People Strategies: Teamwork fulfilling regardless of task at hand

Linda Bower is a speaker, executive coach and human performance improvement consultant in Rogersville.

Moving a partially paralyzed donkey is a farmer's version of a business issue. My neighbors were in nowhere North Dakota and left me in charge of their farm. It's usually a blast caring for some 80 animals. I get to interact with donkeys, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, peacocks, goldfish and sometimes, unfortunately, the wild critters that go with them.

Sunday morning I found Belle struggling to deliver a stillborn baby. Long story short, I pulled the baby before the veterinarian could get there, in hopes of saving the mother's life. The mother was pinned in a muddy ditch, on a downward slope, caught in a fence. There was little hope that she would live through the night. My neighbors were often out of cell phone range, and we could only communicate sporadically.

She did live through the night and the next, but was paralyzed in the hip area. She couldn't move her left rear leg or swish her tail. The veterinarian advised my neighbor's cousin, Dave Plaster, and me to move Belle to a cleaner place. We needed help to get her out of the ditch and standing or we would lose her.

Within an hour we assembled four more people. Our team consisted of two men over 60 years old and four women in our mid-40s. As people were on their way, Dave gathered materials to aid the team: a large piece of plywood, a drill, a tarp, wire cutters, plenty of rope and a truck.

In Portugal, I've been consulting in the area of implementing innovative solutions in teams; places where decisions are profit and loss, not life and death. Tools are computers and telephones, not ropes and wire cutters. I never expected to see William Miller's articulation of the team innovation process while wearing muddy blue jeans.

According to Miller, in his book "Flash of Brilliance," there are four stages and eight steps to implementing an innovative solution: The Challenge, The Focus, The Creative Solutions and The Completion.

In the first step of the first stage, we established The Goal as moving the donkey to a cleaner place. The second step found us Assessing Risks. We had to stabilize the donkey while moving her 20 feet up a rocky incline, through a double fence, without anyone getting hurt.

After we understood the challenge, we moved to The Focus. The first step is Tap into Character." Clearly, our strength was ingenuity and not physical. We couldn't lift a 300-pound donkey, but we could use the tools Dave provided.

During the second step, Analyze Priority Issues, we had to find a place where she would be on level, dry ground in the shade. There was no way to get her into the barn or corral.

The Creative Solutions stage began with Generating Options. We quickly agreed the most obvious place was a fruit grove about 300 feet away.

In the second step, Decide a Solution, we agreed to cut the bottom lines of the fence, roll the donkey onto the plywood and use all of our hands to keep the donkey in place as the truck pulled the plywood on top of the tarp.

During the fourth stage, The Completion, the first step is Implement Change. We called to each other as we guided the platform through the twists and turns. Belle was dazed, though she seemed to enjoy the ride.

The final step is Celebrate Results. Miller is adamant that teams need to celebrate significant milestones to maintain energy and commitment. It wasn't difficult to feel good about what we had done.

Belle immediately looked brighter and sat up to eat grass. Our moods changed from dark to bright as we watched Belle's energy, cleanliness and comfort increase.

We congratulated each other and drank a lot of water. We reflected on what we had done and acknowledged that it was kind of fun. Many thanks to Dave Plaster, Bill Sale, Alishia Brundege, Lean McKay and Katie McCroskey.

As it goes with animals, the challenge continues. Clifford Spivy, Mike Webster, Bill Van Cleave and Jerry Underwood have all taken shifts to lift Belle with rubber hoses to exercise her hips.

Even if she doesn't live, she gave us a very special gift. She brought a community together to face a tough challenge. Through it all, every one of us learned something and had the opportunity to contribute to something meaningful. If a team can say that, then hasn't it been successful?