The Biggest Loser is in week 10 of the new season; Survivor has aired four episodes; The Amazing Race has completed week three. Being the reality TV nut that I am, I have watched with eyes toward leadership. Let me share a few insights so far. This post – Survivor
Survivor – One World (Season 24). This season's game is starting out as a competition of men against women. I wasn't sure that I was even going to tune in this season – I did a quick preview before the February start. The characters did not seem very interesting and most of the contestants appeared to be jaded and morally neutral or negative. I decided to watch a few episodes before deciding my viewing commitment. After four installments, my concerns have been realized, but the dynamics of the personal relationships has piqued my interest once again.
Several leadership lessons have surfaced quickly and I am confident that the show will continue to provide negative examples of poor leadership.
Episode one captured the women's tribe (Salani) filled with animosity and chaos. A “cat fighting” attitude permeated the tribe and rendered them powerless and confused. During their first immunity challenge, Courtney injured her wrist (a severe break) and had to leave the game. No other team member had to eliminated from the tribe, but tension and harsh words were exchanged among the women. Week two was not any better for the Salani tribe. They lost the second immunity challenge demonstrating a lack of organization, coordination, teamwork and leadership. Alliances within the tribe clearly defined themselves and the majority of the women voted out one of the older members of the team.
Leadership Lesson: Teams often go through a standard sequence of emotions. This reminds me of an older article by Bruce Tuckman (1965) who first came up with the memorable description of team dynamics: "forming, storming, norming and performing" as he explained the path to high-performance teamwork. Teams initially go through a "forming" stage in which members are positive and polite. In this episode of Survivor this stage was incredibly quick. While the women were walking to their campsite they were already forming alliances and separating themselves into groups. As Tuckman (1965) would suggest, some members of the team are anxious, as they hadn't yet worked out exactly what the game was all about. While others were simply excited about the task ahead. As the tribes arrived on the island and I listened to the initial conversations, these are exactly the ideas being expressed.
Soon, reality set in and the tribe moved into a "storming" phase. Members of Salani began to jockey for position and authority. They desperately tried to clarify their roles and find out how to relate to one another. Some of the ladies began to feel overwhelmed while others became uncomfortable with the approach being used within the group. This is the stage, according to Tuckman (1965) when many teams fail, and even those that stick with the task may feel that they are on an emotional roller coaster. Many in the tribe became very frustrated as they tried to focus on the challenges at hand. There was no support of established processes and their relationships with their tribe members became fractured and fragile.
Episode three brought major change to the game. The women won both an awards challenge and immunity sending the men to tribal council. Stability began to materialize. The tribe selected a leader and team confidence began to build. They entered into the next stage: "norming," as a hierarchy was established; team members began to respect one another; and goals were accomplished.
Tuckman (1965) notes that there is often a prolonged overlap between storming and norming behavior: as new tasks come up, the team may lapse back into the typical storming-stage behavior, will need to work through periods of disagreement, and will often experience times of unproductive behavior. This explains Week 4, as again, the women began to self-destruct and point fingers at each other for the failure to win immunity. Fortunately for Salani, the men's tribe (Manono) imploded. After a strong start, the men began to plot and plan and form strong alliances. One the members (Leif) betrayed his alliance and caused the tribe to make Survivor history – they gave their team immunity to the women and chose to go to tribal council and vote out one of their tribe members. The crazy part was that they did not vote out Leif but blindsided another player, Bill. This crazy twist is too involved for this blog posting. Maybe another day....
The final stage of teamwork is called "performing." The group begins to work hard toward shared goals that are supported by the structures and processes that have been set up. In the game of Survivor, this stage is rarely reached and if it is, it is most difficult to maintain for any extended period of time. Tribe members are having to vote colleagues off the island causing extreme angst and frustration.
This is a great reality show to study the dynamic of teamwork.
Another great insight from Survivor involves the application of the Leader-Member Exchange, but that is the subject for another blog....
Tuckman, Bruce W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63, 384-399.
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