The Mechanics Behind the Assembly of a Dream: Teambuilding and Leadership on a Shoestring

On Shoestrings and Dreams

Some three years ago, when I was still in the early stages of conception for what WallRide would look like, I was far from understanding the complexities of finding, nurturing, and developing people capable of bringing such a vision to life.

As with most new nonprofits, an abundance of cashflow is not on one’s toolbelt. Also, the nature of a nonprofit — generally speaking — is aimed at solving problems, rather than the creation of need in exchange for products. So, if you aim high enough, you will end up with a demanding list of problems to address, with limited resources to address them.

In this particular line of work, Joe Strummer’s words — “Without People, You’re Nothing” — echo loudly and urgently, for if the issues are challenging and relevant enough, you will not be solving them on your own.

Skateboarders have been famed for preferring a shoelace for a belt, and the analogy could not be more fitting. The tenacity and creativity required to adapt to everchanging surroundings through the act of skateboarding, are the same qualities that any organisation would be lucky to have amidst its team. And, through WallRide, I found that — if you are patient enough and are paying the right attention to people — your dream team may be right in front of you.

It has become a bit of a cliché to say that one should engage with people based on what they can be, rather than what they are — but that is exactly the right approach to have when interacting with those around you.

Dreams as Currency

Everyone has different motivations for getting out of bed in the long run, and money is but one of them — and not always a priority. This is especially true among younger generations, when purpose is highly entangled with how their time is invested. And their passions, dreams, visions, values — among other factors — are usually not hidden too far up their sleeves, if hidden at all.

To affect tangible change in society without running the risk of being insincere, the possession of a ‘social justice radar’ capable of cataloguing every instance of injustice and inequality in sight is not enough. It is, in fact, a pretty useless tool to wield anywhere aside from policymaker’s offices and removed universities.

Therefore, the primary focus should always be on people, and then concepts and ideas. Skateboarding, as a practice, has the power to organically sit a very plural, and oftentimes representative, crowd of individuals at the same table. And even though there are transversal character or cultural traits across all skateboarders, their backgrounds are as varied as there are trick variations (which is, theoretically, an infinite amount). This plurality of factors includes race, gender, social stratosphere, nationality, language, sex, ethnicity (and many more), and any intersections between them.

The outcome is an immensely diverse community — with a wide range of motivators to meet and (mostly) get along — gravitating towards common social and physical spaces. This is synonymous not only with a vast array of perspectives, but also with multiple formal and informal skills, translated into a pool of potential waiting to be tapped into; if one has the proper approach.

Also, although skateboarding sounds like a particular example, it is but an analogy for formal or informal social circles anywhere. Look hard enough, and you will find that, where there are people, there is potential.

The Real World and its Demands

As I found myself travelling from the smooth landscapes of theoretical conception into the rougher terrains of the practical application of ideas, I was also forced to look away from papers, research, and bureaucracy — all individual in nature — and into the real world depicted in them. Regardless of how many policies you can dream up, how many solutions you can contemplate, daily life requires (alas, demands) your attention.

You can write away one million brilliant ideas about the potential of, let’s say the skatepark, to further the lives of people; but eloquence will not make up for the fact that the real world needs us to contribute today for our visions of tomorrow.

When I started working at the Faro skatepark, for example, it was borderline unusable as a sports facility, there was nothing resembling an office space, and the social environment was — as it wrongly appeared — irreversibly degrading. Therefore, alongside plans for schools, minority protection programmes, or poverty response strategies, there was as urgent of a need to address these other demands. And, if you want to enact any purposeful change at any noticeable pace, other people will be needed.

The good part of starting to work from and at a skatepark, is that it allowed for a shortcut into — or at least some common ground through — shared passions. For you can only gather people around a single purpose once you can identify any possible common denominators.

Asking without Asking

I’m a big fan — when contextually appropriate — of not asking directly for help.

It is a big statement, and I am a firm believer in asking for help from those around you. But what I mean by ‘Contextually Appropriate’, is that, when starting an ambitious project with a lengthy timeframe in mind (and doing so without a solid team to begin with), it is better to ‘ask’ for help in the form of your own actions.

In other words, prioritise getting to know your community, their needs, their interests, their individual and communal strengths and weaknesses, their potential, and so on. If the work is visible enough, those with the predisposition and intention to contribute will step up.

It may prove, in the short term, that the workload will be twice or thrice as hard to bear, but it will contribute to the creation of trust and credibility, and serve as an effective character assessment. If someone volunteers to help because they empathise with the person working, and understand the reasons and vision behind it, that person has the potential make a very meaningful contribution well into the future.

Alternatively, when one (in the starting stage of a project) asks for help (especially for inconvenient or unpleasant tasks), there is the risk of further alienating some people, and leave you in the position of possibly having to return a favour to someone you know little about.

We all need help. That is an undisputable fact. But it is also important to ensure that help comes from the right people, with the right intentions.

Dreams, Skills & Vision

Despite the particularity of certain examples, the transversal truth pertains to human nature.

We may talk about teams, work, tasks, and even — dare I say, Human Resources — but it all comes down to people, and what they need to fuel their own existence.

Beyond — and oftentimes above — money, there is an endless list of motives propelling people’s trajectories. And once you have established some common ground, you should shift your focus to the individual.

Going back to the skateboarding analogy, once you gathered people at the skatepark (common ground), investigate further into their dreams and aspirations. For example, a person who skateboards may dream of being a professional skateboarder, or, she may be an aspiring musician who loves to skateboard, or a Nobel-aspiring student who finds a creative outlet in skateboarding. Whatever the motivation, whatever the common denominator, there is more to people than it seems.

‘And, why does music matter, if you are attempting to build a nonprofit aimed at the betterment of society?’, you might ask.

It matters, once more, because ‘without people you are nothing’, and caring for people’s dreams has two distinct effects: It makes people invested, whilst expanding the capacity and scope of your own vision and dreams.

The Ultimate Motivator

We all have dreams of our own, things we wish to accomplish, places we want to see. And the roads that we must travel to get there will not always be obvious. Dreams are of extreme importance if we are to harness the full human potential in our midst.

As such, once the common denominator allows us to establish a way to learn more in depth about each other, we are well on our way to see into the meaningful sections of one’s existence. From there we can identify those aspirations — some more dormant than others -, and truly start to understand them: the mechanics behind the assembly of a dream.

Everyone has different resources, perspectives, connections, ideas (etc), even for areas of life which they know little about. Just because I am not a musician, does not mean I do not know influential people in that industry — I simply do not think about that, for it was neither my dream nor focus.

By shifting (or more precisely, broadening) our attention to include the people around us, we are ultimately increasing our own knowledge and worldview, while simultaneously and genuinely caring for and improving another person’s life, alongside our own.

Regardless of the kindness and altruism present in anyone’s heart, we are inherently individualistic beings, and will care more passionately about those people and projects that have a direct impact on our own wellbeing and improvement.

Understanding this allows us to witness a rare event, where through the acceptance of the nature and naturalness of selfishness (the amoral approach to it), we arrive at a place where we all win.

Beyond the obvious

Everyone has a different skillset, and there is seldom such a thing as a useless skill — just wrong contexts. Remember the (possibly falsely attributed) Einstein quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”.

By allowing yourself to deeply empathize with someone — beyond what that person means to you, and immerse yourself into what it means to be in their world — you are ultimately positioning yourself in a privileged vantage point.

The purpose of bridges is not merely to see what is on the other side, but to allow one to step foot in an alternative (and otherwise inaccessible) reality. Different terrains, different realities, bring new textures, new challenges, new smells, and more — and with such differences there come new modi operandi, logical in their own contexts.

People who have adjusted themselves to chase and build their own realities, have also acquired the appropriate strategies and tools to cope. Regardless of sophistication or eloquence, they know things you do not. If you are paying the right kind of attention, you may be lucky enough to learn, to expand your toolkit, and to become a better human being in the process. Since no one will ever be the best at absolutely everything, such awareness translates into more capable, effective, and long-lasting projects and relationships.

A person who actively limits their access to any reality (and there are as many realities as there are people in this world), limits their own path to become a whole Human Being — with nothing but a self-imposed fragmented existence.

Expanding the vision

I could have been someone

Well, so could anyone

You took my dreams from me, when I first found you

I kept them with me babe, I put them with my own

Can´t make it out alone

I built my dreams around you

• The Pogues, Fairytale of New York

At the risk of overstating some points, I believe the Pogues said it more eloquently than I could ever do so. If we think of dreams, visions, and skills, not as separate entities, but rather as prospective bricks capable of building a Home, then our attitude and outlook on those around us will inevitably change.

Everyone is capable of being ‘someone’, and success is as much about context (if not more) as it is about skill. Through empathy and imagination, we can start to see people for who they truly are: which is always who they are capable of becoming. The faster we understand that their dreams are our dreams, that they are essential parts we did not know were missing, the faster a project’s full potential becomes apparent.

Returning to the example of musicians and skateboarding nonprofits. In your original vision you might have thought about teaching skateboarding to underprivileged children — No musicians needed there, right?

But skateboarding is a culture where music (and the arts in general) has a central role. A musician who can skateboard, can teach both skateboarding and music. Therefore, you can contribute for the development of both skateboarders and musicians. Considering that the heart of any social project is to reach, help, and protect as many people as possible, the only illogical step would be to overlook music in this context.

From this point forward, it makes a lot of sense to invest in the musician’s career, art, and wellbeing — Whether through words of appreciation, finding more and better equipment, or creating opportunities to showcase her work (among many other possibilities). This reinforces the ties between the organisation and the community, building a dream within a dream, while simultaneously augmenting the reach and impact of its work: win-win.

On Dreams and Nightmares

It has often been said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. In that logic, the opposite of a dream is not a nightmare, but the absence of one.

One can even argue that the absence of a dream is but a dormant nightmare, for it means there is a part of our existence that remains blankly wasting minutes and hours. Both literally and figuratively it is a tragic waste to — either with our eyes closed in slumber or opened prior to that — not see, not experience, a reality and life that exist beyond the imprisonment of present time.

The examples will not always be as obvious as skateboarding musicians, but just because something is not obvious, does not mean it is not there. Where there is a breath, there is a world of possibility, and those equipped with the tools to understand that have an obligation to unearth it, nurture it, and live up to their visions of a better world.