03/04/2026
ROI for team building is considered soft & hard to quantify. So I thought I'd share this in-depth commentary from one of our clients who speaks to the value better than we could!
"Like many leaders, I sometimes get stuck inside my specialized lane. I start to believe leadership belongs to certain titles, certain meetings, and certain people. This songwriting experience shook that loose. It “unvelcroed” me from my usual boundaries and reminded me that facilitation and leadership are everywhere.
The songwriter leading this activity, began with humility. He told us most songwriters fail. Not once, but constantly. Then he said something that stayed with me. When you fail that often, you develop a kind of courage. You get out of your own way.
It reminded me of the Marshmallow Challenge, where kindergartners often outperform business school students. The kids start building right away. They test the marshmallow early, adjust, and keep iterating. Adults, especially accomplished adults, can get stuck planning and trying to look smart instead of learning quickly.
The songwriter asked a simple question: “What does it mean to be a superintendent?” As you can imagine, our first responses were packed with superintendent language. People shouted out technical terms that were too specific. He listened, nodded, and then redirected us.
“Say it so a child would understand.” That was the moment the room shifted. In one sentence, he did two powerful things. He invited everyone into the work, because everyone can speak plain language. And he raised the quality of the product, because clarity forces truth. He was priming participation while also setting an expectation
We generated words and phrases that captured the lived experience of the our roles. Big decisions. Caring deeply. Being blamed for things outside our control. Wanting to do right by kids and families while navigating noise, urgency, and politics.
I saw my own work in that moment. In our jobs, we often jump too quickly from problem to solution. But strong facilitation slows the group down just enough to select the right frame.
We trimmed. We swapped words. We tested lines out loud. He taught us to pay attention to rhythm and to remove extra syllables. Every time we tried to sound impressive, he brought us back to something truer and simpler.
It was not perfect. That was the point. It was ours. We had made something together from scratch. We had taken scattered thoughts and turned them into a coherent product. We had moved from noise to clarity, from individual comments to shared meaning.
On paper, it was a songwriting workshop. In reality, it was a master class in facilitation. It reminded me that leadership is not a position. It is a practice. It is the ability to create safety, to invite contribution, to simplify complexity, to help a group choose a path, and to guide people from ideas to action."
Thanks to Rusty Tabor for leading the program!
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