Leading The Lava: TEAM LAVA: SOLID, LIQUID, OR GAS?

#2 Lava: solid, liquid, or gas

As a chemistry major in my younger years, I often find myself breaking complex situations down into basic concepts. It helps me to avoid feeling overwhelmed, and it also helps me relate thinigs to others. In this case, lava can take the shape of all three of the basic states of matter. We can use the related yet very different properties of each state and apply those to the motivation level and behaviors of our team members. Please see the diagram below, courtesy of http://www.explainthatstuff.com/states-of-matter.html (a great refresher can be found there as well if you are a little rusty on your sciences).

Woodford, Chris. (2009) States of matter. Retrieved from http://www.explainthatstuff.com/states-of-matter.html. [Accessed 25 Aug 2014]

We will hope that you get to start with people slightly more productive and more motivated than rocks, but even if that's what you have, at least you have a starting point! Remember another basic rule of science, you cannot create new matter but only change what's already in existence. Many times this is true for our team, because we aren't given unlimited assets to hire in order to improve our team. Typically more funding comes from already being productive.

While this state may be "strong", it is only stable in its form when its environment is stable as well. If the world around it is changing (increased temp, pressure, movement), then the solid may crack, break, transform shape or state. So, you see why in an ever-changing world, this is not the ideal state for your team. A solid is only stable if you are not going anywhere, if you don't want to grow, just maintain.

As you can see, a liquid team is a little crazier. It is moving! Particles are not uniformly stacked together. They are going and bumping into one another, changing their direction as a reaction to their interactions. This is exactly what you want: movement! What's more, you want this liquid moving in the direction you want it to go. As you motivate your team to collaborate, "bounce" ideas off of each other, collectively get creative, you will see them start to gain an energy like never before. They will talk to you more frankly (prepare yourself) and show a desire to be hands on with taking on the world around them and believing they can change it!

How do you get from SOLID to LIQUID? Well, in the case of lava, you have to melt more rock. It is the pressure and heat (passion and motivation) from the center of the Earth (you, the leader) that melts these chunks of Earth and Rock into a massive mighty boiling underground river of magma. This red flowing fiery liquid not only consumes everything in its path but it is unstoppable by anything that could possibly stand in its way! Alone, a rock is just a rock, and a drop of liquid, even a drop of lava, can be reckoned with, but collectively, this is where you see the magic happen. An explosion of this underground river of fire, now isn't that what you want your team to be?

In the gaseous state, these same molecules from the liquid and solid state are really in an uncontainable form. This has to be you to get your lava stirred up. How do you get this way, UNCONTAINABLE? I know you are asking! You get PASSIONATE about what you do and what is your purpose and what you CAN do and not just what YOU can do on your own, but what you can do WITH your army, with your river of lava! Working in healthcare, I can easily get overly excited about showing patients compassion to get them to hear me and then empowering them with knowledge that will change how they care for themselves, but I believe that we can all find purpose and fulfillment in our everyday duties if we make our position an extension of who we are and not just what we do.

I also feel empowered when I think about how I can motivate others, my staff, my students, to view their abilities the way that I see them. Building their confidence is definitely another way to get them hot about what they do. Remember, coaching for improvement will be important in directing them where you want them to go, but first you need to get them moving. So, heating them up by getting them pumped for their cause and rallying the troops must come first. If you followed the directions in post #1, you will know your staff and will know how to get them going.

How long it takes to get there is different for every team. There is work cultures to break through sometimes, mistrust of management, mistrust of each other, sometimes years of dysfunction, apathy, and bad habits. I'm not saying everyone's journey to explosion will be easy, BUT I am very confident that if you are a leader and you do that, you lead, they will follow. It starts with one and then another and then two more and then when your team can't contain anymore enthusiasm without something happening, BOOM! You exceed your point of no return. Once people see that they can make a difference, that voices are heard, that collectively they can bring about positive changes, you can't push that lava back into that mountain.

You have to be consistent. You have to be persistent. You have to stand for what is important to you. You have to share with them that you are human too, but that your intentions are honest, that you are in it together, and that they will want to go where you want to them. That will get you the eruption your organization needs.

Photo courtesy of http://www.worldvolcanoes.info/ [Accessed 25 Aug 2014].