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9,1 In The Same Boat 9,2 The Winner Team 9,3 The 5 Group KPIs
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Lesson 9,1 · Relations / Team Roles · Focus — In The Same Boat

In The Same Boat

High tech needs high touch. When the workplace moves from a fixed address to a password in the cloud, relationships dry up, small talk disappears, and communication turns cold — and belonging becomes the thing a leader has to build on purpose.

Book
In the Same Boat (1980) — groups and communities as metaphors for human development.

Group growth and self-development — a curve pairing the growth of a group with the development of the person inside it
Group growth and self-development. The group and the person move together.

Why read it

In the Same Boat is probably the most accessible introduction to Hagberg as a leadership writer — the book that uses groups and communities as metaphors for human development.

  • Focuses on relationships rather than quick techniques — for leaders, consultants, and anyone working with human development.
  • Deals with responsibility, interaction, and maturity in groups — for anyone who sees leadership as a human practice.
  • Surprisingly timeless, and closely aligned with modern relational leadership — for anyone who sees leadership as more than management.
A large passenger ship seen from the deck, moving across open water
Everybody aboard is going to the same place, whatever they think of each other.

Facts

High tech needs high touch

This lesson sets the agenda for a new kind of workday, and new role patterns in the relationship between leadership and employees. What do we actually know about it — and what do we still not know, because so few have done this before?

How do you work — and what do you miss?

The ideal group

Humans are social animals. We thrive alongside others, and need interaction with others for a good life. The most successful groups tend to be the smaller ones — from five or six up to eleven or twelve participants. This is exactly why family experience matters so much to us, for better or worse: it begins with the basic feeling of being wanted, and is reinforced through upbringing, community, conflict, and reconciliation, all the way to the joy new life brings through children and grandchildren.

Here lies the secret to unlocking energy, joy at work, and collective effort toward shared goals. It is all incredibly simple, almost trivial — and yet extremely difficult. The best coaches and leaders manage it. Now it is your turn to copy the best practice, in your own way. It comes down to five principles:

  1. 1The experience of being wanted and chosen.
  2. 2The feeling of belonging.
  3. 3The upbringing — immersion in shared norms and values.
  4. 4Acceptance and affirmation of who you are.
  5. 5Given and delegated responsibility.

The similarity between being born into a family and being hired into a new job may sound far-fetched at first, but the closer you look the clearer it gets. Your job as a leader is to make your leadership team, department, or team the best “family” — or the best organisation — anyone has ever belonged to.

Small groups — better than large departments

When employees are made more independent — turned into internal consultants and “process owners” inside a value chain of interconnected project organisations — several things happen at once.

First, the work environment fragments, because time — both mental and physical — is split between many clients or assignments.

Second, decision-making responsibility increases for each individual “process owner”, because many decisions have to be made where the work is actually carried out, and most problems get solved where they arise.

Third, project customers pay for competence delivery, not for competence development.

Feeling and emptiness

Red is warm communication. Blue is cold communication.

Most people experience their new role as “process owner” and “competence provider” as liberating and personally developing at first. It is exciting to be trusted, there is a real sense of empowerment in being able to influence things, and it is a genuine challenge to become your own quality controller. At the same time, the change creates new organisational needs and new problems — it reaches into identity and emotion. In the beginning everything feels fine: most people have enough experience, competence, and confidence to perform well in the new role. Over time, though, this becomes a temporary solution. Customers demand more and more, and there is less time left for general competence development and for shared learning with colleagues on other projects. The original colleagues drift in different directions, and new people join whom you never quite get to know.

Intranets and open workspaces replace the old information meetings, without necessarily creating anything new in their place. Gradually, the sense of belonging and the identity of the original professional community weaken.

The customer eventually discovers that the quality profile is no longer predictable, even though the invoice still carries the same address and logo. A feeling of emptiness sets in. The most independent people in the group start working, in effect, as independent consultants.

Mentoring — the new leadership

When something goes out, something else has to come in. Old wisdom does not rust. When work moves from a fixed address to a password in the cloud, something happens to us: relationships dry up, small talk disappears, creativity withers, communication turns cold and technical, and AI and algorithms take over most of the routine.

We have to learn: belonging, and shared ownership of each other’s work, has to become the new success factor.

A practical approach

The need for care and support grows steadily as traditional line organisations weaken and new project-based structures take over. The answer to this dilemma is coaching and supervision. The project manager becomes the new day-to-day leader. The base leader becomes the personnel manager, coach, and supervisor — which demands a new understanding of the role, and new competencies, from that base leader.

The success factor for a coach is having internal consultants in projects who are in demand, who deliver high quality, and who bring strong professional competence. That means the base leader, as a consultant and coach, has to develop the base group into a competence centre people actually want to belong to. The leader’s key asset becomes the ability to share experience, to see people, to support them, and to develop each internal consultant individually.

Looking ahead, large organisations will likely develop parallel competence centres — base organisations that internal consultants can apply to join, much like applying for a popular academic programme. External consulting firms may specialise the same way, as base environments or supervision resources for groups of independent consultants and smaller firms.

The new role of the base leader

In a football metaphor, the supervisor should be able to see and influence the game on the field — without being on the field. A good supervisor is someone who understands how. The SGL supervisor’s success factors are the ability to:

  • Listen.
  • Build networks and connect people.
  • Share knowledge and experience.
  • Provide support.
  • Develop and quality-assure the internal consultants working in projects.

But more about this in Secret 9,2 — The Winner Team.

Your turn

An open notebook and two sharpened pencils on a dark desk under the pool of light from a lamp, the page still blank
The exercise wants a pen and paper, not a keyboard.

Homework 9,1 — What’s your opinion?

The way forward leads backward. Today, cold technology and material wealth have made us strangers to one another. So the way forward leads back — to close human relationships, to emotions, community, and personal growth. It does not run through television and AI development. What we long for is not knowledge, but warmth. Not words, but life and trust.

Sit with that for a moment before you read on. Do you agree — and where, in your own working week, would you actually see the difference?

SGL Secrets — For those who are in need, and those who want a lot!

Next

The climb begins. Secret 9,2 — The Winner Team

Continue to 9,2 →