October 18, 2002

 Future Shoes 
"Teams & Terror"

by Michael Finley
An Amazon.com E-Doc

As a scholar of organizational development, I look at events around me
through the lens of group dynamics -- even the events of September 11. This
may seem trivial. But I believe team theory has much to say about the
implacable adversary that engages us. It may even be helpful in achieving a
resolution.

· It was apparent from the first that we had been attacked not by a country
but by teams of individuals who had planned well, were well-trained, and
performed almost flawlessly under extremely trying circumstances.

· They lived in caves in Afghanistan, many of them, and were considered the
world's most ruthless and resourceful warriors.

· These teams operated autonomously, without a minimum of conventional
contact between one another or between themselves and organizational HQ.

· Since they left scant paper or electronic trails, they were that much
harder to detect and overhear.

· They were not hired. They volunteered for assignment.

· They appeared to do so without compensation, "for the love of it."

· These teams were bound together by a force more powerful than anything our
organizations could offer: extreme religious conviction.

· These teams were willing to suffer death in order to achieve the team
goal.

· The team goal was an intractable and irreversible one: our deaths, and the
annihilation of our civilization.

While we in the west celebrate teamwork in the military, in the space
program, and elsewhere, ours remains predominantly a culture that reveres
individual heroism. So we grimly latched onto the idea of Islamist terror
teams as something quite new, and hard to understand. Their teams swamped
our teams that day, and killed them, and undid the work of millions more.

Indeed, their way of working together was so different from what we call
teams and teamwork that there were moments when we did not think them quite
human, in the way that we are assured of our own humanity -- a sentiment
that quickly funnels us down the swift slope of racism.

At the same time, those of us who try to make teams work look at the naked
effectiveness of these teams, against incredible odds, and find that aspect
of them admirable. We wish our teams -- our work groups, our office mates,
the PTA committee we sit on Wednesday nights -- burned with half their
intensity, and a particle of their willingness to sacrifice.

For the complete article, go to:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000077VAZ/thewhythingsdont

Future Shoes
_{COPYRIGHT (c) 2001
by MICHAEL FINLEY}

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