Put the ego aside, choose teamwork, doc recommends

If there were any place on the planet where you'd hope teamwork would be paramount, it would be in the operating room, Yet, even in the medical world, collaboration doesn't always come naturally. Brian Goldman, a Canadian emergency room doctor, CBC Radio host (yes, you read that right) and author of the The Power of Teamwork, knows a thing or two about collaborating. He tells FP Work why a group isn't necessarily a team and what the rest of us can learn about teamwork from doctors.

FP Work: How in the world does an ER doc find time to write a book?!

Brian Goldman: You know what, flashback to March 2020, and I was working from home, saving 90 minutes of commute time every day, and each and every of my scheduled in- and out-of-town speeches were cancelled or postponed. So I actually found myself with extra time, alone to think, and I started thinking about teamwork.

FP Work: Like everyone else, you missed your work friends.

BG: There's a moment before we operate on a patient where we do a safety checklist. You have the surgeons, the assistants, the scrub nurses, a circulating nurse, the anesthesiologist, residents, everyone. They come together, they pool all their skills and knowledge and expertise, and together this team is far greater than the sum of its parts. Everyone does better by working together, and that's a great feeling.

FP Work: But even for you, it didn't just happen. You write, “In my professional past, I was a solo act ... who didn't know how to ask for help and didn't take kindly to appearing as if I needed it.”

BG: That's the mindset, and sometimes the culture, no matter where you work. In my world, you want to be the brilliant doctor who walks into the room, diagnoses the problem that everyone else has missed, then you, and you alone, save the patient. But this isn't true or even good. A better story involves a team gathering facts and presenting each other ideas and challenging the idea that any one person has the answer.

FP Work: Stakes at an office aren't quite so high, but that story could work with a brilliant CEO too. Is this a universal human trait? Is this old-fashioned ego?

BG: I write in the book, “Animals form teams by instinct. For humans it's a choice.” Canadian geese, for example, take turns flying at the front of the V. When the leader gets tired, they move to the back and take a break. Of course, this all comes naturally to a goose. Humans have to teach and train each other, which takes time and effort and practice. It's tempting to feel it's just not worth the effort and get frustrated and say, “You know what? I'll just do it by myself.”

FP Work: Oh gosh, that sounds familiar.

BG: And as for ego, I'd argue there's a lot less of that at play than you'd think and a lot more of sensitivity and shame. People are so wary of looking foolish or stupid or just making a mistake. In an environment like that, if you're terrified of somehow embarrassing or revealing yourself, if you feel that a misstep could affect your place on a rigid hierarchy, that's not a team — that's a group.

IT'S TEMPTING TO ... GET FRUSTRATED AND SAY, `YOU KNOW WHAT? I'LL JUST DO IT BY MYSELF.'

FP Work: What's the difference? And how can you tell which one you're on?

BG: If you have a sense of shared goals, that's a team. If everyone supports everyone else, that's a team. Are you interested and invested in making everyone else look good too, or are you in it for yourself? A really good way to tell, actually, are the idea meetings. If you dread them because they're where ideas go to die, that's a group. If you look forward to them because your ideas get bigger and better, that's a team. People there say, “Yes, and,” which is of course an improv technique. You can't perform with a partner who says “No” and shuts the momentum down.

FP Work: Can you tell me about the “tell me more” method?

BG: Now you're talking about visual thinking strategies and let me tell you a story of one: a group of Harvard medical students at the Museum of Modern Art. These are some of the most overachieving medical brains on the planet but most have no clue at all about art — so there's no expectation of knowledge and no worries about embarrassing yourself with a wrong answer. The facilitator asks them what they see, and what else, and what else? This is an exercise in “team cognition” and they'll come up with something richer, deeper and more complex than any one individual might. That's teamwork at its best.