There is beauty in being a recovering perfectionist. Recovery led to a personality shift and the recognition that neither optimism nor pessimism works in for me in life. I landed on being pragmatic.

pragmatic (adj) – relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters: practical as opposed to idealistic (credit Merriam-Webster.com)

As a child, I saw the world through melancholy glasses and pessimism. For the most part, I was creative and not inclined to practical pursuits.

That all changed when I enlisted in the U.S. Navy. I slowly shifted away from impractical pursuits to practical matters. I suppose “adulting” and responsibility do that to you.

Being pragmatic on teams

Teams evaluate trade-offs. They assess risk and reward for the choices they make. As a result, being pragmatic is important to team effectiveness.

I appreciate what Dr. John Turner presents on his blog on team science. Specifically on the principles of teamwork.

A theme I take away from the Team Principles, Category 1 – What is teamwork, is effective teams are pragmatic AND creative.

No one checks their innate, creative potential when they join a team. Instead, they learn to judge the timing when it’s appropriate to be creative versus practical.

Like most activities in life, there’s a need to strike balance. This is practical approaches to teamwork can achieve effective outcomes.

One tools I use to help balance the team dynamics is the Cynefin framework. Cynefin enables problem space identification and team alignment.

I would encourage you to take a look at Dave Snowden‘s work on Cynefin as its part of my toolbox for teamwork. As well, consider John Turners work on team science to help build understanding about what effective teams look like.