Fear & OPUS

…is a contradiction.

 

Apathy and “settling” are enemies of OPUS, too — but FEAR is the biggest (and the root of most others).

 

Wednesday I’d scheduled a special practice for a team to share their OPUS with each other.   This is a very cool little team of 8 in a very profitable, small but growing business.    They really love each other, and their leader.   Talk about mustangs — they don’t even have a formal reporting structure…they just run together and make it happen.

 

They’d each met with me & their leader to prep, and I knew they each had done some really cool writing.   So, I was expecting something really magic.

 

That is, until practice was about to begin.   Something was clearly wrong.  There was none of the usual laughing and giggling.   They were scared — and I could tell without words they blamed me.   The  leader told me at least half the team and come to him privately the day before saying they were AFRAID of what their PEERS would think.

 

It’s times like this I’ve learned to ask, “What would Toto do?”   I knew it was time to go off-script, and confront the fear head on.     So I asked the team to WRITE what the #1 enemy of OPUS was, and WHY.    A short pause, and someone dropped the F-bomb.    Heads nodded.  It was out in the open.

 

Then we stayed off-script and read an ancient playbook quote about fanning each other into flame with boldness & love.   Next I had the team write ONE thing for each of their teammates they would like to fan into flame.   The rest of practice they fired each other up  — giving each other in turn the gift of COURAGE & BELIEF.

 

Talk about freaking magic.

 

Then they wrote about WHY we had just done what we just did, and not what we had planned to do, and they found the melody line…

 

FEAR is the enemy of OPUS.

 

And I realized something.   The fear had crept in because all the work they had done on their OPUS was alone.   Their homework to get ready for our next practice was clear — get with a fellow builder, share their OPUS with each other, and fan each other into flame.   And then at the next practice, be a cheerleader for each other when they share it with the whole group.