
We fear losing our mythical independence, which we have attached to our self-esteem. We want to prove to ourselves and others we can place our mark on the world all by ourselves. If we ask for support, we would document that we couldn’t do “it” by ourselves. Any time we seek support, our self-esteem is vulnerable to our self-derision.
Control Issues
I once had a great idea about establishing a wisdom center where folks could come seeking the wisdom of themselves and the center’s staff. I shared this idea with Don Klein, my friend and mentor, who suggested I put together a small group to help me think it through.
I was appalled at such a suggestion! Putting together such a group would mean dealing with folks who would want to mess with my idea and bend it into something I would hardly recognize! Then, they would want to twist the implementation process I had in mind beyond recognition! I would lose control of my brilliant idea! Why in the world would I want to do that? Everything would be a lot easier if I did it by myself!
My “great idea” disappeared into the enormous maw of inaction, where many great ideas wind up when we do not allow the support and energy of others. To repeat: no person alone has or will accomplish anything significant. We may lose control of a great idea, and maybe that loss will generate an even better idea that will bear fruit when massaged and synergized by the support of others.
The difficulty of asking for help with human systems is of particular interest to leaders of organizations. An engineer at W. L. Gore and Associates once told me, “If my car is making an unusual noise, I’m pretty quick to get the support of my mechanic to do something about it.”
However, our human systems make all kinds of unhealthy noises which we ignore to our detriment. We are reluctant to ask for help when our marriages, families, and friendships make the unsavory sounds to hostility.
We are too willing to accept that problems in our human systems are inevitable and uncorrectable. Perhaps we don’t know who can help. Maybe we underestimate the consequences of inaction. Teams, organizations, families, and friends stay problematic when they don’t ask for support.
Leaders must help their teams and support systems collaborate and build consensus. They can do none of those alone. Those who succeed will have helped their organizations accomplish and exceed their goals.
Michael F. Broom, Ph.D., is an organizational psychologist with 45 years of experience with various people and organizations. He is the author of “The Infinite Organization” and “Power, The Infinite Game” with Donald Klein.
Formerly of Johns Hopkins University, he founded the Center for Human Systems and is a Lifetime Achievement Award honoree of the OD Network.
Contact Dr. Broom for coaching and consulting for your organization at michael@chumans.com. For more information on the Center for Human Systems and to check out its intensive programs and two-hour workshops, visit chumans.com. You’ll be surprised by the difference a single hour can make!
