Embrace Your B-Team

This post comes from my dear friend and super-designer, Adam Weiler. Adam is responsible for building creative social partnerships that impact strategic Sustainable Development Goals, as the Global Manager of Social Innovation at Steelcase. You can connect with Adam here.

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Three lessons from riding the pine that can help you reclaim agency in your life and creative practice.

In 7th grade I was on the basketball team. Let me clarify — I was on the “B-Team”. You know, the not-quite-good-enough-kids-that-wear-warm-ups-all-game team.  There’s a distinct middle-school moment burned in my memory I wanted to share.

First, imagine a small town of 3,000 people in rural Iowa in the mid-90’s. Our team is getting ready to travel to a neighboring town and we’re waiting in the bus (which smells great). I was chatting with some friends when an A-Team’er told me I needed to “sit in the back with my kind.” Woof. 

Petty and small? Yes. 

Emotionally wrecking? Absolutely. 

This social demotion left a long-lingering distaste for being less-than, which I proceeded to flee from in all facets of life. After 30 years, some therapy, and a lot of self-work, it’s become easier to free my self-worth from other’s acceptance of my performance. In the process I’ve come to tolerate—nay, EMBRACE!—all the beautiful things the B-Team has to offer, and I want to challenge you to do the same.

Below are three key ways accepting your B-Team can help shape your personal life richer, your team culture better, and your creative practice more critical: 

  1. It allows you to learn
    In a hyper-competitive environment there can be a tendency to fight for your idea’s rightness. And why wouldn’t you—it’s a symbol of your own contribution! You’ve made the A-team! You deserve this! And by golly you’re gonna stay! This mindset is toxic dumpster fire you need to stay away from. Systems thinker Chris Argyris wrote at length about how difficult it is for high performing smart people to learn and spoiler alert — a lot of it has to do with ego. The inability to own your own weaknesses closes you off to yourself, to others, and reduces the potential of everything you touch. “Embracing your B-Team” means accepting your limitations and being honest with yourself (and others) about these opportunities to grow.

  2. It builds authentic community
    Not only will this vulnerability make you a more tolerable person, it also can bolster trust in your team. My senior year I still loved basketball more than it loved me. Out of 15 spots, seven of us spent the majority of our time on the bench. After one particularly humiliating loss, my fellow pine-riders had an idea to change the narrative. Two weeks and 250 t-shirts later, the student body was donned with our scripture. “Bench Sitting Seven - Only a select few can fall short of the glory.” Any time we would get up by double digits, the crowd would start cheering “BS-7! BS-7!” Admitting that we weren’t the best built community in a way that defending our greatness never could have. Solidarity is a friend of those sharing the struggle.

  3. It reclaims decision making power
    When your identity get’s wrapped up in other’s approval of your _____ [insert work, startup, app, taste in art, physique here] it can be difficult to think critically about whether that thing is actually good for you and good for the world. In a similar spirit Upton Sinclair once said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” In a hyper-consumerist culture, asking these questions this small act of Great Refusal with big implications. Embracing your B-Team reclaims some of the power you’ve given to other’s emotions (which you’ll never be able to control anyway), and increases your ability to think critically about whether or not the thing you’re building gives more life than it takes.

Embracing your B-Team is ongoing work that, admittedly, I’m still in the thick of. It’s a daily challenge to confront my egotism, individualism, and mindlessness — all of which erode the health, beauty, and sustainability of the things I care about most.

Related: Create Psychological Safety
Related: Court Approachability

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