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Editor’s Note: A facilitator of teams in his own business, entrepreneur and member Ballard Pritchett responds here to an invitation to pen a review of where his four-year Collective Intelligence membership journey has taken him. Thank you Ballard for your honesty and generosity in sharing this. If you’re interested in joining our community – our founder Ian Harvey’s January blog also explores the impact that Collective Intelligence membership offers – or check out our website.
I arrived in New Zealand in October 2016, to join my wife (who had taken a new job here). In early 2017, I had a random conversation with a local home and office decorating vendor I had just found online. She asked what I did for work, I described my entrepreneurial and professional practice, and she said she was involved with an outfit called Collective Intelligence (CI) that I might find valuable as well. Within a few weeks, I was in Wellington at an initial meeting of a new team, with Harv and our assigned facilitator Manda and five other new members who were all about as clueless as I was regarding what was awaiting us. I had, however, plenty of previous positive experience with professional and personal development groups, and knew I wanted to join or form a good group in New Zealand, so I was eager to make this a powerful experience for all concerned.
Now that I have been a part of Collective Intelligence and our Team NoBull (name soon to be reworked) for four years, I can describe confidently the end game, the benefits, the reasons my alignment with CI is mutual, and the genuineness of the personal relationships our team has formed. I can point to what I have done, for my part, to make this a success. I can evaluate the return I have received on my personal investment. And I can share my profound gratitude that this experience has become possible for me. It has enriched my personal and professional life (which my wife confirms), and I am excited to connect with my team.
Let me start with what is most distinctive about CI. Collective Intelligence does not just assemble teams; it curates them. The choice and mix of membership are elemental to the magic. When the process achieves its higher potential, the team dynamic charts its unique destiny and value generation process. Ownership becomes a hybrid “both/and” between the team and the CI organisation, served by the able guidance of professional facilitation and supported by capable administration.
At its best, at maturity, the team’s value generation experience actually sorts out something like this: Collective Intelligence design, member selection and administration, 20% of the value created; Professional facilitation, planning and process, 20% of the value; Team member contributions to each other and to the whole of the experience, 60% of the value created.
In other words, put qualified people in the mix, assure essential diversity, guide with values and agreements, lead with superb facilitation, keep it all organized and according to an evolving plan, and then let the members do their work with and for each other.
If Collective Intelligence made the plans, controlled the process, and provided the content, the experience for the members would likely be no better than typical corporate training events. With the team dynamic working as high-level distributed leadership, and with the members pursuing their own chosen learning agendas with serious commitment, people learn, offer, generate and experience a whole “next” level of value from their participation in the team and with the Collective Intelligence programme. When the team is committed to each other and each other’s development, the rewards become indeed precious.
Our team has been fortunate. A few members whose willingness to invest in the process slacked off chose to withdraw, and a few who could not quite rise to the challenge were excused by the organisation. Three of the original six remain, with enthusiasm. The six additional members have each brought treasures with them and exemplify the character criteria CI identifies as necessary for inclusion. Getting the right people on the team (and perhaps the other people off the team) is not trivial. It is work and takes rigor and diligence.
We have amazing people on our team, and it would be a privilege to associate with any of them in whatever context. But to have them as candid and caring colleagues in a commitment group is a cause for awe. To think of all the hours and years each of them has invested in becoming who they are to this point in their life, and then to see them come together, at their own expense, to serve each other and to learn from each other, is truly amazing.
I found it useful to explore some of the reasons I see (in addition to the people I now count as colleagues and friends) for why Collective Intelligence has been a great match for me. I group these reasons into three headings: Benefits, Alignment, Commitments. I can then arrive at various means of evaluating why this has been a worthy course to pursue.
The benefits of my Collective Intelligence experience are (not exhaustive):
The Alignments:
The alignments between Collective Intelligence and myself:
With my values…
The commitments I see in Collective Intelligence and share wholeheartedly:
My evaluation incorporates several approaches. The easiest is by familiar analogy: Sharpening my axe. If I spend a day cutting wood with an axe, the axe ends up quite dull, and inefficient. And I end up tired. However, if I spend ten percent of my time each hour (6 minutes) stopping to sharpen my axe, the rewards are obvious. I get more wood cut. My axe stays sharp. And I am less weary from the work. All in all, I have a productive process that is more sustainable. Collective Intelligence is a way of sharpening my axe on a regular periodic schedule.
A second way of evaluating my investment is to assess costs versus benefits. My Collective Intelligence engagement costs me about $7000 a year in direct expenditure (fees + travel). I get about 50 direct contact hours (not counting the pro bono time we members spend for each other). This computes to $140 per hour. For this, I get the whole team, plus the facilitator. On the face of it, this is a better bargain than my attorney, accountant or management consultant. If my economic value as a professional is $200,000 for 2000 hour year, the 50 hours costs me $5000. So, my cost to participate is $12,000. If I am 10% better at what I do as a result, my gain is $20,000 – $12,000 = $8000. Of course, if I only generate $50,000 in value a year, Collective Intelligence makes less sense in the immediate time frame. It becomes more of a long-term investment.
A third way of evaluating CI is more insightful. A larger view of the purpose of my work is to generate value in and for my relevant world, and to capture a fair share of that value. That equates to making my enterprise or endeavour a more valuable process in and of itself. Or as is commonly said, “working on my business rather than within it.” If I make my enterprise more valuable over time, to its environment and to its stakeholders, that generates the large, multidimensional (as well as strictly financial) return for which entrepreneurs labour. This is the real aim of business, not boosting the quarterly P/L. My CI team engagement certainly serves me as an individual and advances my development. But more to the point, the team serves the aim of enhancing my enterprise as a whole. It is available to assist my decision-making at any critical juncture where I make invitation. Sometimes team members even take the risk of checking in on me and offering conversation and counsel I did not go seeking, to great benefit. Compared to the scale of the increasing the value of my whole enterprise, the annual costs of my CI engagement can seem quite modest. As an entrepreneur, I cannot afford to be without this kind of contribution, and to have this team as a significant component of my overall network of support.
I have experienced Collective Intelligence as a genuine learning organisation. It makes mistakes. It asks for feedback. It attempts to improve. It seeks to innovate and evolve. During the pandemic lockdowns, we all brushed up on our Zoom skills, as we could not meet conventionally. Our team still has one member zooming in from Australia for the time being. We all do our best to accommodate and make the best of our respective situations. I am really proud of our team, and the transformations so many of us have achieved. I am also happy with the administrative staff and the way they go about their work. Harv has contributed generous leadership rooted in his own uniqueness, with humility and humour.
Ngā mihi
Dr. Ballard Pritchett
ballardpritchett@gmail.com
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