fear Archives - The Systems Thinker https://thesystemsthinker.com/tag/fear/ Tue, 06 Feb 2018 15:21:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 Changing Behavior in Organizations: The Practice of Empowerment https://thesystemsthinker.com/changing-behavior-in-organizations-the-practice-of-empowerment/ https://thesystemsthinker.com/changing-behavior-in-organizations-the-practice-of-empowerment/#respond Wed, 20 Jan 2016 12:45:23 +0000 http://systemsthinker.wpengine.com/?p=1878 mpowerment is the process of enabling individuals to adopt new behaviors that further their individual aspirations and those of their organizations. This article presents a behavior change model that is based on 25 years of research and practice (see “The Practice of Empowerment.”). It has been applied by hundreds of change practitioners in organizations throughout […]

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Empowerment is the process of enabling individuals to adopt new behaviors that further their individual aspirations and those of their organizations. This article presents a behavior change model that is based on 25 years of research and practice (see “The Practice of Empowerment.”). It has been applied by hundreds of change practitioners in organizations throughout the world. One feature of this model that differentiates it from many approaches to organizational change is that it focuses on both the individual and the collective enterprise. As individuals grow and achieve outcomes important to them, they also benefit the whole. At the same time, the organization serves as a resource to enable the individual to achieve these outcomes. This mutual accountability strengthens the commitment level of both the individual and the organization, enabling greater sustainability for the change initiative over the long term.

For a group to adopt new behaviors that can translate into their desired business objectives, they must first establish a learning and growth culture. Many change interventions assume that such an environment is inherent. They neglect to notice whether the cultural ingredients necessary to enable learning and growing are present. All of these conditions rarely exist; this shortcoming limits an organization’s ability to achieve the desired behavior changes.

THE PRACTICE OF EMPOWERMENT

THE PRACTICE OF EMPOWERMENT

The Empowerment Model focuses on both the individual and the collective enterprise. As individuals grow and achieve outcomes important to them, they also benefit the whole. At the same time, the group serves as a resource to enable the individual to achieve these outcomes.

TEAM TIP

One of the “shifts” that takes place through the Empowerment Model is from a “pathological to a vision-based approach to growth”. This approach is similar to the structural tension model described by Robert Fritz in his classic book, Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life (Ballantine Books, 1989). For an overview of this concept, go to www.robertfritz.com and click on “Principles.”

Empowering the Space

Using the analogy of nature, for new seeds (behaviors) to take root, grow, and thrive, they need fertile soil (a learning and growth culture). I call creating this fertile soil “empowering the space.” An empowered space enables individuals to feel safe and trusting enough to risk true growth. It has five characteristics: affirmation, choice, trust, courage, and aspiration. What follows are the practices that enable a space to be empowered. These practices become more refined as they move from a cultural-change level to one-on-one relationships.

Cultural Practices for Empowering the Space

  • Self-Responsibility: At the organizational level, individuals take responsibility to have their job, team, function, and organization the way they wish them to be. This is the counterpoint to being a victim within the organization.
  • Authentic Communication: Individual communication is open, honest, transparent, and vulnerable. Individuals are talking about the real issues going on in the organization.
  • Trust: Individuals feel safe enough to try out new behaviors and take risks without fear of reprimand or putdown by superiors or colleagues if they make mistakes. A genuine sense of goodwill pervades the organization.
  • Learning and Growing: Within the framework of the organization, individuals are encouraged to work on the real behaviors they need to change. Individuals are encouraged to challenge themselves and support each other to both learn and grow.
  • Interpersonal Process Skills: Individuals within the organization have established protocols and developed skills that they regularly deploy to resolve interpersonal issues and build high functioning relationships.
  • Caring: The organizational leadership demonstrates concern for individuals in tangible ways. Individuals feel valued and are inspired to give their best effort on behalf of the organization.

The role of the empowerment practitioner is to create an environment where these practices are first embodied in the group experience.

Once the group has personally experienced that growth is possible – in themselves and in their organization the practitioner then helps them establish the practices to take root over the long term.

The change process originates at the individual level and is reinforced by group members, who recognize that it furthers their own collective development. The process involves three “shifts” and requires a support system to sustain it. These shifts are outlined in the three-part “Empowerment Model” below.

Empowerment Model

Shift from a Pathological to a Vision-Based Approach to Growth

The first part of the empowerment model looks at where we direct our attention when we attempt to create change. The model’s premise is that where we place our mental attention determines what we create. If we focus on our problems or pathologies, we gain insight into them. If we focus on solutions, or what we want, we gain insight into those. It is a more efficient use of our time and enables more dynamic growth to focus on solutions or a vision of what we want. Otherwise, we can get trapped in the paralysis of analysis.

Shifting our focus from what doesn’t work to what can work also motivates us to take action. We are inspired by our vision rather than enervated by our problems. It’s the difference between planting a garden by concentrating on removing rocks, roots, and weeds rather than by envisioning the flowers and vegetables in full bloom. One seems laborious, the other engaging. You still need to remove the rocks, but you have a vision of a bountiful garden to sustain you. This part of the model can be summarized as a shift from a pathological to a vision-based approach to growth.

Shift from Static to Organic Growth

The second part of the empowerment model describes an approach to personal growth derived from observing the natural world. Something that is alive, such as a tree, is always growing. The precise place where this growth is just coming into existence is the tree’s growing edge. That is where the tree is most active and vital. Similarly, the places where you feel your greatest aliveness and vitality are your growing edges.

The alternative view of growth is static: There is a place to get to, and I’m either there or not. Until I get there, I’m frustrated or discontent. When I get there, my growth around that issue is over. Such a perspective is a fixed approach to the process of growth. This part of the model can be summarized as a shift from static to organic growth (the growing edge).

Shift to Integration of Self-Awareness and Behavior Change

The third part of the empowerment model looks at the mechanism for enabling us to actually adopt the desired behavior change. Many growth processes assume that if we are aware of something we should do, we will do it. These processes concentrate on increasing our self-awareness. While awareness increases our self-knowledge, by itself, it rarely leads to a change in behavior. If you need proof, think of all the things you know you should do, but don’t.

On the other hand, we can set a goal for something we want, harness our wills to achieve it, and then discover, to our chagrin after we reach our goal, that it wasn’t really what we wanted after all. We did not have enough self-awareness and were acting out someone else’s vision for our lives, not our own. We can summarize this third part of the model as the integration of self-awareness with the ability to achieve behavior change or a desired outcome.

Getting from Here to There

Four steps, each with a corresponding question, make the Empowerment Model’s growth strategy operational:

1. Self-Awareness: Where do I want to go?
2. Vision Crafting: Where do I want to go?
3. Transformation: What do I need to change to get there?
4. Growing Edge: What’s my next step?

The process of changing behavior is a result of the individual moving through these four steps. It culminates in an individual intention statement and image that represent the next place of growth around the desired behavior or outcome. These intention statements evolve and deepen through daily attention, participation in a facilitated peer support group, and coaching. Within the context of an empowered space, this process enables new behaviors to be adopted and sustained over time (see “Transformative Change Intervention Process”).

A group at American Express, led by Bob Franco, Vice President of the Global Talent Division, faced a key challenge: how to move individuals to higher levels of performance, especially when building partnerships within complex organizational systems. Using the Empowerment Model, he and his group went through an intense, personalized learning experience. As a result of a series of guided exercises around each of the four steps listed above, Bob and his team were able to adopt the key behavior of self-responsibility: They moved from being victims within a dysfunctional organization to being accountable for how they wished it to be and making things happen. In Bob’s words:, “This process moved us away from the crippling power of ‘problems’ to a new power – one inside us, one focused on what we want to create.”

Here is how this behavior change process transpired. First, the group participated in a self-awareness exercise. Bob discovered that he was going through the motions and had lost a lot of passion for his consulting and leadership. The roadblocks his team encountered and a highly politicized environment had sapped his enthusiasm.

TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE INTERVENTION PROCESS

Purpose and Outcomes: Behavior change and talent development in organizations.

Number of Participants: Can work with groups of 20 to 40 who learn the replicable empowerment process and scale it by diffusing through small groups and one-on-one coaching.

Type of Participants: Can be any group within the organization from senior leaders to members of a team that need to change behavior and develop talent to accomplish their business objectives.

Typical Duration: Depending on the organizational ambition level, the process can be anywhere from six months to several years.

When to Use: This methodology is designed to serve as the centerpiece of any change initiative that involves changing behavior and developing people. It is a missing piece in many change strategies.

When Not to Use: When there is not a trained practitioner and expectations are built that can’t be met, causing organizational credibility to be eroded.

Impact on Cultural Assumptions of the Organization: If an organization is willing to invest the time and resources, changing behavior and developing the full potential of an organization’s talent are possible with this methodology.

Step 1: This intervention begins with a rigorous interview process with senior leadership to determine the business outcomes they desire, the specific behaviors and talent development strategy to produce them, and the appropriate scale to create sustainable change.

Step 2: An empowering organization assessment is then done to help the organization or department understand the current ability of its culture to enable behavior change. The assessment evaluates the culture on the six practices.

Step 3: Once these cultural and behavior change metrics are established, a customized empowerment training and behavior change program is designed.

Step 4: The behavior change program is piloted and adjustments are made based on the measurable behavior changes and personal growth outcomes achieved.

Step 5: This learning process usually goes through a couple of iterations before it stabilizes and can be scaled up.

As Bob went through the visioning exercise, he began to imagine his team developing a skill set that could more effectively serve their internal clients. He also saw that, through building their consulting and transformative change leadership skills, they could develop a value proposition that enabled them more independence and autonomy. Bob began to realize that, rather than being trapped in a dysfunctional system, he could operate on a higher level by increasing the capability of his current group. This vision was liberating and inspirational. Bob actually saw possible ways to gain control of the situation.

However, he saw that achieving his vision would require a lot of work. Were he and his team up to it? Would his clients be willing to participate in a transformative process? Would the rest of his division be threatened and try to sabotage this new initiative? Did he have the energy to go through it all?

Bob discovered that his growing edge was believing in his teammates and being willing to engage in this transformation process. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, but he was willing to give it his best effort. Meanwhile, each of his team members was going through transformations as well. As they revealed their growing edges, it became clear that, unlike in the past when Bob needed to lift everyone by the force of his vision and will, they were developing the capacity to do so on their own. Not only did he not need to lead in his usual way of making it all happen, he was being inspired by the collective sense of empowerment.

To put it in Bob’s words:, “This process helped us separate the circumstance around us that is charged with a disempowering ‘pathology’ to focus our own personal accountability toward what we can accomplish and what we are ultimately capable of attaining. The results were a clearly defined value proposition and an ability to be successful despite any organizational barriers. We moved away from the crippling power of ‘problems’ to a new power – one inside us, one focused on what we want to create. This team now has daily practices focusing on their vision.”

Bob’s intention statement was:, “I help my team build our consulting skills and leverage our collective talent to create business results. I lead and am led by an empowering team who knows what it wants and gets it!” Bob and his team then participated in a support system of coaching and peer support teams to help sustain the behavior changes (see “Flow and Timing of Activities”).

FLOW AND TIMING OF ACTIVITIES

FLOW AND TIMING OF ACTIVITIES

Measuring Results

This is a robust and proven methodology for changing behavior in organizations. Discerning results is quite straight-forward because the client and practitioner determine the behaviors that need to change and desired growth outcomes. They then create metrics to measure if they have changed. They follow through by analyzing the behaviors against the business results to which the behaviors are tied.

Measuring results is a key component of the empowerment process. Visions are always translated into measurable outcomes, albeit sometimes they are changes in attitude. To effectively achieve empowerment outcomes, one needs to translate awareness into behavior change that can be measured. Part of this process is also about learning from feedback. People need to see the manifestation of their efforts to determine how they did/are doing and then make adjustments accordingly. Another way to describe this is iterative learning or the growing edge.

The empowerment process also has the added benefit of being able to catalyze deep cultural change. Because it is about the achievement of specific behaviors tied to key business outcomes, it avoids one of the major problems of many cultural change initiatives and trainings: hoping that skills or competencies taught translate into business outcomes. Once leaders view initial results, they can then scale up the effort to eventually include every-one in the organization.

NEXT STEPS

According to Gallup Research, organizations utilize less than 20 percent of their employee’s potential. To develop employee potential requires an organizational culture that inspires employees to learn, grow, and give their best. In such a culture, innovations that require employee to adopt new behaviors can take root. Employees choose to go the extra mile, expending their discretionary energy for the sake of the organization. They choose to invest themselves in the organization rather than be available to the highest bidder. For most organizations, developing this untapped potential is their key advantage for competing in the marketplace or retaining top talent.

Symptoms of a disempowering organizational culture often include:

  • Blaming and victim mentality
  • Lack of participation in decision making
  • Leaders versus employees mindset
  • Apathy and burnout
  • Thoughts or feelings not freely expressed for fear of repercussion
  • Gossip and back-biting poisoning work environment
  • Fear of making decisions
  • New ideas not taken seriously
  • Distrust and cynicism
  • People feel unappreciated
  • Learning and growth opportunities not being actively pursued
  • Lack of recognition for contributions
  • Top talent leaving for better opportunities or work environment

Empowering Organization Audit

An empowering organization audit enables an organization to learn about the current capacity of its employees to adopt new behaviors. Employees evaluate their group or department and organization as a whole, based on the six values described on page 3. Each is rated on a scale of 1–10, with 1 being seldom and 10 being consistently. The outcome of this assessment determines the current fertility of the cultural soil for adoption of new behaviors. With this knowledge, the organization can make informed culture change adjustments.

  1. Self Responsibility ______
  2. Authentic Communication ______
  3. Trust ______
  4. Learning and Growing _______
  5. Interpersonal Process Skills ______
  6. Caring ______

David Gershon (dgershon@empowermentinstitute.net) is the founder and CEO of Empowerment Institute. He is the author of nine books, including Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life as You Want It (High Point Press, 1989), which has become a classic on the subject. David co-directs the Empowerment Institute Certification Program, which specializes in transformative change leadership. He has lectured on his behavior change and empowerment methodology at Harvard, MIT, and Duke and served as an advisor to the Clinton White House. for further information, go to www.empowermentinstitute.net.

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Leading the Shift from a Dominator to a Partnership Culture https://thesystemsthinker.com/leading-the-shift-from-a-dominator-to-a-partnership-culture/ https://thesystemsthinker.com/leading-the-shift-from-a-dominator-to-a-partnership-culture/#respond Sun, 17 Jan 2016 11:11:58 +0000 http://systemsthinker.wpengine.com/?p=1931 growing awareness that humankind is facing unprecedented challenges is making many of us uneasy. Our unease stems from an increasing sense that humanity’s bill for our impact on the health of the planet is now coming due. Overwhelmed by complexity, we are beginning to question our government and business institutions. We are aware that many […]

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A growing awareness that humankind is facing unprecedented challenges is making many of us uneasy. Our unease stems from an increasing sense that humanity’s bill for our impact on the health of the planet is now coming due. Overwhelmed by complexity, we are beginning to question our government and business institutions. We are aware that many are woefully inadequate to shape a future worthy of our descendants. We are at once both fearful and hopeful.

The question that stands before us now is not who can take part in the cultural transformation needed to address these complex problems, but how shall we stand together to do so? Will we simply try to fix the problems we now face with the same mindsets that created them or will we learn to be together in new ways?

Fortunately, every person can participate in and contribute to the creation of a new global ethos of partnership and peace. In fact, we do so each time we choose:

  • discernment instead of judgment
  • appreciation over criticism
  • generosity in place of self-interest
  • reconciliation over retaliation

A culture of partnership is one that supports our full humanity and helps us reach our highest human potential. Whether we build this culture depends on the choices we make, from the seemingly insignificant to the most exalted. By understanding our options, we can make wise decisions.

TEAM TIP

Use the principles outlined in this article to determine whether your organization follows a “dominator” or “partnership” model. Explore the implications for teamwork at each end of the spectrum.

Reframing the Conversation

Through two decades of research, Riane Eisler (one of the authors of this article) found a fundamental difference in how human societies evolved (for a detailed discussion, see The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, Harper Collins Publishing, 1987). She documented that, from the beginning, some cultures oriented more to what she termed a dominator system and others to a partnership system — and that gender roles and relations are structured very differently in each (see “Dominator-Partnership Continuum” on p. 10). In dominator systems, social ranking begins with our most fundamental human difference—the difference between female and male. The male and what is stereotypically considered masculine is valued over the female and the stereotypically feminine. This foundational ranking of one gender over the other sets in place a pattern of social rankings based on other differences, such as ethnicity, race, religion, and so on.

In partnership systems, societies value both halves of humanity equally and recognize that humans are social animals with a unique wisdom and capacity to work and live together. Here, stereotypically feminine traits and activities such as caring, nonviolence, and caregiving are highly valued — whether they reside in women or men. This orientation profoundly affects the society’s guiding system of values in all institutions, including business, government, and economics. For example, using the lenses of these social categories makes it possible to see that caring for people, starting in childhood, and for the Earth are important in human and environmental terms.

Toward the dominator end of the spectrum, social systems organize relationships at all levels according to a hierarchy of control, status, and privilege. They routinely extend rights and freedoms to those on top and deny them to those on the bottom. Such rankings lead to thinking limited to two dimensions: superior or inferior; dominating or dominated. Since there is no awareness of the partnership alternative, both parties live in fear. Those on top fear loss of power and control while those on the bottom perpetually seek to gain it. This ranking structure then leads to conflicts — sometimes over trivial issues — that escalate, often leading to cycles of violence, resentment, and retaliation. Such conditions do not generally contribute to growth, learning, or peace.

Social systems toward the partnership end of the spectrum are characterized by more egalitarian organizational structures in which both genders are seen as equal yet different, each capable of unique manifestations of value. A hierarchy of roles may exist, but delegation tends to be based on competency, rather than rankings by gender or other arbitrary groupings. Each group is capable of appreciating the unique value of the other. Differences are seen as opportunities for learning, and both individuals and groups organize through mutual accountability and individual responsibility. Empowerment stems from one’s unique contributions, and connections are made at the level of values, rather than by gender, ethnicity, and other social categories.

In her most recent book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics (Berrett-Koehler, 2007), Riane provides extensive evidence of how caring business policies that result from partnership values are actually more profitable than those that stem from dominator values. Economists tell us that building “high-quality human capital” is essential for the postindustrial, knowledge economy. Nations that invest in caring for children are doing just that—while those that do not will dearly pay for this failure.

Learning Conversations

In a global society, we see all shades in the spectrum between dominator and partnership systems. But the necessity to make headway on our intractable challenges requires that we accelerate the movement toward the partnership side of the continuum. A simple way to contribute to designing the future we desire is conversation. Conversation costs nothing but time and can include everyone. Conversations are one of the cornerstones of civic engagement. For millennia, they have served as a means to explore, defend, persuade, connect, and heal. Conversations become the threads of the social fabric of our lives, contributing to communal beliefs, expectations, and judgments about the structures and relationships underlying our families, tribes, communities, institutions, and nations. Conversations are so powerful that in an effort to control their subjects, despots and dictators often limit what topics can be discussed and how or if conversations are allowed.

DOMINATOR-PARTNERSHIP CONTINUUM

DOMINATOR-PARTNERSHIP CONTINUUM

The necessity to make headway on our intractable challenges requires that we accelerate the movement toward the partnership side of the continuum.

Modern social science and psychological research has found that the what and how of conversations often lead to defining moments. The what of conversations are the topics we choose to discuss, and the how includes ideas for holding conversations from which we can learn and grow, rather than persuade, coerce, or intimidate. The purpose of holding conversations about our fundamental differences is, therefore, not to blame or judge each other or ourselves. Conversations are held in order to learn what still binds us to the dominator dynamic and to allow us to see each other and our world more clearly.

To understand what divides us, we must look honestly and earnestly at our differences. We must make an effort to understand the other’s point of view and to share our own. The best way to have a powerful conversation about what separates us is to simply listen, become aware of the meaning we may be making for ourselves from what we hear, and recognize that what the other person is saying is true for her or him.

At first, it may be difficult to hold neutral conversations due to the learned meanings we draw from words, phrases, and even tone of voice. Even if you hold your heart for humanity deeply, you are likely to carry some biases based on the tacit meanings that come from your experiences in life related to your own gender. To truly understand the other, you will want to consider what it is like to be in the other’s shoes, to have their beliefs, points of view, and experiences. The “Learning Practice of Leadership” may serve as a helpful reminder for how we can lead ourselves through the controversial waters of gender conversations (see “Learning Practice of Leadership” on p. 11).

Tips for Partnership Conversations

Below are tips for holding partnership conversations and some sample questions to get you started. These tools will be particularly useful in dealing with emotionally charged issues.

  1. Convene the conversation in circle so that everyone holds an equal position.
  2. Take time to allow people to get settled and leave their work and other concerns behind. Prepare a question that allows people to get introduced and learn a little about why they have joined this conversation.
  3. Allow each person to speak when they are ready. There is no need to pressure anyone to talk. People will learn both from listening and speaking.
  4. Allow each person who wishes to speak adequate time to do so without interruption.
  5. Select a question to start the gender conversation. Several are included in the bulleted list below.
  6. As you explore the conversation more deeply, use open questions. Open questions are questions to which there is no “yes” or “no” answer. They are not intended to lead to a specific outcome. Open questions come from a genuine place of curiosity. They often begin with words like “how,”, “what,” “when,” and “why.”
  7. Be mindful of your intention when asking any question. If you have a judgment behind your question, it will likely show through., “Why” questions are particularly tricky as they sometimes sound accusatory, such as “Why do you believe that?”
  8. Be transparent by stating your personal experiences in relating a position or asking a question.
  9. Listen and try to put your judgments aside.
  10. Resist the temptation to voice either your own affirmation or your disagreement with another person’s point of view. Allow each speaker to be accountable for their own words.
  11. If you find you are having a strong reaction to someone’s comment, good or bad, make a note for later reflection. Ask yourself, what is creating this reaction?
  12. In these conversations, it is not important to convince or draw conclusions, but to listen and learn. Have something to write on. Jot down what you notice. And when time allows, journal about what you notice about what you notice. See where a deeper inquiry leads without trying to find the “right answer.”
  13. When the conversation has concluded, take time to record notes about what you’ve learned.
  14. Reflect on new questions you may have as result of the conversation and new options for relating with others.

LEARNING PRACTICE OF LEADERSHIP

LEARNING PRACTICE OF LEADERSHIP

Examples: Gender Topic Questions

  • What is the first memory you recall in which gender played an important role?
  • What happened?
  • Do you recall any conclusions you may have drawn as a result of this experience?
  • Did the experience make you feel more satisfied to be your gender or less? More empowered or less?
  • How do people in your church, work, or community express gender equality and gender rankings?
  • What evidence do you find that men are more valued than women?
  • What evidence do you find that women are more valued than men?
  • What do males and females have in common when it comes to personal values?
  • What do you believe about the expression of gender in living species that influences your attitudes about gender differences in humans?
  • Think of a major historical event in your lifetime. If you were a different gender, how would your interpretation of that event be changed?
  • How do the perceptions we hold about gender influence our attitudes toward power and money?
  • What would be different if you had been born a different sex?
  • How would the sexes have to change to live more closely aligned with the partnership model?
  • What would be the impact to government, business, and other social systems?

Not Just a “Women’s Issue”

Exploring the issues that divide us by examining how we are influenced by our experience of gender can be powerful. It may lead to further inquiry to uncover how gender differences impact your family, community, work, and institutional relationships. In turn, these explorations may give rise to questions about how culture and nations impact each other through our policies, markets, and impact on the planet.

Beginning with our most fundamental human difference, the difference between male and female, it is now time to understand deeply how our gender privileges, limitations, and experiences have shaped and continue to influence us, not only as individual women and men but as members of a world that has inherited a system of values that is heavily influenced by dominator valuations.

One of the most interesting, and important, outcomes of open-ended conversations about gender is a new understanding of what it means to be human for both women and men — and that gender is not “just a women’s issue” but is a key issue for whether we move to a more peaceful and equitable world. As more of us talk openly about these matters, we become participants in the cultural transformation from domination to partnership — not only in gender relations but in all relations. We also help create more effective, humane, and sustainable business practices and government policies when we bring these unconscious impediments out into the open.

Note: References to behavior resulting from the ranking and hierarchy of roles in dominator and partnership systems were adapted from the work of Virginia Satir and the Satir Institute of the Pacific.

Riane Eisler is a social scientist, attorney, consultant, and author best known for her bestseller The Chalice and The Blade: Our History, Our Future, now published in 23 languages. Her newest book, The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, hailed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as “a template for the better world we have been so urgently seeking” and by Peter Senge as “desperately needed,” proposes a new paradigm for economic systems. Riane keynotes at conferences worldwide, teaches transformative leadership at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is president of the Center for Partnership Studies (www.partnershipway.org).

Lucy E. Garrick is an organizational leadership consultant, speaker, artist, and founder of Million Ideas for Peace, a public project designed to help individuals connect their personal and social passions to peacemaking (www.millionideas4peace.com). Lucy consults with corporations, nonprofits, government agencies, and public groups to improve individual and group leadership and performance. She holds a masters degree in Whole Systems Design, is chair of the OSR Alumni Association board of directors, and is principle consultant at NorthShore Consulting Group in Seattle, WA (www.northshoregroup.net).

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The Land Mines of Change https://thesystemsthinker.com/the-land-mines-of-change/ https://thesystemsthinker.com/the-land-mines-of-change/#respond Thu, 17 Dec 2015 00:43:47 +0000 http://systemsthinker.wpengine.com/?p=2300 onsider an all-too-familiar vignette that probably occurs daily in organizations around the world. This scenario has been referred to as the “Catch-22” of change. A formerly autocratic manager turns over a new leaf and professes to become more democratic. Hence, he decides to delegate more responsibility to one of his workers. Naturally, the worker, having […]

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Consider an all-too-familiar vignette that probably occurs daily in organizations around the world. This scenario has been referred to as the “Catch-22” of change. A formerly autocratic manager turns over a new leaf and professes to become more democratic. Hence, he decides to delegate more responsibility to one of his workers. Naturally, the worker, having lived under the autocratic thumb of this boss for many years, mistrusts his motives. It seems that in the past, whenever any subordinates took some initiative on a project and appeared to fail, the boss would be sure to punish them in some way, such as by taking away the assignment. So, the worker takes a wait-and-see attitude, knowing that, in due course, the boss will tell her what to do.

Meanwhile, the boss perceives this worker’s hesitation as a sign of dependency. He figures that he was right all along, that this individual is lazy and can’t be trusted to assume responsibility. The boss takes back the project and vows never to take this kind of risk again. The worker, meanwhile, feels vindicated that her view of the boss was correct, and she vows, in turn, to never assume new levels of responsibility if ever asked to again.

Latent Barriers to Change

This story highlights a number of “land mines”—or latent barriers—in the business of change that managers need to be aware of.

Resistance to Change

The first land mine is launching a change action without first acknowledging and working through workers’ natural resistance to shifts in the status quo. Human beings often enjoy the security of familiarity. It is difficult to part with that which has become customary. To do so, we need to know how the change will benefit us as individuals and not only how it will serve the organization as a whole.

In the vignette above, the process would have been easier for both the manager and the employee if they had known what they were giving up and what they were moving toward. Clearly, if the manager planned to embark on a “participation program,” he would have done well to conduct

Some employees might not throw themselves completely into the new assignment, fearing that during a moment of stress, the boss might resort to his old, domineering ways.

a series of informed dialogues with his workers ahead of time. By doing so, he might have learned that, based on the organization’s existing culture, people felt safer taking a dependent position within the hierarchy than “sticking their necks out” and facing the consequences of taking initiative. Responsibility is often accompanied by risk and accountability. Why assume some level of responsibility if all the critical decisions are being handled by those above you?

Lack of Patience

A related land mine is not having the patience to let a new change effort take hold. In the aforementioned vignette, some employees might not throw themselves completely into the new assignment, fearing that during a moment of stress, the boss might resort to his old, domineering ways. From the manager’s point of view, resisting the urge to intervene in the project can be frustrating, because mistakes and performance lapses are bound to occur. Enduring these errors is often the most difficult task of all during a transition period. Here’s how Bill O’Brien, former CEO of the Hanover Insurance Company, describes this experience (from an interview in B. Frydman, I. Wilson, and J. Wyer, The Power of Collaborative Leadership, Butter- worth Heinemann, 2000):

“…what kept me up at night? It was when I had to deal with poor performance. I said to myself, ‘If I’m going to do this, I’d rather take a little more time and do it too late than do it too early because I have a human being’s life here.’ Finally, you get signals that tell you you’ve waited too long. Some of your direct reports are coming to you, trying to drop hints that . . . there are missed deadlines—a whole host of things. I erred by being too late. I was late partially by design because I wanted to minimize the fear. For the most part the fear in corporations today is very debilitating so I wanted to keep us at a very low level of fear. I would rather have a lot of other people say, ‘It’s about time O’Brien woke up!’ than having people say, ‘Where is O’Brien going to strike next?’”

Low Readiness for Change

A third land mine is that change efforts are often dependent on the system’s readiness to change. In the Catch-22 case, we have a system that has rarely, if ever, experienced participative management. The worker in question may not even be interested in taking responsibility for her actions, never having been given the opportunity to do so. Hence, we can say that this worker—and the system as a whole—is in a low state of readiness. In what we might call a medium state of readiness, at least the members of the community are curious about a possible change, enough to be openminded about the effort. Still, they may continue to be uncertain about how to make a shift and what the outcome might be. In a high or primed state of readiness, the members may have already begun the process of change but just need encouragement as well as support and resources.

People will undertake change when they feel committed to both the process and the goal.

In the vignette, both the manager and the worker seem uneasy about engaging in the change effort. Perhaps the manager has been given a mandate to be participative with his workers or to delegate more to them. Exacerbating the dilemma, he himself may not have been given an opportunity to prepare for the change or to build his collaborative leadership skills.

Attempt to Apply “Fix-It” Techniques

Another land mine in the process is the view that people and organizations can be changed through “fix-it” techniques that have been successful with physical or financial assets, such as assuming that one action, say x, will automatically produce a change, say y. But what would happen, for example, if a product manager decided to increase the quality control over a product that the sales staff had long ago given up on? The effort may fall short of her expectations, because human beings are more complicated than physical or financial assets, in that we have feelings! Not only do people sometimes fail to do what they’re told, especially if they determine that it is not in their best interest, but they may be affected by others who have their own agendas. Any change process, then, has to take into consideration people’s feelings, values, and behaviors in addition to the physical resources they need to implement the desired shifts.

Belief That We Can Decree Change

The last land mine is believing that we can decree change. Change rarely occurs if it is commanded. People will undertake change when they feel committed to both the process and the goal. As Peter Senge likes to say, effective leaders are preferably gardeners or seed carriers who plant the seeds for releasing the energy of others (from an interview with Allan Webber in “Learning for a Change,” Fast Company, 24: May 1999). They are not so ego-involved as to have to be at the center of all change efforts. They allow change to evolve, often first in small doses, until it becomes contagious and spreads to other locations.

Viewed as a collaborative process, creating change does not have to be a daunting task. It can be seen as a natural ecological event that is inherent to our human condition. Land mines may also be seen as barriers that we impose on ourselves only because we create an “us against them” dynamic by believing that no one will go along with us. But what if instead we created an environment in which our fears and aspirations, and those of our collaborators, could be brought onto the table and openly addressed?

Overcoming the land mines of change, then, becomes easier as we involve others in what I call “leaderful practice.” Leaderful practice occurs when all those affected by a change are deliberately involved in the planning and implementation of that effort. In this way, everyone shares leadership, not just sequentially, with different people acting at different times, but concurrently, with all acting in complementary ways at the same time. When we act leaderfully, we develop our capacity to take mutual action.

Joe Raelin holds the Asa Knowles Chair of Practice-Oriented Education at Northeastern University and is author of the just-released Creating Leaderful Organizations: How to Bring Out Leadership in Everyone (Berrett-Koehler, 2003), from which this article was adapted.

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