Emotional Baggage & Teams

Over the last three months, I have spent more than 100 hours in airports and on planes traveling from client to client and city to city. While this lifestyle feels routine to me, I do have moments when I find myself in awe over the fact that I can board a cylinder made of titanium, steel, and aluminum and in just a few hours resume my life in a new city and a new state.

A few weeks ago, I was waiting in a very loud and crowded terminal preparing for yet another flight. An airline employee kept announcing that passengers could only have one personal item and one carry-on bag with them. He also shared that this was a full flight and he asked passengers to consider checking their carry-on bags because of the very limited overhead bin space. And despite this, I watched a man, let’s call him Luggage Larry, try to board the plane with six, yes SIX, pieces of luggage! He had no concern for the rules or the process that the rest of the passengers were following. Apparently, he felt like he should be an exemption to the luggage limit.

An airline employee quickly pulled Larry aside and required him to check four pieces of his luggage while the rest of us boarded the plane. As we waited for him, I began to think about the physics of flying. I found myself curious about the fact that airplanes can take off carrying more weight than they can safely land with. When a plane is nearing its destination, it has burned off the weight of a lot of fuel and the lighter plane is now safe to land. Planes can’t land carrying the same weight they departed with.

But there are rare exceptions, such as a passenger suffering from a heart attack, or a major storm, or an event like 9/11 when planes were rerouted to the nearest airport before they had enough time to burn off a safe amount of fuel. When this happens, pilots must begin to dump fuel so they can safely land at their unplanned destination. A plane that tries to land when it is over its weight limit runs the risk of damaging the structure of the plane as well as harming the passengers on board.

Life is like a series of flights; we are often taking off and landing in new places, only to turn around and take off once again. Healthy teams and organizations approach their work together with the mindset that everything they do should be moving them closer to their final destination.

And like a plane, teams can often take off with a heavy load, but they cannot land safely carrying that same weight. They must evolve into a better version of themselves while en route to their next destination. They need to burn off or dump their bad habits, limiting beliefs, selfish behaviors, and any emotional baggage that will compromise the success of the group.

But a challenge that teams of all kinds face is realizing while en route that they have a team member who isn’t interested in letting go. Instead, they are focused on what they want, and they are thoughtless in failing to consider how that behavior will impact others. In other words, they have a Luggage Larry on the team whose emotional baggage is weighing them down and limiting their ability to arrive safely at their next destination.  

This could come in the form of a basketball team with a player who is focused solely on how many points she scores and not on winning the game, or a researcher who is modifying data to paint a picture of a particular outcome to earn a promotion, or an educator who won’t contribute to or implement department curriculum but instead does his own thing. These individuals are focused on their own gain and yet, their behavior impacts the success of the entire team. In these situations, a team must decide to circle the sky and never make it to their destination or risk crashing. If we continue with the flying metaphor, we must acknowledge that when the plane crashes everyone suffers.

Knowing that teams must evolve while they move toward their destination makes it all the more important that those who are a part of the team are willing to do what is best for the team.  This means that leaders need to create teams by thinking about the unique skills and gifts that individuals bring without compromising the growth and unity of the team. This is a difficult task for even the most seasoned leaders, but the fact is, not everyone has what it takes to be a part of a team.

We also need to consider that the heavier the plane is, the more it costs in fuel to fly the plane and the same is true in life. Flying a heavy plane costs more money and trying to soar with a team that is carrying excess emotional baggage costs more in human capital.

And if you are wondering wonder about the process of dumping fuel you might be amazed to know that fuel dumps are done at a high altitude and the fuel dissipates long before it hits the ground. In other words, the pilots let go of the fuel and it simply evaporates, it’s like it never even existed.

My advice to high-performing teams is to do the same; get to the highest level you can and then let go of the things that are no longer serving you. Let go and they will disappear.

Teams can’t land at their next destination carrying the same emotional baggage they departed with.

What does your team need to let go of?

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