On Braided Fishing Line and Working Together By Mike Mallaro, CEO, VGM Group, Inc.
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began my career as a CPA in an accounting firm. One of my clients was a fishing tackle manufacturer whose lead product was fishing line. Fishing line is made by extruding a melted plastic substance to create a thin line that is both flexible and strong. Fishing for bigger, stronger fish requires a different line. I learned from my client that the way to make stronger line is to braid many individual lines together, similar to the way that rope is made. Braided line is incredibly strong and very difficult to break, yet it retains its flexibility.
diversity point to a battery of research findings that show a diverse team usually outperforms a team lacking diversity, in part because bringing differing skills, viewpoints, and life experiences to a team adds a depth and perspective that enhances results. Braiding via illumination, perhaps. The idea of building a client service team to serve an important client, rather than a single account manager, is built on the strength of multiple relationships, multiple points of connection. Braiding of relationships.
The way to make stronger line is to braid many individual lines together.
Creating a community environment is a necessary prerequisite to utilizing the strength of braiding.
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When people work together to solve problems and serve customers, each person usually brings a unique approach and perspective to the task. I’d like to submit that a team is strongest when emulating the braided fishing line. One person with a good customer relationship is a strong beginning, but a web of people building relationships and connectivity and bringing solutions to the customer’s challenges—that’s braiding.
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Bringing differing skills, viewpoints, and life experiences to a team adds a depth and perspective that enhances results.
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There are versions of this “braiding” in many of our modern leadership theories. Strengths-based leadership encourages us to focus on our individual strengths and to accumulate a team of people with complementary strengths to create a strong team. Braiding of strengths, so to speak. Proponents of
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Braiding has much in common with the formation of community. The power of community is about people feeling they are part of something bigger than themselves. Community has an opportunity to exist when there is a sense of belonging. People cannot be part of a community, a work community or any other community, unless they feel that they are welcome and that they belong there. Community also requires a sense of meaning, that the community is somehow a source of good in the world. Creating community also requires the accessional impactful elements, those bonding moments that get noticed and send a strong and memorable message to community members. Creating a community environment is a necessary prerequisite to utilizing the strength of braiding. Said another way, you cannot successfully braid people together for power unless those people first feel a sense of community among one another.
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VGM Playbook: Protecting Your Most Important Asset: Your People
Braiding makes the bonds between people much stronger and much more difficult to break.
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