My almost three-year-old loves puzzles. Hands-down, her favorite thing to do, more than food, or cartoons, or swinging, or swimming, is to have a puzzle spread out in front of her, pieces in a fragmented chaos, and, piece by piece, make the picture appear.

More often than not, she likes it to be a family project, and will issue her simple and direct invitation to one or more parties: “Will you work with me?” And when the answer is (what I wish could be invariably) “Yes,” the participants gather and the obvious areas, or sections of the job will start to reveal themselves. I like to find the border pieces, so I don’t run amok, out of bounds. Someone else will start on the turtle, the sky, the flowers, and each of us has parts of the larger image we are building together.

When it’s complete, we take in the final product, and she’ll bask in her success for anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds, before she starts breaking it all apart, and demanding either, “Let’s do it again!” or “Let’s do another one!”

She’s not even three, and yet, in this forum, she not only understands that the magic is in the process more than the result, but she is a master of cooperation. She knows the puzzle needs all the pieces, so more people, more pieces, more puzzles, more fun!

Meanwhile, in the grown-up world, problems are rarely fun and puzzles don’t always go together quickly. Our project teams, departments, businesses, schools, governments, committees, churches, YMCAs – even if we follow best practices and are among the best of the BEST in our fields – are still run by people. Wonderfully complicated people with strengths and weaknesses and successes and failures, and we don’t always agree on what to do first, or where to begin. Or which pieces – if any – can we get by without? Or what should the final picture even look like?

And that, of course, means lots of talking. In meetings, with Jones who is always late, and Montgomery and his knee-bouncing, and data collection, and model comparisons, and maybe Chelsea will lead brainstorming sessions, and Jim can start some cost analyses and Franklin will finish up with some market tests and Gary can do the intro that makes us all feel delightfully important and secure, and then! The Magic. Then we’ve made something. Together. And we are focused on the things we DO agree on. Why we show up. Why we live and work and serve in THIS community. And, most important of all, who will benefit?

“Will you work with me?”