On Building Teams & MVP's

A while back I shared a post about my “not-so-secret” secret to success
(spoiler alert, it’s teamwork).

Teamwork indeed makes the dream work, but it begs the question;

How does one build a team?

The answer, at least in my experience, is that you don’t.

Let me explain…

Over the years I’ve tried on several occasions to recruit teams and I’ve almost always come up empty handed. People were either too busy, too expensive, too flakey, or just not that interested in what I was doing.

So, instead of reaching OUT, I reached IN. In on myself, my projects, skills and growth. I became my first teammate.

I learned how I work best, and what I truly believe in. I learned to set clearer boundaries, and more realistic goals. I also started to treat myself better - with less judgement, and more grace.

By putting in the work to develop myself and my practice, I naturally started to do, feel, and be better. Which, naturally, attracted the interest of others. Which leads, quite naturally, to my point:

You don’t build teams, you attract them.

Think Micheal Jordan of the Chicago Bulls, or Tom Brady of the New England Patriots. They are not just the players that perform best, they are the players that make their teams perform best - which in turn, makes others want to play with them. They have a special name for this kind of player - an M.V.P. - a “Most Valuable Player”.

A team is only as good as its MVP. So, if right now, you are the only one on your team, guess who your MVP’s gotta be?

Your ability to incrementally improve over time, will attract others who wish to do the same.

Iron sharpens iron. And when magnetized, iron attracts iron as well.

So, how does one become an M.V.P.?

The answer lies in the acronym.

Yes M.V.P. stands for “Most Valuable Player” but I’d offer that it also stands for:

1) Methods, Values & Principles
2) Mission, Vision & Plan
3) Minimum Viable Product

Every success I’ve enjoyed has come from establishing these MVP’s. They may not guarantee success, but they sure are correlated with it.

So let’s break them down:

Our methods are how we work best, the medium(s), processes, environments, and approaches that lead to our best work.

Are you an early riser? or night owl?

Do you work best in isolation? or in the company of others? What tools, materials and procedures help you to do and be your best?

For me, I always go back to my Month of the MassQ series. Not only was it a success, it launched my fine art career, and led to all that I am doing now.

So what made it work?

Seven key things;
1) Time/space
2) clarity of vision,
3) freedom to explore,
4) creative restraints
5) emotional & logistic support,
6) accountability and
7) focus.

When I have all seven, my creativity, productivity and impact all kick into high gear. While I may not always have access to all seven, in knowing what they are I know what to look for, what to prioritize and what to work toward.

Looking back on your own journey, what are the things you need to make your best work? And how can you start prioritizing them now?

Values are the things in life we most appreciate. The things that make our lives worth living.

They are not what you think you should value, or what society tells you to value, but what you truly treasure.

Values inform our decisions, determine our point of view, and ultimately help shape the lives we live. When my work is aligned with my values I feel energized and fulfilled. When my work is out of alignment with my values I feel regret, guilt, frustration, ambivalence and exhaustion.

When I think about my own values I keep returning to Wonder, Intimacy, Truth, Wellness and Appreciation. There are more, but I feel I can generate the rest from these five. It’s important to be as specific as possible. The clearer I am with my values the clearer they appeared in my life.

What would be your top 5 values?

Principles are the rules, guidelines and/or mantras we live by. They are how we uphold and enact our values.

Perhaps one of the greatest principles is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. A simple maxim with profound implications.

Another good example of a set of principles is one’s criteria of engagement.

In general, one’s values determine one’s principles, and one’s principles guide one’s methods. Establishing these for myself and putting them into alignment literally had me walking different.

There is enormous power in knowing what you stand for, and how you stand for it.

What would be some of your principles?

Your mission is your “what” and your “why - what you work to do, and why you work to do it.

My mission is to use my imagination and creativity to transform life’s challenges into art.

Art has the incredible ability to alchemize pain into poetry, and turn trails into tapestries of beauty and resilience. It is what is behind my MassQs, and even what powers these words. Every entry in this pathfinder series is a product of some problem I have faced. I begin and end each of my authentic marketing workshop with the maxim “your art is a solution”. Knowing what you are trying to solve, resolve, explore or bring about is key to harnessing the true power of your practice. Your mission doesn’t have to look or sound like mine, but whatever it may be, know that it is important. And that you have a much better chance of making it happen, if you know what “it” is.

Your vision is what your mission aims to accomplish - the effect you wish your work to have over time (and space).

What will your mission create? Who will benefit from it (beyond just you)?And why is this important?

My vision is to use art to change human behavior. To put humanity back in harmony with itself and its source, and to help humankind realize its fullest potential.

I know, it sounds pretentious, even to me, and impossibly grand.

But perhaps that is the true hallmark of a vision - something worth dedicating one’s life to, even if it may not be accomplished in a lifetime. Put another way, a vision is a cause so noble that the work towards it, is reward in and of itself. Because the work IS the cause itself. I am reminded of the Bruce Lee quote from my previous Wisdom Wednesday Post:

“Not failure, but low aim is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious, even to fail.”
-Bruce Lee

Oftentimes our missions and visions are too small. If your mission is only about you, if it already exists in this world, if it doesn’t challenge the way you think and what you think is possible, then chances are it’s too small. Small, individualistic missions usually garner only small and individualistic impact.

I don’t believe humanity is operating at its fullest potential, and I know it needs to change. The method and medium I’ve chosen to promote that change is art.

So do I think my art can change humanity? Well… I know it’s changed mine.

The art I create constantly pushes me to be more open, compassionate, empathetic, courageous, aware and present. In a word; better. I believe by engaging others in the creative process, it will do the same for them.

Once we have a mission and vision the next step is to form a plan for how to go about them.

There’s a saying that goes: “If you want to make God laugh, tell ‘em your plans”

True indeed. But there’s also the saying, (I just made up) that goes: “If you want to keep God silent, tell ‘em you have none.”

Plans bring focus, organization, and when done well, consistent results. Without a plan no matter how noble your cause is, there is no hope in pursuing it.

Your plan may make God laugh, but who doesn’t like a good laugh? When I find people who make me laugh I tend to keep them around. And as important as I think my mission and vision are, it’s always important to keep a sense of humor. It’s no coincidence that the words “human,” “humility,” and “humor” all derive from the Latin word “humus” meaning “earth”. To be human, humble and humorous literally means to be grounded.

Plans can often get overwhelming. With such grand visions and missions, where do we start?

While your mission and vision may be large, the best plans start small. What is the simplest, most basic way to begin? Getting started is always the hardest part, so making it as easy as possible is the goal.

Enter your Minimum Viable Product.

A Minimum Viable Product, according to technopedia, is a version of a product “with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development”.

Basically, it’s the part of your vision you can create now with what you have on hand. This is usually a much smaller, simpler, and unrefined version of what you envision. There is a reason to start so humbly, beyond just the logistics of it being more affordable. Starting small allows you to make all the mistakes and errors needed to get to a better solution. It allows you to explore and take risks before the stakes get too high, expensive and/or unforgiving. And it allows you to start now rather than waiting for that impossible moment when all conditions are “just right”.

When I went about creating my one-man-show Come On In - Live, I started with just myself and a space. I was at an artist residency at Artisan’s Asylum in Allston (shout out to Lars for helping to make that happen). In recognizing that I had all seven of my methods in place (space/time, clarity, freedom, creative restraints, support, accountability & focus) I began to write a rough script. The script was about my relationship with Hip Hop over time. I wanted to create an experience that would tie together my love of music, visual art and storytelling. Writing the script allowed me to process a lot of the challenges I had faced and was facing in life and turn them into creative expression. And in processing them through a script, I was able to communicate the ideas of the show to others in a clear and coherent way.

This initial script was my minimum viable product. It turned into a “show” I put on with a few hundred bucks worth of supplies, and help from a few talented friends. The friends came along because I was able to communicate to them my vision in a way that aligned with their values (and they liked me:). The same could be said about the handful of folks I got to come out and see the work-in-progress show once it was ready.

It was a rough, duct tape-and-a-prayer kind of production. But it was a start. A producer friend of mine who came see it, saw the shows potential. The mission of the work, to explore the difficulties of growing up Black and male in America, resonated with her. So much so, that she offered to come on board to help me develop it further. With her help I put on a newer, better version of it at Emerson’s Black Box Theatre the next year, this time with a live band. The number of collaborators and audience members multiplied.

After that version at the Black Box Theatre, a few funders came together to invest in what we were doing. With those funds, coupled with a grant from the city of Boston, we were able to bring on a proper director and an actual production team to help me develop the show even further. That allowed us to bring an even tighter version of the show to the Strand Theatre in 2024. The budget, the audience, the show run and team all multiplied once again.

And that is how it works, from one MVP (Methods, Values, Principles); to another (Mission, Vision, Plan); to another (Minimum Viable Product).

I promise, this stuff really works, at least it has for me. I invite you to try it out and see if it does for you.

If so let me know, maybe I feature your story in the next post!

∞

Till then, be art.
-Daniel