The Designed Change Institute

The Manager as Alchemist

Optimizing Group Climate

The manager's dream is to change the lead of inefficiency into the gold of excellence, and he doesn't have very far to go. A poorly functioning team can be composed of exactly the same human beings as an excellent team. The difference between lead and gold, between excellence and mediocrity, is the synergy, the dynamic among the different individuals. It is the dynamic, not the individual will or intent, that determines performance.

A gram of gold has exactly the same number of electrons, protons and neutrons as a gram of lead. When you hold a gold coin in your hand you are holding the same exact substance as an equal amount of lead, the only difference is how the individual particles work together, a valuable difference in arrangement and synergy. Likewise, the same group of individuals can make an excellent team or a mediocre team. The difference between the two teams is the dynamic. The group climate controls the individuals in the group, including the manager.

As a manager, think of synergy as the controlling dynamic. Some people intend to act one way and end up, driven by the group pressure, behaving another way. Keep the concept of the dynamic in mind. Understand how synergy functions and how to change it. As a manager, you deal with groups of individuals, not individuals. If you have an individual performing poorly, a lecture to that person may elicit their intent to change and do well, but the group climate (the group's dynamic at a given moment) overrules their intent. Unawarely, the person does as the group wishes. The synergy, the subliminal and irresistible power in groups and atoms, controls the individual. Think synergy and you will turn lead into gold.

Attempts to manage individuals fail to produce excellence. Managers lecture, threaten and manipulate workers to produce the behavior they want, and it fails. It's like screaming at a passing electron, which can't change it's orbit because of the dynamic of the atom. Think synergy. Change the dynamic. A laser beam is produced by changing the dynamic of the electrons in a ruby rod. Think synergy and be an alchemist. Think synergy and you get the action you want.

Group climate, the dynamic which makes your working unit lead or gold, controls the individuals in the group. It is an unaware mutual agreement among the groups members. Even military units respond to the same order differently, depending on the group climate. The group dynamic controls them unawarely. The climate, not the manger, rules. Group climate is changed by a mutual and unaware action-reaction process. This action-reaction process is the tool of the alchemist, the manager.

What the alchemist dreams of in gold the manager who manages the synergy (the dynamic of the group climate) is able to produce in group dynamics. Think synergy. Discover the nature of your group climate and where you stand within it. Explore how your actions that violate the group climate produce group reaction. Carefully select actions which will produce the results you want The climate you choose will develop mutually or it won't develop (remember it's dynamic). Then viola, you are an alchemist, and in great danger of having an increasing number of gold coins appear in your pocket.

For more information see Sargent, Thomas O. The Behavioral and Medical Effects of Stress

. © Copyright 1993 Designed Change Institute, Virginia City, Montana