How to immediately absolve focus and develop a long term caring side.

Group and team work is interesting. You need just the right mix of people to oil the machine nicely to ensure that a healthy balance of task, maintenance and nurture keeps the machine rolling as you want it to role.

Task focused people get shit done! They see the solution and immediately head toward it.

Maintenance oriented people are the care givers - the ones who ensure we stretch, drink, pick up the photo copying and be mindful of other people's ideas and inputs.

Too many of either group personality type and the project will fold due to frustration, annoyance and unpalatable movement.

I am naturally a task person. I like movement, production, the end as quickly as possible.

But, this is not always helpful and is disrespectful to people who are at the opposite end of the "get shit done" continuum.

That's when my maintenance side kicks in and I feel awful that I was all gun-ho and left others out of a group process. I go back to repair and often the damage is done and repair is not possible.

I learnt to change the hard way! After much reflection and sleepless nights, I discovered that it's absolutely okay to balance both the task and maintenance sides of me at the same time.

I learnt that over time, the balance (a slightly slower approach) leads to nurture. The best learning of all is that nurture is a solid platform for building ongoing relationships and creating a culture where people want to work in teams with you.

You never know what's around the corner so don't burn bridges unless you absolutely have to (and only then after having continually used the three perfect formulas for communication as a therapist/counsellor).

Nurture can take a looooong time to see dividends. I believe that in sales and marketing talk it can take 12 contacts before someone trusts you enough to buy from you.

Watch the video above to discover how 15 years turned into a very pleasant connection with another Social Worker.

And here's a video about the difference between task, maintenance and self interest folk.

Till next we speak...and have you,

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