At first, the management team was understanding. While Wilfred Brown, president of Glacier Metals, expressed an interest in teamwork, perhaps it would take some time for the evidence of productive teamwork to emerge. And while the management team was learning to get to consensus quicker, they would have to endure Wilfred Brown’s veto at the conclusion of most of the Management Team Meetings.

But the ying became more separated from the yang. Efforts to influence the agenda and the decisions became aggressive, then passive. What was the point? Team members could collaborate, advance their cause, form alliances to outvote, finally to manipulate, but in the end, Wilfred Brown would make the decision.

You see, there was something the management team did not know. Actually, they did know, but they did not understand its impact.