say "no" to normalcy

SO, YOU'RE ASKED TO DO A PIECE CALLED

"Profundity." Who could resist such a challenge? And then you (me!) sit down at your laptop and it dawns on you: You have just agreed to write something-with your name at the top, labeled for God and all to see-P-R-O-FO-U-N-D. Ye gads! Moreover, the topic is "teams"-about which no stone (or pebble) has been left unturned in the last garrulous ten years.

And then you (me) get lucky. At the checkout at your local Vermont bookstore, you spy one of those countertop books that have become so popular of late. The title attracts: Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace (Viking Press, 1998). The design is fabulous, whimsical. And in a flash, you're hooked. Does it have anything to do with teams? Not really. (Or, rather, pretty much every-damn-thing has something to do with teams-if that's your bent.)

But I'm ahead of myself. What's the dratted book written by Gordon MacKenzie, a 30-year Hallmark vet, now departed, say? "`How many artists are there in the room? [MacKenzie is visiting a school-he does this a lot in his non-retirement retirement.] Would you please raise your hands?' The pattern of response never varies. First grade: En masse, the children leapt from their chairs, arms waving wildly... Third grade: At best, 10 kids out of 30 would raise a hand, tentatively, self-consciously ... By the time I reached sixth grade, no more than one or two did so, guardedly, betraying a fear of being identified by the group as a `closet artist.'... Every school I visited was participating in the suppression of creative genius....

"From cradle to grave the pressure is on: BE NORMAL.... The trouble with this is that Corporate Normalcy derives from and is dedicated to past realities and past successes. There is no room in the Hairball of Corporate Normalcy for original thinking."

You don't know me, so you may be v-e-r-y skeptical when I tell you I wept as I read these and other like words. So true. So-o-o-o bloody true.

Best book on teams in years (and years)? Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman: Organizing Genius. (Addison-Wesley, 1997). Topic: Great Groups. To wit: "Groups become great only when everyone in them, leaders and members alike, is free to do his or her absolute best.... The best thing a leader can do for a Great Group is to allow its members to discover their own greatness." Message (notveiled-at-all): Stomp out those who would cherish N-o-r-m-a1-c-y. Or, at least that's how I read the book.

Jump again. A seminar in Orlando, February 1998, very(!) senior execs, about 900. A guy comes up to me after my two-hour gig: "Wow, and thanks, Tom, it's the first time I've ever heard anyone serious [me?!] talk publically about play."

Add it up. Gordon MacKenzie (Hallmark vet, Mr. AntiNormalcy) + Warren Bennis (Mr. Pursue-IndividualGreatness) + Tom Peters (Mr. Play, damn it) = What?? I dunno. But I do hope it's profound.

I despise Robert McNamara. He and the bean counters/MBA-proliferators who followed him tried to drain enterprise (private and public) of passion. Reduce it all to numbers-paint inside the lines, as Gordon MacKenzie would put it (contemptuously).

I read a dry tome recently, Creating Modern Capitalism (Harvard University Press, 1998). Economics equals dismal science? Not according to author and Harvard professor Thomas McCraw. "At the most basic level," he writes, "capitalism is best understood as an expression of human creativity. It is propelled by the dreams and aspirations of individuals."

Take two: historian Paul Johnson's new masterwork: A History of the American People (HarperCollins, 1998). The last page: "The story of America is essentially one of difficulties being overcome by intelligence and skill, by faith and strength of purpose, by courage and persistence.... Americans do not believe that anything in this world is beyond human capacity to soar to."

Profundity. My best effort? Never-ever-equate teams with pastels! ("Every 12-person department needs a Dennis Rodman" is the way I put it in my seminars. Or, "Be wary of the ten-person accounting department in which fewer than half the males have no body piercings.") Think TECHNICOLOR Business/teams/great groups equals free to do our absolute best, to soar, to experience faith, courage, human creativity, dreams, aspirations. Or, JUST SAY "NO"-hell no!-TO NORMALCY. It's 1998, stupid.

Tom Peters is the author of seven best-selling management books, more recent The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness (Knopf, 1997).

Copyright Association for Quality and Participation May/Jun 1998
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