The in-betweens, where teams emerge from

Gaps and cracks, bridges and spaces. 
They are connecting things, us, to one another.

Since I’ve started working with complexity thinking as an applied practice, a little over a year ago, these connections or ‘in-betweens’ are becoming more and more important and visible.

The ‘in-Betweens’ are not about being networked, technologically interconnected or about the exciting collaborative platforms which are disrupting our complex dynamic world.

What is much more exciting, and even emotional, are the possibilities and opportunities which are hiding, waiting to be explored and emerge from the in-betweens.

One important aspect of the way we work, and the way we will work in the future, is essentially rooted in the space of the in-between. This is the “team” as a classic unit of the traditional organization of work and of value creation. Which is also becoming more and mote essential as work and value creation become innovated throughout sectors and the knowledge/gig economy takes hold in new economic and social fields. Indeed, Esko Kilpi writes beautifully here, about how work should be conceptualized as an interactive process.

A team’s value is not equal to the additive value and skills of it’s members. In the past, as Scot Page tells us here, teams indeed had additive value, their mutual strength equaled the accumulative of their member’s individual strengths. But as work and value creation are less based on mutual labor but on interactions and communication, the value of teams is created in the in-between of it’s members.

Google researched their own, and others, teams creation and success. Trying to come up with the principles of great team work, in real life, working in large organizations and at scale. As opposed to studying case studies of teams success stories or doing research on specific teams of academic students in the lab.

“All teams can be set up for success” tells us Google’s VP of People Operations, Prasad Setty, what matters most is not who is on the team but how it is interacting with each other. So, a team’s success is formed not within but in between! The key successes indicators for teams’ success that they found was ‘psychological safety’, a term Mr. Setty call ‘complex’

If you are a leader of a team or a team member in any circumstance (being a family member seems to be our original team experience), then you must pay attention to the perceived safety of your team created by their in-between interactions.

Success, just like a culture in an organization or even life itself, are all emerging properties which can be supported. So make sure you pay attention and well design your in-betweens.

If you need help in that process don’t hasitate to drop me a line@ eitan.reich@complextochange.net