How much stress can a Lego® Bridge Handle?

My six-year-old son currently is obsessed with the TV Show Lego Masters. Recently, the competitors had to build a bridge and test its structural integrity. The strongest bridges — of Legos®, mind you — withstood weight of 1000 pounds, and maxed out what the show would allow. The weaker ones only held 125 pounds — but they began to creak and show stressors with less than 40 pounds.

You already know where the cracks are

The teams had television-appropriate, dramatic reactions as they wondered what their bridge would support. But let’s be real: most contestants anticipated what they suspected to be true about their bridges, for better or for worse.

The memory of this episode, and specifically the clutching-at-the-heart-anticipation, came vividly back to me in a conversation with a colleague last week. The sudden switch to remote teaming was exacerbating fissures and stresses that already existed within their team, and that the manager had hoped would resolve.

You can only overlook those cracks for so long

In normal circumstances, those bridges look and often work just fine. We ignore the small fissures and keep working through them and we learn to ignore the occasional creak or crick. But the demand on teams to work under the extreme stressors like the ones we feel right now, much like adding 1000 pounds of weight to a Lego® bridge, can force the team to reckon with these potentially harmful fissures.

With reckoning comes possibility

My recent work with firms navigating this major, stressful change as their teams shift to remote working reveals unsurprising and yet equally powerfully discoveries. What’s unsurprising is the staff’s ability to acknowledge that the sudden shift is in many cases highlighting existing challenges, not introducing new ones; what’s compelling is how staff are demonstrating a willingness to step in, resolve the challenges, and make long-term changes. More than a few staff on teams have said, “This is forcing me to take steps that will ultimately serve my clients better.”

Consider this: right now is an incredibly powerful time to help your team look at its strengths and the fissures that keep them from forging ahead.