- Do you agree with Tom Wujec's analysis of why kindergarteners perform better on the Spaghetti Challenge than MBA students?
- Can you think of any other reasons why kids might perform better?
- In your view, why do CEOs with an executive assistant perform better than a group of CEOs alone?
- If you were asked to facilitate a process intervention workshop, how could you relate the video to process intervention skills?
- What can you take away from this exercise to immediately use in your career?
In the TED Video, “Build a Tower, Build a team Tom
Wujec presents us with the team building exercise the marshmallow challenge and
discusses the various teams who have been successful in the challenge and those
who have not. He discusses the difference of team members and skill sets on
certain teams which can either increase or decrease the team’s chances of
success. The idea behind the marshmallow challenge is to “encourage teams to experience simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation and
creativity” (Wujec, marshmallowchallenge.com). Wujec’s efforts to foster
clarity and build team capacity, rapport and prototyping techniques offers
organizations the strategic analysis necessary to exhibit the strengths and weaknesses
of their own collaboration techniques.
Wujec states that
kindergarteners have proven to be much more successful in the marshmallow challenge
as they do not try to be the CEO of the group. Business students are said to
move forward in trying to find the single right plan in order for the structure
to be successful, while kindergarteners concentrate more on the end goal and
are able to strategically implement a number of prototyping efforts. I would have to agree with Wujec on his
analysis of why kindergarteners perform better on the Spaghetti Challenge than MBA
students? I believe that children have a mental and creative freedom that
adults lose the older we get and the wiser we become. Children’s minds are pure
and have no limits. The opportunities to them are endless because the idea of
failure doesn’t scare them. They are motivated and open to the learning process
with little to no fear of how they are being perceived or how the other
children around them will react to their suggestions, ideas or techniques.
Children have no titles,
and they have nothing to prove. They are equals and due to their equality,
their efforts in working with one another may prove to be successful as there
is no competition involved in who had the best or worst idea, who led the group
well, who offered the best alternatives or who made the project a success. With
no egos involved, children are able to strategically and effectively look at
the task that is being set before them, work on the ways in which to make that
happen and sweeps all other unnecessary factors which inhibit their creativity
and success under the rug. It doesn’t matter to them who played with the toy
truck last and how that made them feel. When a new task is placed before them
they are able to quickly adapt to their new environment and work with their
teammates to create innovative and successful solutions to the unique
challenges set before them.
Wujec moves on to inform
us that teams who consisted of CEO’s as well as an executive assistant
performed better on the marshmallow project than those whose teams were made up
of strictly CEO’s. I believe that the reason for this was due to the team’s
diversity. When a team consists of a group of people who complete the same job
and think alike, diversity amongst team members is minimal. CEO’s may speak a
certain language and communicate in specific ways causing groupthink, however the
implementation of one team member who can offer different skill sets can
immediately change the team dynamic as a new and improved way of thinking has
now been placed into what may have been a stagnant thought process. In order
for a group to be innovative and creative and create successful collaborative processes,
there must be a combined skill set of team members which offer different ways
of approaching and solving issues. In this case the executive administrative
assistant offered the group the skill set needed to enhance their thought
processes and create more successful and innovative suggestions and solutions.
If I were to facilitate a
process intervention workshop, the video would be a great tool as it would
allow work groups to become aware of how they may operate and the collaborative
techniques that they could use in order to develop and enhance their own
problem solving abilities. The video would cover a number of process
intervention topics such as member roles and functions and the techniques used
to analyze communication processes within a work group in order to make it
successful. More importantly the video and the marshmallow exercise would implement
group task functions as well as group building and maintenance functions which
would assist with the development of team member behaviors which would assist
with the work group to solve its task and improve upon the harmonizing and
compromising behavior to establish effect ways of dealing with group conflict
or tension.
I
believe the video has offered me a clearer understanding as to the importance
of collaboration and how to implement and apply the strategies of
communication, observation and leadership and authority within specific work
groups. It has proven the importance of diversity within work groups and has
also shown me that when working on a team there is no room for ego’s, titles,
or fear, as these factors have the opportunity to contribute negatively to the
success of an organization. I believe that in order to remain innovative,
creative and open to new things, team building exercises such as this one
should continue to be used in all organizations to prevent groupthink and
static thought processes and techniques.
References
Brown,
D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to organization development (8th ed.).
Upper
Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wujeck, T.
(n.d.). The Marshmallow Challenge. Retrieved from
Wujec, T.
(2010, February). Tom Wujec: Build a tower, build a team | Video on TED.com
[Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html
