Hi Reader,

One of my favourite summertime games as a kid was pick-up sticks. Do any of you older folks out there remember it?

It was simple. You had a pile of long, skinny brightly coloured sticks. You’d let them fall into a tangled heap, and then, one by one, try to lift your sticks out without disturbing anyone else’s. A steady hand. A bit of strategy. And a whole lot of patience.

I was convinced I was the neighbourhood champion. Looking back, I think I need to question that title.

It might have had less to do with my skill and more to do with the fact that no one else really liked the game. They humoured me and played along. They probably knocked my sticks on purpose just so I could win quickly and we could all move on to something more exciting. Like Monopoly. Or anything else.

I still see this show up all the time in business and I’ve written about this before on how to Rock the Role.

We try to neatly define roles. This person does this. That person owns that. Clean lines. Clear accountability. On paper, it looks beautiful. Better yet, a job description gets created.

But really, it’s more like a game of pick up sticks. Suddenly half the team is hovering over the same pile, everyone still holding their own sticks, and no one is entirely sure whose turn it was to begin with.

And the pile never really gets smaller. It just keeps moving.

What it actually looks like is people picking up wherever needed, not waiting for permission from a job description.

So maybe I was never the neighbourhood champion of pick up sticks after all.

However, winning was never the point. But getting the pile sorted was.

And in business, the teams that get somewhere are not the ones arguing over whose stick is whose.

They are the ones who quietly reach in, do the work, and keep the pile from collapsing completely.

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