Is Your Team Attuned?

It was during a conversation I was having the other week with the Taiwan head of a global fashion group that the idea of teams in attunement came up. It began innocently enough as we talked about sports. You may be thinking, oh boy, this is going to be an article on sports! But that’s the rub—there are valuable lessons to be drawn from high performing sports teams that can be applied to how businesses and other organizations create synergy. This is one of them. Because the challenges facing a group of people needing to perform together are the same, be it a sports team, a symphony orchestra, a community, or your business.

If you think about it, even if you’re not a sports fan, we can probably agree that when a top-flight team performs at its peak level it is a thing of great beauty. Reflect for a moment on a game that you saw or perhaps played in where the team just flowed together, and magic happened.

As a kid growing up in Canada for me it was hockey, and the Edmonton Oilers. During those years in the 1980s where Wayne Gretsky (the Great One) lead the Oilers to a series of Stanley Cup wins it was like watching a multi-bodied organism dance as one, on ice.

So let’s come back to attunement. What is it and why is it critical to high performing teams?

If you’re not a sports fan, another way to think of attunement is in the realm of music. Attunement here—the ability to be aware of and fit into the music of others—is fundamental to successfully playing with others. If you’ve ever played in a band or orchestra, or sung in a choir you understand that without attunement there simply is no way.

And this is the fundamental difference that I believe separates musicians and team-sport athletes from team players in the business world: first and foremost they enter into the enterprise with the intent to attune.

Why? Because they are acutely aware that if they don’t attune then as a team or orchestra or rock n’ roll band they are not going to soar very high no matter how skilled they may be individually.

But is this the same in our organizations? Do we enter into organizational team play with attunement even on the brain?

Develop your Inner Ear

As it says in the book Leadership and Self Deception (reviewed this issue) so often “coworkers position themselves against coworkers, workgroups against workgroups, departments against departments. People who come together to make an organization succeed actually end up delighting in each other’s failures and resenting each other’s successes.”

Could you imagine playing on a World Cup team where your teammate secretly smiles when your free kick misses the goal? Mostly likely if that behavior is happening your team wouldn’t even be playing in the World Cup!

So often we enter into the game with strongly held notions of our responsibilities, of our strengths, our preferences, our beliefs, our objectives, our vision, our whatever. In all fairness we likely even understand others’ abilities, responsibilities and objectives equally well.

But does that mean we are actually attuned? Does our ability to understand or to share an objective or vision mean that we are attuned?

I would suggest that attunement is something altogether different from mutual understanding.

Attunement requires a heightened sense of oneness and commitment to the harmonics that oneness produces.

It has to do with developing that “muscle” I call the inner ear. Great musicians and sports players have it in spades. Both develop it from an early age, most without even knowing it. It is intrinsic to their craft, as much as is the learning of the craft itself.

A few simple steps will set you on the path…

First, intend to enter into play with the objective of attuning to your team. Put aside all personal goals, wants, requirements, and focus your inner ear on the “music” that your team is already playing.

Second, listen to the music. Breathe deeply. It’s there. What do you hear? It might sound out of tune, it might be barely audible, it might sound just right. But when you tune in you will pick up a sense for what is happening with individuals and the team, as a whole. That’s it. Focus in on that sense.

Third, ask yourself, what’s needed in this moment? That’s the driving question. Attunement is always present tense. It’s now. When the Oilers won the Stanley Cup they were flowing in the moment, in each moment, over and over.

Fourth and finally, respond. Don’t think too much. Don’t analyze your response. Just move with it. Great musicians can jam on stage for hours, just responding to what they hear arising in the moment. No thought, just fluid response. You too are response-able.

Finally, practice with your team. One person tuning in isn’t nearly as effective as the a whole team attuned. But it starts with you. Make it a point of focus at your next meeting, off-site, or team building program.

If this is new for you, like all things that are built up, strengthening your inner ear takes time and commitment; it takes persistence and the will to dissolve old patterns that inhibit your ability to listen deeply.

But…imagine how things would be different if your whole team was attuned, flowing, making magic together. How would differences be handled? How would difficulties and challenges be met? How would successes be seen? How would you re-attune if you fell out of tune? How would you sustain your attunement?

Bring your awareness into the present and attune, because attunement has the capacity to be with whatever arises. Our practice of attunement brings us to the edge of what we are willing and able to be with, to experience, and from this place you will know what it is you need to do. Then move with it, and make magic with your team.

What Do You Think?
Please leave your comment and tell us what’s on your mind.

~ Leon VanderPol

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