This blog is adapted from the
article published in The Professional Manager Journal of the Post Graduate
Institute of Management of Sri Lanka in the 3rd Issue – January
2011.
I pay a tribute to Prof. Uditha
Liyanage who invited me to write this article and facilitate sessions on
Leadership and Values to graduating MBA students where I introduced emotional
intelligence and mindfulness.
Another tribute to my mentor
and training maestro – Robert Vandewall of Sage Training who invited me to
jump into the deep end of t
raining and facilitating in 2001 in Colombo, Sri
Lanka – patiently guiding and mentoring me and having fun doing it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
The biggest
challenge for an organizational coach-consultant-trainer is that no one
organization is the same. However, there
is a common thread in the human condition and the kinds of issues and problems most
organizations face. This article takes a
journey through a typical external intervention for an organization seeking
more efficiencies, better performance and improved bottom line through a lens
of the science and art of leadership learning.
The focus is
on the leaders, as they set the stage and the tone for the culture for the collective
team to perform and meet client requirements.
A leadership
transformation to influence organizational culture, morale and manage
performance from a traditional hierarchical way to a team centered one requires
a ‘deep-tissue’ change in the individual.
As a student
of philosophy, history, organizational development and human behavior - I am
constantly researching, inquiring and engage in practices such as mindfulness meditation
to explore how our mind works - as leadership is about mindset.
I study
psychology from eastern, western and indigenous perspectives delving into Vedic
and Buddhist philosophies, nature and science-based narratives, as well as
original teachings of Christianity and Islam - the concept of God, as all these
play an important part of an individual’s life.
From this esoteric
end, I also keep track of the latest discoveries in neuroscience, epigenetics and
the biology of learning in relation to leadership and management theories and
practices. Any intervention with
organizations and individuals arise from this base, as I seek to go back to the
root cause(s) of a typical challenge – whether its low morale or productivity.
This process brings to the surface our ‘unconscious incompetence’ - to realize
that our frame of reference with anything is generally limited to our conditioning
from life’s experiences and the culture we are immersed in. Anything outside this frame may give rise to
fear, as it is simply not within the comfort zone or frame of reference.
My role is
to gently help leaders come to this realization with compassion. The more I research, learn and engage in this
area with diverse organizations and people, it makes for a rich action learning
and appreciative inquiry.
This is a process of co-learning and inquiring as I help leaders and
organizations put a mirror on self - to be mindful about their impact with
every word that they utter and their actions.
The story
illustrates how personal transformation requires courage and a will - first to put
a mirror on self for inner inquiry, reflection and transformation - to help
facilitate organizational change at the root, which is a deep and risky process. What underpins that is how open the leader is
to change self in the way power is wielded and how emotions are managed through
the process.
This
requires an understanding of how the brain is wired - and what motivates and drive
us. Then we need to acknowledge
our multiple intelligence(s) and emotions along with the spiritual base which provides a
foundation of purpose and integrity for everything we do.
The Story
“My people are not taking responsibility and not accountable” says an owner-CEO of a medium sized manufacturing company. This is causing costly mistakes for the
business and beginning to hurt the bottom line.
This
seemingly simple statement opens a Pandora’s box of what ails most
organizations in the world. The CEO goes on
to ask me to design a training program to help the managers become motivated
and take more responsibility, as the company is not performing to deliver desired results.
Next, I delicately form questions to assess the CEO’s leadership style. My task is to assess how much of this style is
contributing to the situation. Digging deep enough could reveal that the current leadership style, which has worked very
well as the company grew, is now becoming a burden as it matures.
My role is
to further investigate the causes and I suggest focus
group meetings with different levels of the organization including the front-line
workers gain more insight.
Talking to
many people allows me to assess their morale, emotional well-being and stress at
work, and any mis-alignments in perceptions about the organization and the
leadership style.
I first build their
trust to be open by talking about my philosophy about work-life balance and the
meaning and purpose to life we all seek - what matters at the end of the day. I also assure them of the confidentiality in how I will use the information - for the common good of the organization.
As we spend
2/3rds of our time at work, how important is it to be motivated and happy to
come to work, feel safe, perform and make it meaningful?
Using the Johari’s
Window as a basis to understand conscious and unconscious bias
that helps self-awareness and understanding of others, I divulge information about myself
and explain some of my own blind-spots that I am working on. That way I gain their trust and confidence to create
a safe space for them to express freely.
I ask open-ended
questions such as these to guide a discussion;
Eventually a
lively discussion ensues about their feelings, leadership style, delegation,
teamwork, communications, processes, systemic and hygiene issues.
Having spent
time with a cross section of the different levels, it seems that the CEO is
operating with Douglas McGregor’s harder version of Theory X, which assumes
that workers are generally lazy, have little ambition, prefer to be led and
resist change. The CEO controls,
threatens, even punishes when things do not meet expectations. This is self-fulfilling as if one expects
people not to take responsibility and need to be directed, they will conform to
that expectation.
Often, this
results in poor teamwork and cross-functional cooperation - especially at the
level of department heads, who do not have the freedom to act with a
micromanaging CEO. Any issue or conflict
gets sorted through the CEO’s intervention.
The CEO
seems unconscious of the impact the Theory X style has on a maturing
organization. No one had advised the CEO
that the record of past success in running the business in their own way may
not be appropriate anymore.
Managing
more than Leading
This
hierarchical style lends itself to the CEO managing, even micromanaging the
business and not leading.
Leadership
is about being a visionary, thinking long-term, focusing on external PEST factors
(political, economic, social, technological and environmental – all uncontrollable)
and being strategic to internally, motivate and inspire the team to grow - to be
independent by creating an appreciative and a positive culture. It is to instill a sense of pride and
belonging - nurtured as a part of a cohesive team on a purposeful mission.
To achieve
this the CEO’s leadership/management split needs to be around 80/20 but in this
case, it is the other way around. The
CEO is often involved in solving the team’s problems - getting engrossed in
processes, micromanaging and firefighting to meet orders.
CEO has very
little time to self-reflect, watch for signs of low morale and stress and look outwards
at the changing world. In micromanaging
the business there is no time to listen, coach, guide, train, create the
conditions and inspire people to take pride in their work by providing a safe
environment to achieve business goals.
Beneath the
surface there are undercurrents and intrigue, as managers jockey for position
to win favor, telling stories that the CEO thinks provides insights about the
internal workings and relationships - in fact - telling what the CEO wants to
hear. Stories are spiced up to curry
favor leading to gossip and divisions resulting in dysfunction with a clash of
interests.
Habits
and Conditioning
Being
hierarchical is not unusual given the baby boomer conditioning and culture of
the CEO. Formal education conditions
most to focus on the rational and logical, to judge and analyze, ignoring the
importance of emotional and relationship intelligence – to manage self and
others, to be intuitive and creative.
This leads
to poor human interaction, silos and a lack of trust between the team, so the organization
becomes ‘overbounded’, highly concentrated and regulated (Bolman & Deal –
2003; p196).
Finally,
when I go back with my recommendations and a draft plan for an intervention
that includes the CEO, there are two reactions.
One is to show me the door and the other is to take a risk and play.
To play - the initial focus is on the CEO
and the senior management team and the roller coaster ride begins.
The
Intervention
There is
never a simple solution for an organization as it is populated with a host of
different people of diverse cultures and backgrounds. Then there is the question of politics and
power plays.
The CEO has
the ultimate power, but where are the other informal power centers in the
organization?. That could be anywhere,
even at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Politics
naturally arise out of interdependence, divergent interests and power relations,
but we could make it the scapegoat for the lack of accountability, selfishness
and incompetence. Clash of interests arises
from poor leadership and dysfunctional relationships, which makes politics and
conflict a natural condition of an organization.
In this context,
throwing myself into this ‘lion’s den’ is a risky and a dangerous
proposition.
The process,
even with a framework and a plan may take a life of its own, as it is executed
in an experiential and interactive manner – giving them the ownership, with me
as a facilitator interspersed with educating and guiding.
If we are to
solve the CEOs perceived problem and enable a transformation, the need is to
unlearn old habits and relearn new ways of working. It is risky and requires everyone to get out
of their comfort zones. This is significant
as humans loathe change, even if the ship is going down, albeit slowly.
Therefore, I
approach this challenge from a different angle.
I go back to basics of human biology in terms of what makes us tick and
how we learn.
We
acknowledge that we are emotional beings where our mind and body are connected
through our physiology.
I focus on
the Kolb’s learning cycle (a four-step learning process - concrete learning,
reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation)[i] - to understand how we learn as a
biological being. Effective learning is
achieved when a learner progresses through each stage, not necessarily in sequence. Let us explore the learning cycle.
The Learning
Cycle
Learning happens with a combination of being educated and a concrete experience. As the diagram
depicts, learning cycle is complete only when an experience, leads to
reflection, developing an abstraction, testing this abstraction and moving on
with another experience.
James E
Zull, in his book The Art of Changing the Brain, links the Kolb learning
cycle to biology focusing on the cerebral cortex where the experience happens
through the sensory cortex (feelings, eyes and ears), creating the abstract
concept in the frontal integrative cortex, active testing in the motor
brain. He states that the learning cycle
arises naturally from the structure of the brain and it begins with our senses. (pp 17-18)
Neuroscience
has unlocked many of the brain’s mysteries using the latest brain imaging
tools. We can see which part of the
brain gets activated when we are fearful, sad, happy or joyful - for
instance.
My challenge
is to help the CEO unlearn the Theory X style and move towards Theory Y where
according to McGregor (Davis; 1972), “the essential task of management is to
arrange organizational conditions so that people can achieve their own goals
best by directing their efforts towards organizational rewards”.
The CEO has
to stop treating the team as ‘children’, thinking them immature and impulsive
with limited self-knowledge - to help move them towards a mature level of
self-awareness and self-control (Bolman & Deal , 2003; p119).
This way the
CEO’s and organizational requirements may align with employee self-interest and
needs.
I have to
get the CEO’s agreement to move towards this process of inner
transformation. Intellectually, the CEO realizes
the need to change attitude and behavior, yet conditioning and habitual actions
may be difficult to transform.
This
contradiction is illustrated by Argyris and Schon (1974, 1996) where they
distinguish between espoused theories where managers explain their own
behavior and theories in use – what they actually do. Often, a manager’s self-description is
unconnected to their action.
In this
case, the CEO perceives self as open, rational and respecting others and
espouses so - but in the feedback from the team - the style and actions are
controlling and autocratic, bordering on bullying.
There is a
gap between the self-perception, action and how others perceive the CEO.
Typically,
the CEO calls for the management team to take initiative and be creative,
but the managers are torn by the conflicting signals when they take action
- make decisions and get punished for mistakes. This leads to a credibility gap for the
CEO where people have become cynical.
Peter Senge
(1990) says of learning in organizations; “We learn best from our experience,
but we never directly experience the consequences of our decisions” (p23).
As
organizations are complex and linear - linkages are severed, often the cause is
remote from the effect. The CEO does
not see that the current behavior is demoralizing people resulting in poor
performance. The management team do not
feel safe providing honest feedback to the CEO.
This is a great loss, as the CEO does not have an opportunity to learn
from the consequences of the current leadership style and actions.
For this
reason, I initiate an intervention with the management team including the CEO.
My
intervention has two motives;
1. CEO’s
transformation to become more open to let go and trust the management team and
build their esteem through coaching and advising.
2. The
team’s transformation to become more trusting to be confident and daring to work
as a cohesive team with the CEO - to look beyond their own responsibilities and
processes, accept more responsibility to become more whole-system oriented and strategic.
This
requires a combination of a team centered leadership training, individual coaching
of the CEO and the management team members.
The expected
outcome of this intervention is for the CEO to let go the hierarchical style and
the management team to accept and share responsibility to manage and the lead
the organization.
Kolb calls
this process of changing data - the sensory experiences into knowing - “transformation
of experience”. Through this intervention, we seek a
transformation of experience from the CEO and the management team.
According to
Zull, this transformation has three stages (pp33);
1. Transformation from past to the future
Our experience is in the past, so we rely on the past too
much. However, we have to let go of the
past and presence[ii]
to create the future.
2. Transformation of the source of knowledge from outside ourselves to
inside ourselves
We rely too much on outside experiences to give us knowledge
and understanding, but we have our own ability within us to generate this
knowledge in our brain, if we are emotionally intelligent, mindful and
intuitive. This is about taking
ownership for our knowledge, transforming from being a receiver to an active
creator of knowledge.
3. Transformation of power
We can take charge of our own learning rather than depending
on others. We have to take
responsibility, be mindfully aware and inquiring to do this.
This
transformation will move us to become independent and creates “deep learning”
that is life changing.
Undoing
our Conditioning from the Traditional Teaching/Learning Culture
The
traditional “chalk and talk” teacher centered education system has subjected us
to a process where we use only a part of the brain located in the back of the
cerebral cortex. We have been passive
learners receiving information and memorizing them. This process was also driven through fear of
punishment. This is the very culture that continues into
adulthood and prevails in many organizations.
I remember with dread how my grade 5 Sinhala language teacher (in Sri
Lanka) forcing us to memorize poems - as missing one word would result in a
whack on the head with a short cane. I
memorized poems out of fear and did not learn it with meaning and
understanding. If the teacher helped us
to analyze and link the poem’s relevance to our life and the world around us, I
may have learned it for the love of learning, put it in context and remembered
it.
In terms of
the brain - I was only receiving information - remembering but not integrating it. I was not given an opportunity to test this
out by analyzing, acting, modifying, creating and controlling – to translate
what I learned from the poem to my real life. This would have been experiential
and much more beneficial.
Doing that
is to engage the frontal cerebral cortex to complement the back cortex, to enable
experiential learning and integrating to my practice in living life.
Sage Training
and Experiential Learning
I follow the
dictum which was introduced to me by my business partner and mentor, Robert
Vanderwall[iii]
through his actions as he walked the talk;
I cannot teach you anything
I can only
help you to learn
Tell me and I forget
Show me and I remember
Involve me and I understand[iv]
Over the years, Robert and I had been
discussing the importance of experiential learning in personal and
organizational transformation. We
established the Sri Lankan arm of Sage Training in 2001.
When Robert came to Sri Lanka on a
holiday in 2000 from Australia, we organized an experiential learning workshop
for members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing – Sri Lanka Chapter.
 |
Building a Raft and Testing it as a Team
|
He called it “Effective Teamwork” and
had the participants working as a team - building bridges using wooden props,
jumping through hoops - outdoors; and solve puzzles and problems - indoors -
followed by an effective debriefing of the lessons learned.
Most participants had not done
anything like this since their childhood and at first looked at the activities
as child’s play.
The penny had dropped, by the time of
the debriefing session. Most people
spoke of opening-up another part of their brain to meet the challenges -
brainstorming ideas, thinking outside the box to be creative, taking risks, working
as a team, managing emotions and the communications process - respecting each
other, building trust to manage power plays, seeing the end result - all resulted
in rich personal learning as individuals and as a team.
The participants had a chance to
activate both the frontal and the back cerebral cortex. Not only did they get information about how
teams work through theory - they actioned them out through the activities by being
involved in the doing and leaning for better understanding.
Glue that holds all this together
is our emotions. A primal need of a human
is for autonomy and to be in control. This is a survival instinct. The brain wants to be safe and happy and
according to Zull (2002 p 49), we use a fear system and a pleasure system. It is here that our primal survival
(sometimes called reptilian) nature arises.
Humans survive by thinking,
planning and deciding to constantly evaluate dangers and opportunities around
us. Our nature is to learn, as its crucial
for our survival through cognition - control, manage fear and the need for pleasure
to understand and get results.
Being too stuck on the survival mode could
prevent us from being creative and innovative when the need arises. That is where we have to transcend the thinking
and planning brain by being mindful and aware – to stop the thought process,
gain the space to become aware of other possibilities.
The creative process is encouraged
when we have safe spaces and opportunities to learn experientially - make
mistakes and grow. This is the essential
principle in which we facilitated the organizational and leadership programs.
Getting Back to the Story - A Safe
Environment for Learning
My task then is to create a process
to provide a safe environment for the CEO and the team, to understand fears and
insecurities on the way to find a common positive ground to work towards
transformation - by letting go of the past systems, processes and
behaviours.
The goal is for the CEO to let go and
delegate to the management team in a sequenced and paced process, based on
individual capability, capacity and maturity – so the team takes more control of
their process and decisions.
The first intervention I propose for
the CEO and the management team is a 2-day residential program, typically
called Team Centered Leadership. This is
an opportunity for everyone to experientially learn about each other in a fun
and enjoyable environment through theories of leadership, teamwork,
communications complemented by a host of challenging and notionally dangerous
outdoor activities.
This helps the CEO and the team to
seek common ground in a safe environment.
We also assess the company’s vision, mission and values as this
alignment is crucial for success.
A values exercise enables the team to
identify what each espoused value means in terms of behaviors and whether there
is a dissonance between them at an individual and a team level.
This sets the stage for some open and
frank discussions about issues that creates the dissonance, dysfunction and
disharmony in the organization.
Through this process, I work closely
with the CEO - as a sounding board, coach and advisor to alleviate doubts and
fears as the transformation happens.
In parallel, I start coaching the
individual management team members on leadership and managing, as their
transformation to learn and grow into their true roles as responsible
manager/leaders.
Through this two-way process, I help
the CEO connect better with the management team – to enable a more open relationship
based on trust and integrity to transcend the traditional transactional
relationship of the past.
There are also shorter facilitated team
sessions along the way to address immediate fears and issues during the
transformation process.
Open Communications and Building
Trust for Transformation
The CEO has to assure the team that an
open conversation on the reality of life will not be used to vilify people by
“shooting the messenger”, but to humbly accept to collectively seek solutions,
by everyone taking responsibility.
The interventions end with a
commitment to commence a process of change - both ways - from the CEO and from
the management team. Typically, two to
three issues are chosen to to work through as a team and solve - to move
forward with the transformation in a more open manner.
The goal of initial interventions are
to set a foundation to reduce the gap between the management team with the CEO
- getting closer at a personal level, learning each other’s strengths and
weaknesses, expectations, hopes and fears in a non-threatening and a fun environment - while focusing on actual projects.
This underpins transforming
the leadership philosophy that combines rational logical intelligence with managing
emotions based on a spiritual base of purpose and integrity.
The team agrees on a code of conduct,
to become professional, treat each other as adults, be proactive and assertive
in managing affairs and when in doubt speak openly to communicate.
The team is encouraged to be mindful
as they are a part of one system - about their words or actions as they have an
impact on everyone in the organization.
This interdependency requires
everyone to be open and inquiring - putting a mirror on self with mindful
awareness - to manage emotions better in acting and communicating.
All this can become a feel-good intervention
if life goes back to normal of the status-quo when they get back to work. The CEO has to take responsibility to lead
the way to inspire and keep the change process alive.
This is most difficult as it requires the CEO
and the team to get out of their comfort zones and spend time outside the daily
responsibilities, to review and re-caliber to keep this inner and outer change process
alive.
CEO Leading from the Front
One way of assuring the team of CEO’s
intentions is to focus on the issues arisen from the workshop and immediately
solve the low hanging fruit issues.
For instance, if there is a call to
delegate certain responsibilities, based on the manager’s capability - the CEO
may hand over and live by it, even if certain mistakes may be made by the
manager.
Having an external coach for
the CEO through this process can make this difficult process of letting go
easier.
The CEO needs to become a coach and
mentor to patiently ensure that the manager steps into the new role of
responsibility and learn to grow.
This
sends a powerful message to the team, who will be assured that change is
possible and will join this seemingly risky process. Their transformation is to take more
responsibility and be proactive.
This is a slow process that requires
patience from everyone. This can be kept
alive both internally and possibly with continued external consulting and
coaching interventions. After a month
of a new behavior, chances are that change will become more permanent.
The Courage and the Will
This requires a huge will and courage
from the CEO to let go responsibilities to delegate - the business must go on
with customer orders met to a quality standard while nurturing the management team, as they take on more and more responsibilities.
This requires a thoughtful and a systemic
approach where having an external coach for the CEO - a sounding board is useful in this transformation.
In the process, there is bound to be
a management team member or two who cannot rise to the occasion. They will need coaching themselves from the
CEO and possibly, external help. If they
do not rise to the opportunity and cannot change, they may have to be moved
from those positions.
The CEO’s role is to continue to stay
positive, set the agenda and the vision, reinforce the mission and values -
look to the future, invest in the people, empower, delegate, encourage and
inspire people to take risks, learn and move forward.
The greatest test is to assess the
reaction when the team makes a mistake.
Does the CEO help learn from it and move on with patience and dignity or does the CEO
lose composure to become unskillful through a stern reaction?.
Having an external coach for the CEO
helps this process, as it is lonely at the top.
The Management Team’s role is to take responsibility, be accountable, take
risks, learn from mistakes, work as a team, be honest, give feedback to the CEO,
trust each other and when in doubt, always communicate. This requires an emotional openness.
This foundation sets the stage for an
appreciative culture of openness, to evolve a Human Resources philosophy based
on the vision, mission and values of the organization.
A sound Human Resources policy will
ensure that the process of looking after people continues through
interventions. This way they will
continue to align their individual needs to organizational needs.
The CEO has to consider the workforce as an
investment and not a cost. These
organizations attract better people, who want to learn, take on more
challenges, help themselves and see the business to grow.
Evolving a Learning Organization
This is a start of a process towards
transforming towards a learning organization.
Peter Senge defines a learning
organization as one that has the ability to learn faster than its
competitors. Senge says (1990), “Its
just not possible any longer to ‘figure it out’ from the top, and have everyone
following the ‘grand strategist’.
Organizations that will truly excel in the future will discover how to
tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn at all levels of the
organization.”
All this stems from understanding the
basic biology of our brain and how we are wired for our emotions, as everything
we do comes from a place of fear or pleasure.
We are more naturally wired for
empathy and compassion, but our competitive difficult world has us fighting for
survival where fear reigns.
The only way back to our real nature
is through introspection, reflection and practices such as meditation. Then a generous and gracious outlook could be
possible. When this is founded on
integrity - as leaders, we will ensure and protect our people’s dignity in our
actions. This can lead to our people
taking more responsibility and being accountable, as they may have a sense of
pride in what they do.
Finally, for a consultant-trainer,
there is no magic wand to change people or their behaviors. The role of the consultant is to facilitate the
understanding of our basic human nature and to assist in a personal
transformation, which may lead to a collective change in the way an
organization is led and managed.
Ultimately, the test is the bottom
line where the numbers will tell the tale - whether an improvement has taken
place. Experience shows that this kind
of transformation works well when there is a measurable target set in place in
parallel. All that has to be led from
the top by the leader walking the talk.
References:
Davis, Keith., Human Behavior at Work
(1972), McGraw-Hill Book Company; New York
Senge, Peter M., The Fifth Discipline
(1990), Random House; London
Zull, James E., The Art of Changing
the Brain (2002); Stylus; USA
Bolman Lee G., Terrence E .Deal.,
Reframing Organizations (2003). Jossey-Bass; USA
[i]
https://www.structural-learning.com/post/kolbs-learning-cycle
[ii]
The book ‘Presence’ (Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, Flowers) which has introduced
this concept from a western perspective, but this is very much a Vedic and
Buddhist concept of being present and mindful for the moment.
[iii]
Robert Vanderwall established Sage Training in Australia in 1995 and together we
established the company in Sri Lanka in 2001.
[iv]
Xunzi (Xun Kuang), a Confucian philosopher who lived in the third century
B.C.E.
.JPG)
