I went to the College of Staten Island to partake in a leadership exercise about communication. As leaders, working well in teams is crucial to accomplishing your specific goals. The key takeaway from The Human Knot exercise was, “listen.” Essentially, everyone in a group has their own idea on how to get the job done. Two or more heads are definitely better than one, but what happens when twenty five heads start buzzing all at the same time?

Listen.

Two groups were asked to form knots with their hands in a pre-defined way. We were expected to untangle ourselves without letting go of each others’ hands. What did we do as soon as we were told to start figuring out the puzzle? We each vociferated our own opinions together creating a buzz louder than a vuvuzela. No one was listening to anyone else, each trying our own ideas alone and we were stuck in the same spot that we started for a good five minutes. Then someone started to comment on how we were going nowhere. They were right. Soon after we stopped to listen to a few ideas and proceeded to test out each one. The result was that our group untangled ourselves first.

The solution was simple and within a more minutes even the second group untangled themselves as well. Watching their group work out the process helped me see how disoriented all their chattering made them. What worked for them? They reached a point where they also started to listen to each other and tried out each idea together. The end result was that we witnessed how a fundamental leadership tool plays a vital role in moving forward. Next time the vuvuzela starts playing, what will you do to help move the group forward?

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” -Ernest Miller Hemingway

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