Team Building Concept

Good afternoon, doctor e here. Hope you are doing well. Happy Thursday. I wanted to share with you today about a team building concept that I think is really helpful and can be super beneficial. And it is based on two words, two simple words, friction and fraction. What do I mean by that? Friction. In terms of how are you creating space for your team, for your staff, even for your colleagues to engage one another in a dialogical kind of way? How are you creating space for pushback? How are you creating space for energy that comes with, and comes along with challenging each other and thinking about things differently and asking the question or questions like, why are we doing this?

Or why are we doing this in a certain way? Why have we done this in certain ways? So really being able to think about creating space for friction and friction isn't necessarily bad. I know conflict gets a bad name and has a bad rep and a bad rap. But conflict can be good, right? When you think about really entertaining and really pushing others to think outside the box, outside of status quo, and outside of what we normally discuss and think about, and how we think about those things. So there's friction and then there's fraction.

Fraction actually is bad. So when you think about fraction, you think about fragmenting, or people pulling away, or stepping back, or not feeling a part of something you don't want to lead or create any energy or any space around fraction. And how do you make sure you don't do that? Or how do you make sure good friction doesn't lead to bad fraction? Well, one simple way to think about that is managing the process, managing the communication, managing the expectation, thinking about everything that's positive, everything that is constructive, and everything that can be helpful in the most productive kinds of ways.

When you start to see fraction happening, whether it's someone quiet, quitting is the new phrase now, or someone kind of stepping back and not interacting, or contributing, or feeling as though that their voices are being heard or that they're valued, that is fraction. And you want to avoid that at all costs. So think about friction in a really good way, and then think about fraction as something to avoid. If you create space for friction in really constructive, healthy ways, challenging, pushing back, debating, dialoguing, thinking about all of those kinds of ways that folks can contribute in a constructive fashion.

And avoiding fraction. So folks don't feel minimized, so folks don't feel like their voices aren't heard, so folks don't feel like they are a part of any of the decisions and the processes that are being made or that they're subjected to. Those are the two things that you want to keep in tension. So good friction, bad fraction, or friction versus fraction in general. Hopefully that stuck with you. Remember those two words, and I think you will be well on your way to building some really, really healthy team relationships and team environments.

So have a great rest of your afternoon, and I will see you next week.