{"id":21082,"date":"2017-03-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global2020prd.wpengine.com\/insights\/matrix-management-pods\/"},"modified":"2020-05-11T15:57:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T15:57:31","slug":"matrix-management-pods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/matrix-management-pods\/","title":{"rendered":"Matrix Management Pods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Secrets of Dolphins, the Ryder Cup, England & Matrix Management<\/h2>\n

\"dolphin<\/p>\n

I recently heard an interesting interview on UK radio from a football (soccer) conference in London. It talked about Roy Hodgson, the England manager, breaking down his squad into player sub teams to work on specific areas of the game.<\/p>\n

It also referenced the pod system used successfully by the past US Ryder Cup captain, Paul Azinger.<\/p>\n

Azinger\u2019s system was to break down the squad into small sub teams, of around four people, to build relationships and work intensively on their teamwork and match play.\u00a0\u00a0He modelled this idea on pods of dolphins.\u00a0 Azinger\u00a0claims that this is the way that the European Ryder Cup team naturally organises.\u00a0 It sounds like Hodgson is doing something very similar.<\/p>\n

In our work\u00a0in matrix management and\u00a0virtual teams, we\u2019ve learned that there are some fundamental building blocks of cooperation. In my book, Making the Matrix Work,<\/em> we call this \u201cthe magic numbers of community.\u201d<\/p>\n

[banner heading=”Matrix Management” link=”https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/matrix-management\/model\/” icon=”matrix” anchor=”Read More” align=”left”]See how we an help your leaders engage the matrix to achieve results.[\/banner]<\/p>\n

The first building block is the group of four to\u00a0six people working intensively together \u2013 in our language (at Global Integration) \u00a0this is a \u201cspaghetti team.\u201d\u00a0 This closely matches the pod system and is\u00a0also the typical size of a nuclear family, a special forces fire team, etc.<\/p>\n

One of the objections to this in our training programs is that people often raise the idea of the sports \u201cteam\u201d, which is often in the range 11 to 15 people, which we (at Global Integration) categorize as a \u201cstar group\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I have always felt that in reality, sports teams break down into a number of sub teams –\u00a0in soccer the defence, midfield and attack with defined specialist roles – and an increased need to cooperate\u00a0with each other relative to other parts of the team. These articles appear\u00a0to confirm this belief.<\/p>\n

In spite of a broader confusion with use of the word \u201cteam\u201d, people also\u00a0talk about:<\/p>\n