After 2 flights and about 15 hours I made it to Paris. Like many people after a long over night flight my first need was finding the nearest washroom to freshen up. While on my flight I had tried a recommended homeopathic medicine for no jet lag (literally called no jet lag). As I went to the mirror to assess the damage of no sleep I glanced at myself and thought – not too shabby. This medicine is pretty amazing.  😉

I navigated my way through to the proper terminal for my next departure. I knew from the 19 messages on What’s App when I landed that several of my colleagues were already at CDG waiting at the gate. I was excited to finally meet them all in person. But not so excited that I didn’t stop at the Starbucks along the way! What I love about Starbucks is that it always meets my expectations. I can rely on them having exactly what I want (matcha green tea latte with soy milk). No matter the country (so far) I’ve not been let down in meeting my expectations.

Expectations are interesting. We get used to a preference, a way that things always are, and whether it is good or bad often does not matter. It’s what we expected. We have an emotional connection to being able to rely on that expectation. We can trust that it will be that way and this is calming. Relaxing.

While I had met all of my colleagues (minus one) through video conference I still did not really know them. However, we had been messaging each other through different tools along the way so there were certain things I had come to expect. For example, anytime I posted a question in our SLACK group I was confident that one of three people (Anna, John or Muruli) would respond within minutes if not seconds. I already had a great sense of reliability and thoughtfulness just in that small level of exchange. And of course within the hour of meeting Anna she has thoughtfully offered to teach us all yoga every morning. My expectations once again have lined up to reality. All is good.

This is not my first time being put together with “strangers” for a unique purpose and timeframe. I can recall my most recent experience in becoming a faculty member in one of our internal leadership courses. On that first day together it became very clear that we were all very passionate about this topic and had unique perspectives to share. And we were not shy about sharing them. I’m afraid the learning and knowledge internal team that was there to train us might have hoped we were a little less vocal. However, we bonded quickly because of these similarities. First on passion for the topic. Second on respect for each other’s voice.

Before this I had been part of a year long leadership program with people from around the world and outside of IBM. While we may have all joined this leadership program for the sake of improving our leadership – we each still came to the first morning with mixed personal goals. That first week was slightly different than my experience today or the one mentioned above. I felt allot of “sizing each other up” in that first day or two. A mix of quiet reserve and occasional outspokenness with a quick dash of checking out where do I fit into this group. Obviously that judgement I felt was completely in my own head, whether shared or not, and says something about where I was in my leadership journey as I started that program.

Today was easy. Comfortable. Immediate connection. Laughter. Playfulness. Sharing experiences. So much so that by the end of the first day all 15 of us had committed to a weekend away together for the very next weekend.

What I notice in two of these experiences is how when a group is brought together for a specific purpose then I believe there is a different mindset we come into that relationship with each other. Maybe there is still some sizing up going on and I’ve just grown out of that for myself. But for me I certainly feel a difference. When we have a common goal there is alignment. There is an interest to understand each other for the sake of how will we work together. There is a desire to be the best team who have ever done this before. There is a hope that not only will we achieve something great but we will have allot of fun doing it.

I know our brains are hardwired for much of this and as such we need to be very conscious of that hard wiring. If my Starbucks Matcha Green Tea Soy Latte this morning was actually really bad would I have noticed a difference?