Friday, October 7, 2011

Tension and Compression on Leadership Teams

Leadership teams are like suspension bridges...
needing both tension members and compression members.

I was a mechanical engineering major for a while at Purdue for long enough to have one of those classes where you apply what you learn about force vectors to a shoe-box-sized bridge made out of balsa wood. After you design it and glue it all together, the final exam includes putting it on a contraption that adds incremental units of stress until the whole thing snaps into splinters. Some of our bridges buckled under the pressure (compression members couldn't take it), and others pulled apart (tension members couldn't hold it together).

I've observed that good leadership teams have both compression members (those types that are sort of solid and can handle work getting piled on their shoulders) as well as tension members (those of us who are happy to be stretched and pulled as we respond to various conditions). A lot of us, of course, have to function in both compression and tension roles. We're like the common 2X4s in a house; some are there to be pushed on (like the ones holding up the ceiling) and others are there to be pulled on (like the ones holding the trusses together in the attic)... and yet others are both pushed on and pulled on depending on conditions.

When building teams and thinking through the various roles on teams, it is vital to design both compression and tension members into the scheme.

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