Reprinted from Massage Today,
January 2003 (Vol. 3, Num. 1)
P.O. Box 6070 Huntington Beach, CA 92615 •USA
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The RamblemuseSMKeith Eric Grant, Ph.D. |
Working All Together
The red tail hawk writes songs across the sky; there's music in the waters flowing by. And you can hear a song each time the wind sighs; in the golden rolling hills of California. — Kate Wolf 7
During the last two years as September moved into October, the weekend closest to the full moon has brought a rush of activity for me. It has been the weekend that a dozen of us have joined together, along with about 300 other teams of twelve, to run a 199-mile relay through the golden rolling hills of California from Calistoga to Santa Cruz. While the progress of individual runs, runners, and supporting minivans moving from day into night into dawn and finally finishing in late afternoon has been memorable, it is not the running itself that holds my mind the strongest. My strongest impressions from both years have come from the teamwork and small kindnesses we have provided towards each other, even when physically fatigued and desperately short of sleep. It is my thoughts and feelings provoked by this surrounding sense of team support that I want to share as we move into a new year.
The practice and profession of massage is interpersonal at many levels. In working with a client, they and we optimally become a team facilitating improvements in their physical well being. From a larger perspective, we become part of our client's social context of emotional and life support that each of us optimally creates around us. In return, we have the wonders of connection with others and of feeling that our life and work makes a discernable human difference. Within the profession, we share webs of connection as colleagues, teachers, and co-creators of organizations.
In an article on partnering with your customer, business writer Tracey Lowrance starts with a time-tested quote underscoring the importance of having both a purpose and a way of accomplishing it.
A vision without a task is a dream.
A task without a vision is drudgery.
A vision and a task is the hope of the world.
–Inscription on the wall of a church
in Sussex, England, 1730
Lowrance distills this synergy of vision and task down to having a “mutually understood and collectively honored shared purpose and customer candor” 3. It is the sense of working towards a common goal and of being able to mutually share and listen that reinforces the relationship. In the context of teaching teamwork to children, Bellingham public schools have captured this juxtaposition of goals and interactions in a teamwork skills list that includes listening, questioning, persuading, respecting, helping, sharing, and participating 1. Interestingly, respecting has both a geometrically central position in the Bellingham list and a central position in my own thoughts of places to start for building teamwork.
M. Scott Peck shares a story of a dying monastery revived by a change in attitude that caused the monks to display extraordinary respect to each other and to themselves 5.
Because the forest in which it was situated was beautiful, it so happened that people still occasionally came to visit the monastery to picnic on its tiny lawn, to wander along some of its paths, even now and then to go into the dilapidated chapel to meditate. As they did so, without even being conscious of it, they sensed this aura of extraordinary respect that now began to surround the five old monks and seemed to radiate out from them and permeate the atmosphere of the place. There was something strangely attractive, even compelling, about it. Hardly knowing why, they began to come back to the monastery more frequently to picnic, to play, to pray. They began to bring their friends to show them this special place. And their friends brought their friends.
This attitude of respect, I believe, is one we should cultivate in our own dealings with fellow students, other massage practitioners, and those who might learn from our knowledge and experience. It becomes especially important with those whose background and goals differ from our own.
As we enter massage school, our attitude and actions should convey respect for the school, and our fellow students. In return, we should be demanding in our expectation for a school to respect our time, effort, and money in their actions and attitudes. As we grow to practice and teach, we should again renew our attitude of respect for our clients and students, including the expectation that they act to warrant our respect. One of the best teachers I know has both a gentle heart and a crystal clear projection of her expectations for class behavior. Sometimes her respect is shown in strongly reminding her students that they must learn and work together to succeed.
As we go from novice to journeyman to master, we will interact with the staff and boards of various massage related organizations. We again, as their customers or constituency have the right to be insistent in our expectations for respect and service. Too often, the leaders of organizations need our prodding to remind them to foster a service-oriented culture from top to bottom 4, 6. As Tracey Lowrance suggests, teamwork sometimes requires hard candor in order to reach the mutual rewards beyond.
As I ran uphill on the moonlit road last October, it was ultimately my respect for the support and caring of my teammates that maintained my pace and breathing at a level that left my ribs sore by the following day. There were no demands or disappointments however we each ran, but there was the continuing expectation among us that we each would excel in our own way and in the way that we supported each other. It is the essence of working all together.
While ideas are conceived in individual minds, they are seldom born in isolation and rarely realized alone. — Jerry Hirshberg2
References
1. Bellingham Public Schools, 1999: 7 Essential Skills for Teamwork, <http://www.bham.wednet.edu/mod8team.htm>
2. Hirshberg, Jerry, 1998: The Creative Priority, Harper Business, ISBN 0-88730-960-7.
3. Lowrance, Tracey, 1998: The Recipe for Effective Customer Partnerships: Shared Purpose and Candor, <http://www.womenbusiness.com/customer4.htm>.
4. Morrow, Peggy, 2002: Eight Keys to Creating a Customer Service Culture, Inc, <http://www.inc.com/articles/cust_service/20028-print.html>
5. Peck, M. Scott, 1987: The Rabbi's Gift, from The Different Drum, Touchstone Books, ISBN 0-684-84858-9, <also see http://www.sueknight.co.uk/Journal/Entries/J009.htm>
6. Richardson, Linda, 2000: Creating a Customer-First Customer Service Culture, SLC Insider, <http://www.saleslobby.com/Mag/0302/FELR.asp>.
7. Schroder, George, 1975: Red Tail Hawk, © Gratitude Music Co., As sung by Kate Wolf <http://www.katewolf.com/>
