CLOSE-UP: EXAMINING KITE VALUES
“Values are not absolute truths. They are not attempts to reduce the complexity the life to a word or slogan. Their usefulness is in creative tension they provide, between what we are and what are trying to grow into.”
We continue this series of four explorations of the values that ground the work of KITE. Your comments and thoughts are welcome: This is not a solo journey or a one-way prescription for others, but rather an invitation for all of us to walk together.
VALUE #2: INTERDEPENDENCE.
KITE believes wholeheartedly in the power of collaborative action, of mutual support, and collective wisdom.
Technical challenges can be solved by individual expertise, However, the world’s most pressing challenges are not technical but adaptive one, challenges that present us with a degree of complexity that exceed the capacity of any single individual, no matter brilliant or resourceful they may be.
And so we say: adaptive challenges are inherently collaborative. They require a recognition of interdependence and the complementarity of our diversity and skills. Defining the team’s interdependent work and ensuring that it has the right blend of talent to deliver are essential parts of what KITE refers to as team design.
But, the value of Interdependence has equally profound implications for the inner work of our own company. It shapes our commitment to ongoing collective learning, to co-facilitation and co-creation, and to collective decision-making. It helps protect us from the ever-present tendency to “keep it simple” and go at it alone.
To an extent, it is possible to be great team development practitioners and terrible collaborators. That is not the type of practitioner we aspire to be.
