The McCain/Palin Meltdown and Cog’s Bifurcated Anti-Ladder

Mary T. sent through an article yesterday with some additional detail on Cog’s Ladder. It strikes me after reading it that there ought to be an alternate or complimentary ladder metaphor for dysfunctional teams. One which maps teams that get as far up as, say, the Power Stage and then go off the rails. Those sort of teams most definitely do not simply retreat back down the ladder into the Polite Stage. I have an image of a Y-shaped ladder...

Reading today’s paper I can draw a relevant analogy with the seemingly-doomed McCain/Palin team currently striving to claim the US Presidency. Where this team should by now have ascended Cog’s Ladder all of the way up to the Esprit Stage, the evidence is that they are fracturing and splitting off into (not quiet yet openly-antagonistic) factions. The outlines of a Power Stage struggle are becoming clear. With Palin having (privately, allegedly) conceded that this team’s goals are unachievable, she is now, in effect, positioning herself for the leadership role in the Republican 2012 Team.

As a team, the Republican candidates seem to definitely have said goodbye to the Co-operation Stage. (One has to wonder how fences would be mended in the event of an unforeseen victory, to be followed by four years together in the White House. Really, no-one would know where to look.) Once the goals of the top two team leaders divert, then the activities of the whole team must come to naught. (This is heading right back into the territory of The Five Dysfunctions.)

So I wonder how their ladder could be described? I will have to call the fourth phase of my notional anti-ladder the Covertly Antagonistic Stage, with the final act inevitably: Complete Meltdown Stage. You Betcha!

POSTSCRIPT
OK, so I really, really tried to weave in some form of joke about shooting helicopters from the back of wolves. And although I failed, I failed valiantly.

POST-ELECTION POSTSCRIPT 5/11
One week later, and after yesterday’s resounding Obama victory it is hard to get a handle on what is happening with the McCain/Palin team. Once you are the loser is seems that the media treat you as a historical footnote. Although the internet politico sites suggest that a steady stream of negative spin on Palin is already being leaked from the McCain camp now that their campaign is over.