Dreams and teams
I remember the stress, but also the jolt of inspiration, from an online course I took in 2020. The course was called the altMBA, and it was created by marketing guru Seth Godin in conscious opposition to traditional education. It was an intensive, 4-week program for aspiring change agents, emphasizing hands-on group work over individual memorization.
One assignment in particular stands out. It was Saturday morning, and our 6-person team was charged with creating a global change campaign. We had to come up with a transformational concept and have it digitally launched by 5:00 p.m. that day. This meant we had 7 hours.
We all stared at each on the Zoom screen, each of us initially making the case for our personal pet cause. At first, we tried to fuse these ideas together in an attempt to honor each person’s perspective. But we soon realized that would cripple the possibility of our meeting the deadline.
So we pivoted to a top-down approach. We asked ourselves: How could we have the biggest impact on global carbon emissions? We determined the largest sources of the problem are five areas: manufacturing, agriculture, electricity production, buildings, and transportation. We felt the transportation industry had the most relatable connection to the average person, given the obvious reliance on freight transport for everyday consumption. Seeking a more concrete focus, we settled on Amazon Prime.
Then we asked ourselves: What single, simple action could meaningfully reduce global carbon emissions from Amazon Prime’s annual freight volume? It occurred to us that merely committing to monthly batch purchases, rather than perpetuating the practice of impulse buying, would have an outsized return. We weren’t suggesting people should stop using Prime, only that they become more intentional in their consumption habits.
We immediately got to work, building a journey map for website visitors, defining a sequence of themes and emotions for the target audience. We rapidly progressed from paper to PowerPoint and eventually to website copy, submitting our assignment just seconds before the 5:00 pm cut-off.
It was a fascinating exercise from which I learned a few things.
I learned there’s usually more time available than we think. All of us had highly demanding day jobs, and yet we squeezed in about 20 extra hours each week, producing some deeply satisfying work over a one-month period.
I also learned how productive constraints can be. The 7-hour deadline turned out to be more of a help than a hindrance. It forced a number of quick and clarifying decisions on what truly mattered to our mission.
Above all, I learned the power of collective iteration over individual inspiration. We pushed, checked, and redirected each other in unexpectedly fruitful ways, accomplishing more in concert than we could have independently. That’s what a team can do. That’s what it must do.
William James once wrote, “Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, human individuals thus live far within their limits. They possess powers of various sorts which they habitually fail to use.”
Teams are one of the keys to unlocking these powers. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.
(Here is our final submission, in case you’re interested.)