From Individual Brilliance to Collective Intelligence: Leveraging Experiential Learning to build Effective Teams

We have seen this happen multiple times. Projects are kickstarted with much fanfare, we hand pick the best of team members – members who are highly intelligent and skilled professionals. We provide the best of tools and environment. And, wait for the magic to happen.

Yet many-a-times projects derail, leading to schedule, cost overruns. Why? While there could be many technically valid reasons, it is definitely not due lack of intelligence. Projects suffer due to misaligned expectations, cognitive / physical / hierarchical silos, lack of assertiveness, inability to influence (without authority), fixed mindset, local optimisation, untested assumptions etc.

And it is not that we are discovering this now. However Project Managers continue to grapple with the human aspect of management. It is almost as if – individual brilliance gets transformed by collective stupidity. What can we do?

This is where we want to share certain tenets on human behaviour:

• Adults cannot be taught anything – they need to experience, reflect & learn from that experience
• Projects are getting shorter & shorter by the day and do not have the leeway to experiment
• Losing the Forest for the trees – How can we help them keep an eye on the (Shifting) Goal post?

Experiential Learning provides a sand box moment for the teams to quickly identify areas which could impede their functioning. It allows individuals to shift their mindset and move from sub optimal team solutions to a higher level of team effectiveness! This allows them to seek better toolset, skillset and processes that can lead them towards their common goal.