A Tale of Two Teams

While working for a mid-sized company, the engineering group took part in a half-day team-building workshop. The organizers divided us into two groups and presented us with a survival challenge. Each group had an hour first to decide if they would stay at the crash site in the middle of the desert or leave in search of aid. Then, we determined which twenty items from a list of eighty were critical to their survival in ranked order.

If you made the incorrect initial decision or didn’t finish within the hour, your team died. The facilitator tallied points based on a comparison to an expert survivalist’s list. Survival depended on passing a threshold score. (Life or death stakes)

I can’t recall how the teams were chosen, though I vaguely remember someone assigning them. However, they would not have been much different if we had picked sides. 

The first group I’ll call Establishment. It included three layers of engineering management and a few favorite employees. Watching the dynamics within the group, it operated within the normal chain of command. The senior manager led the process and adjudicated the final list. Within twenty minutes, the scrape of chair legs against the floor announced their completion like a mike drop. 

I was a member of the second group I’ll call Rebels. Our team was composed of two engineers, a group of designers, and some lab technicians. While a leadership hierarchy existed within the group, we operated the same way we usually worked—collaboratively. When the Establishment finished, a look passed between us. The other team finished in the time it took us to agree on the first question.

Debates within the Rebel group raged on in a spirited manner.

Members of the Establishment critiqued us like announcers at a sporting event.

“Stop fighting. This is a team-building exercise.” 

“It’s not that hard.” 

“You need to pick a leader.”

We ignored them, understanding that what they interpreted as fighting and dissension was passion. Over the years of working together, we had built up trust. Everyone felt safe to voice an opinion, and no one felt offended or became defensive when differences arose. All of us had our eyes on a common goal. To win the challenge.

One detail seared in my mind was the last twenty minutes wrangling over the pocket mirror. Like a scene from Twelve Angry Men, one member lobbied hard for its inclusion on the list. He was like a dog with a bone, yet unable to give concrete reasons for his conviction. His sole argument was the ludicrous nature of the item. The volume of our debate increased as time ran out.

Members of the Establishment team laughed, and one engineer taunted, “Pick the mirror. You want to make certain you look good when you’re dead.” 

The man who made the jeering was a hack who wouldn’t know an engineering principle if it bit his behind. His comment tipped the scales when finalizing our decision. We removed another item from the list and added the mirror high in the ranking. 

What were the results? 

The Establish team perished, only identifying half of the items required to survive, and missed the most important ones. 

The Rebels correctly identified eighteen of the twenty items. Ironically, the mirror was one of the most essential items. We broke into a raucous chorus of, “I will survive.”

Five Lessons on Assessing Forward Progress

Speed and Activity Don’t Guarantee Progress

Establishment team members were smug in their ability to finish the challenge well ahead of the Rebels. Speed and movement feel good, but it’s not an accurate measurement of progress.

Who has spent 30 minutes driving on a ten-mile detour to skip a two-mile backup, only to reenter the highway two cars ahead of where they started? I have. Then patted myself on the back because it felt satisfying. But did all that motion amount to real progress?

AI enables producing books in a few days. Successful romance novelists publish three or more books a year. George R.R. Martin needed five years to write A Game of Thrones. It took Tolkien twelve years to write The Lord of the Rings and another five to get it published. 

Don’t Compare Your Progress to Others

Assessing our team’s progress when the Establishment team finished filled my head with doubts and dread.

Every writer has a unique process and style. When I began writing, I’d read the work of others and think, “Shit. I’ll never be able to do that.” Maybe I won’t. I’m a slow writer who toils away for minute progression. But, with practice and improved editing skills, my stories are improving, and I’m getting faster.

I’m absolutely continuing to compare myself to others as a research, benchmark, and training tool. (Please let me be on the Martin cycle and not the Tolkien one for book completion. ) Reviewing other authors’ websites for ideas, analyzing books I enjoy, and learning from members of my writing community are enormously helpful in pushing my work forward. But I rejoice in my personal milestones and refuse to allow comparison to discourage me from pursuing my goals.

Collaboration Accelerates Progress

Throughout my career as an engineer and project manager, I’ve found collaborative work environments provide the best outcome. Some independent authors might do everything themselves. However, outstanding books are usually not the solitary creation of a single person. The vast majority utilize a group of people who support the process. Family members, critique partners, Beta readers, editors … the list may be quite long.

I began taking part in a daily writing sprint group eight months ago. The discipline aspect is helpful, but the collaboration is golden. Not as critique partners (An entire book could be written on that topic), but in sharing knowledge, commiserating, celebrating small wins, and offering ideas. 

Follow Your Conviction

My Rebel teammate could not provide a powerful reason for including the mirror. He stuck to his conviction because he believed in it.

Sometimes during a SHEG (editing and critique group) session, one person suggests a change, and another replies, “No, that’s my favorite part.” Discerning when to follow feedback and when to stick with your vision can be difficult. My initial inclination was to weigh consensus over my opinion, but as I’ve matured as a writer, that has changed.

When reviewing a draft of Fear, Flight, Hope, all three SHEG members commented on the tie-in between the protagonist’s inability to be a grandmother (a line related to the medical downside of abortion laws on women’s health) and that role being filled by the child in the story as one of their favorite parts. Their positive feedback warmed my writer’s bones but pulled the story in an unwanted direction. I killed this darling to keep with my story vision.

Change Direction to Gain Greatest Forward Motion

The Rebel team’s willingness to change and adjust led to our success. 

For the past fourteen months, I’ve neglected my manuscript while I worked to improve my craft. Being an extremely goal-oriented person, this delay hurt to the core. This detour, I believe, was also the best way for me to move forward. If I had continued moving forward on the book, it would be complete and edited, but the end quality would suffer. 

Changing game plans is a common strategy for success in sports. Many of the plays with the greatest gains in the Super Bowl included sideways motion, change of direction, or running backward. I challenge myself to do the same as an author. Whether killing darlings or deciding on a full rewrite, sometimes the loss in forward motion is what’s needed to reach the goal. 

So, how do you know when you’re making forward progress? 

It’s not about speed or how fast you get words on a page but about remaining fixated on the goal. Adapting. Like the Rebels, it’s about making the most of the resources available, knowing when to stay the course, when to change direction, and when to trust in your convictions—even when they seem dubious.

The next time you question your progress, remember the survival challenge. Remember that true progress is not always linear, but it is meaningful.