Our Baggage — The Pond-Deshpande Centre’s Systems Coaching Experience (2/5)
Our team achieves impact. And, our team has dysfunction. (A pretty normal reality, and one rarely stated aloud). We are prioritizing the work to tend to our team as a key lever to enabling impact.
We have structural challenges. We work in a nested system — NouLAB and B4C are projects of the PDC. We all operate within the University of New Brunswick. This reality creates structural challenges, which in turn surface significant issues of aligning our ideal state with the bureaucratic reality. While we have managed to adjust and thrive in this environment still face barriers. For example, while working toward a flattened leadership structure to create greater agency and decision making power is ideal — our structural reality makes it challenging.
We have issues. Like all teams, we have issues related to power, communication, decision-making, and more. These issues have little to do with the impact we are trying to create, and are key to tend to in order to do the work that enables impact.
We work on our team. There are competing and paradoxal paradigms, orientations, and language around what leadership looks like in these structures. This lack of alignment in our structures creates discord, and hence has created significant issues in the relationships of our team. In 2019 we — PDC, including NouLAB and B4C — worked intentionally to focus on our team, our leadership, and our structures. Uncomfortable, difficult, and filled with assumptions, it was tough work. These rich learnings from 2019, hurt hearts, frustrating moments, and high potential in the work for change have informed the coaching series we are in now with Holon Leadership.
We navigate change. This work on our team plus financial realities created change to the structure and makeup of our team. Key members in NouLAB shifted their relationship to become associates rather than long-term contractors. This made significant shifts in our roles on the team. It also made a difference in how the team shows up with one another. In addition, our work tends to be in complexity. Complexity requires us to take a prototyping approach and get multiple perspectives on issues. That is at the heart of why people are on board with this process, it has allowed us to have a regular, facilitated forum to voice concerns and have input from all voices on our team. With a unified direction and enabling agreements for how to move forward trust is being strengthened.
