In the below video you can see Dr. Wayne Dyer as he makes a distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.

Imagine the following scene:

You are in your house. You’ve got your care keys in your hand. The lights go out because of a power failure. You can’t see a thing. You stumble around in your living room and you drop your keys.

You look around for a moment and you realize that you are never going to find them in the dark. But you look outside and you notice that the streetlights are on. So you say to yourself: "Hmmm … I’m not going to sit around here in the dark and grope around looking for my keys when there’s a light on outside. I’m going to go out here – under the street light – and I’m going to look for my keys."

So you are outside, groping around and looking for your keys until your neighbor comes along. He asks:
- "What happened mate?"
- "I dropped my keys"
- "I’ll help you look for them!"

Now the two of you are looking for your car keys. Finally your neighbor says:
- "Excuse me, but where exactly did you drop your keys?"
- "Well… um …I dropped them in the house"
- "You dropped your keys in the house and you are looking for them here? This doesn’t make any sense!"
- "Well, it doesn’t make any sense to grope around in the dark when there’s light out here!"

Isn’t that exactly what we do when we have a difficult problem or a struggle that is located inside and we are looking for the solution outside of ourselves? Expecting somebody else to change or something outside of you to get better in order for you to make your life work, is something you have to take a hard look at. You are the one with the difficulties.

This reminds me of another quote by Bob Procter:
"You are the only problem you will ever have and you are the only solution."

In addition to the articles on parenting as a management skill that I posted in February 2009, there is one more insight I’d like to add. I found out that the epicenter of organizational change management is hidden in the simple mechanism of cause-and-effect. And I found out about it by being home between television time and dinner time on an average working day.

When I ask my 3 year old son to stop watching television and to come to the dinner table, I’m most likely to receive a ‘No!’ and when I persist in my plan, tears and other forms of ‘Resistance’ will follow for the next ten minutes or so.

However, when I get involved in his frame of reference, I tell him that the television will be shut down when the clock turns seven or when the episode he is watching ends. I can also tell him he can count to three for me to turn off the television, etc. It’s a game he gladly subscribes to; running to the dinner table – eager to start dinner.

What happened here? In the first situation I would be using my parental authority to reinforce an action. This likely results in ‘Revenge’, ‘Regret’ or ‘Rescue’. In the second scenario I am using a different approach: instead of pushing harder I take one step back – BUT I STICK TO THE OBJECTIVE, i.e. television out and on to the dinner table.

By stepping back I inverse the cause-and-effect relationship: I let him be the cause instead of the effect of the situation. This is more likely to result in a ‘Responsible‘ response: I give him the opportunity or the ‘ability‘ to ‘respond‘ positively to my request.

The same is true for organizational change efforts. The point is that you can achieve most of the goals by underscoring the objectives, stepping back and then leaving people the opportunity to become involved in the solution. Instead of pushing harder straight on to ‘Resistance’ you are stepping back and allowing ‘Relationship’ and ‘Respect’.

I bet one can’t learn that lesson so profoundly and deeply at Harvard or Wharton the way I did between the dinner table and the TV set.

Related articles:
Parenting as a Management Skill … Huh? (part 4) – March 1st, 2009
Parenting as a Management Skill … Huh? (part 3) – February 21st, 2009
Parenting as a Management Skill … Huh? (part 2) – February 16th, 2009
Parenting as a Management Skill … Huh? (part 1) – February 9th, 2009

A fairy tale for the suffering in the workplace.

Once upon a time there was a pond with the most exceptional fish one could think of. The man who took care of the pond wanted it to be the best pond of all times, and so did the fish.

The man took care of everything because he didn’t trust a single fish. Instead of feeding them and providing them with oxygen, he hooked them up each day. That way, he knew exactly what they were doing and how they were doing it. Each day he weighed each fish, pushed the food down their throat and told them exactly what they should do before he let them into the water again.

The man was quite proud of the way he controlled it all. Any time of the day anyone could ask how the pond was doing and he would explain in detail with colors, graphics, metrics and key performance indicators. By all measurements, this was the best pond of all times!

In order to control the fish efficiently the man threw out nasty bait: a talking worm telling the fish how bad their work was, how the quality sucked, how they were behind schedule and how it made the man nervous as hell. The man thought this kind of bait would keep the fish sharp. And it did. The bait was simply irresistible.

Below the water surface, Red Fish, Blue Fish and Yellow Fish caught every nasty worm. They were smart fish; strong and bright-colored. Each time the bait was thrown out it was only a matter of seconds before they would catch that nasty worm. Red, Blue and Yellow were the best of breed.

• Red Fish was always the first to swallow the bait; “that’s not true” he said; “I’m going to tell him!” But the rage and the misalignment grew with each catch.
• Blue Fish swallowed the bait differently; with each catch his self doubt grew, for he started to believe the accusations that worm was throwing at him.
• Yellow Fish was smarter than that. He would not fight it like Red Fish, nor feel guilty about it like Blue Fish. His approach was to solve the man’s problem. So he swallowed the bait each time, thinking he could solve the man’s problem.

These smart fish were all different in how they approached the nasty worm – so much is true. But there was one thing they all had in common: they always swallowed the bait by their own instinct and each time they got back into the water they felt sore. They didn’t know why; they were bubbled…

And then one day a duck landed on the pond. He said he had seen these situations in other ponds as well, but the fish didn’t pay attention to the duck; for they were too busy swallowing the bait that was thrown at them. Days went by and from the surface the duck could see the daily ritual the fish went through. These smart fish suffered, but they were too proud to admit it. After all, they were the best of breed and besides a duck is a duck. What could he possibly know about fish?

Until one day the hooks left them aching so hard that they needed some time to recover, so they figured they might as well listen to the duck. “OK duck, let’s hear it” Red Fish said. “Things are not OK down here, so tell us what you think is going on.” Blue Fish said.

“It’s fairly simple”, answered the duck; “from up here it is obvious how you are exaggerating on the R-side”. “The R-side; what the hell is that?!” Yellow Fish replied. The duck patiently continued:
“You see, there is a pattern in your daily suffering:
• Red Fish is driven by Revenge. That is the first R – and he is left with resentment;
• Blue Fish is driven by Regret. That is the second R, which leaves him feeling guilty;
• And you, Yellow Fish, you get hooked because you try to Rescue the man, and in the end you are scared because it didn’t work out as planned.
There is just one thing you should know about these R’s: they will always get you hooked”

“But that’s our nature – don’t you understand?” Red Fish said. “This pond is our destiny- there is nothing we can do about it” Blue fish said. Yellow Fish concluded: “The only way out is to change the bait”.

“Hang on – there is another way out”, the duck said, “but it will require you to use a different R than you are doing today.
• I’m not asking you to change your nature, Red Fish, but you need to become aware of it;
• I’m not telling you to change for a better pond, Blue Fish, but you can think of yourself as the pond instead of the fish;
• And finally, Yellow Fish, you cannot change the bait that is thrown at you – you just need to know that you can choose not to swallow it.
So the alternative R I am talking about is called Responsibility.”

The fish were bubbled…

“Just try it – you have nothing to lose. When you approach the bait with Responsibility, you will be able to stop and capture the useful information without getting hooked.” Because the fish had no other alternative they decided to try this crazy idea. Days went by before they could turn off the automatic pilot that hooked them.

Eventually, they did it and they reported back to the duck:
“We managed not to get hooked for a few days now.” Red Fish said. “And what were your findings?” the duck replied. “Well, it’s hard.” Blue Fish said, “because it needs all of my attention. But now at least the pain is gone and we continue our work.” Yellow Fish thoughtfully added: “This is almost as difficult as swimming upstream.”

“Indeed”, said the duck “approaching nasty bait with Responsibility is as hard as swimming upstream. Responsibility means that you can choose how you respond to a situation. And it’s not easy. Just remember that it’s the upstream swimming that makes you stronger!”

The man never changed. Neither did the bait. But the fish grew stonger each time they realized that there is always a choice in how they respond to a situation.

Happy Easter!

I am currently reading The Manager’s Book of Decencies – How Small Gestures Build Great Companies, by Stephen Harrison. Actually, it is more a field guide than a book, because it’s packed with real-life examples of decencies that result in major business impact, and that you can put to use in your company.

Examples include: Greet coworkers personally. Remember to say thank you. For meetings you convene, be the first to sit down and the last to get up. Welcome visitors by name. Answer your own telephone. Give away recognition when things go well; hoard responsibility when they don’t. Convey bad news in person. When you make a mistake, admit it and apologize.

When it comes to this last one – apologizing – I just finished an interesting chapter that matches last week’s post particularly well: Executive Humility Decencies. In that chapter, Harrison explains that apologies are serious business.

All or Nothing

He even cites a research by Jennifer Robbennolt, Professor of Law and Psychology at the University of Illinois College of Law. In two studies, participants, ages 21 to 70, read a scenario describing a pedestrian-bicycle accident. They were asked to take on the role of the injured person and evaluate a settlement offer from the other party, based on information about the injuries, the other party’s conduct, and each party’s responsibility for causing the accident.

Professor Robbennolt found that when a full apology was given, 73% of the respondents would accept the settlement offer. When no apology was given, 52% would accept, but when a partial apology was given, only 35% would accept. Even when she changed the scenario and made the evidence of fault less clear, a partial apology was still often perceived no different to no apology at all. Results also showed that the severity of the injury mattered: the more severe the injury, the more the need to fully apologize. It seems that a late or a bad apology is WORSE than no apology at all.

The 4 R’s

Not surprisingly, when we dig a little deeper in order to find out more about the anatomy of an effective apology, we end up in the field of medicine. Apparently, a lot of health care providers understand and practice what to do after unexpected outcomes – to apologize (*). Most of them use the 4 "R"s of Apology:

Recognition: knowing when an apology is in order. An apology needs to ensure that the injured party knows that you understand specifically what you did wrong.

Regret: responding empathetically. This is an indication that you accept personal responsibility for the injury. Here it is important to remember that an expression of regret is not an admission of guilt or fault.

Responsibility: owning up to what’s happened. Be accountable for the problem, even if it was unforeseeable. This is the part where most apologies end up being partial expressions of regret, impoverished by exceptions and ‘but’ statements. As the above research of Professor Robbennolt points out, a bad apology is worse than no apology at all.

Remedy: making it right. Explain to what’s being done to correct the problem and express your commitment to not make the same mistake in the future.

Finally, back to Harrison’s book, from which I’d like to quote how he links apologizing and vulnerability to leadership:

"During the course of his or her career, every leader will be tested by adversity, and sometimes the leader will fail. At these times, employees and other stakeholders are watching very carefully. When they see the leader as a fallible person who makes mistakes and has the decency to acknowledge them, take responsibility, and apologize if appropriate, the will not abandon the leader. Followers demand neither flawlessness nor omniscience. (…) In the end, followers demand leaders who are worthy of being followed."
__________
(*) Source: Healing Words: The Power Of Apology In Medicine, by Michael S Woods, Jason Isaac Star, Hilda J Bruckner

In a recent workshop I was asked: “Shouldn’t the receiver of a communication be responsible for it? We can prepare all we can, but if they don’t want to swallow it – it’s their problem!” However true, rightful and justified this attitude may seem, to the same extent it will not help you any further on an organizational change program.

To "me" or not to "me"?

The only way to bring about change in a setting that is characterized by inertia or plain and simple "let-me-tell-you-why-this-won’t-work"-ism is by being the change you want to see in the world. Over and over again. Even when it seems hopeless. So I put the following scheme on the board (in Dutch – but I have put a translation below) (*).

The point here is that responsibility is a choice, not something that happens to you. Everything becomes clear when we study the English definition for “responsible”: It literally means “able to respond” or “being capable of responding.” When people choose to take responsibility in a situation, they co-own it. This insight is fundamental for organizational change management.

Want more possibilities? Yes you can…

… but it takes a radical (i.e. non-rational) approach! Knowing that one cannot assign responsibility  to someone else, there is a practice that can strengthen you at no-one’s expense.  It all starts with the radical declaration: "I am the framework for everything that happens in my life".

Then, you take the practice one step further: You ask yourself in regard to the unwanted circumstances: ‘well, how is it that I have become a context for that to occur?’. You will begin to see the obvious and less obvious contributions of your past actions and thoughts. That is because when you look deeply enough into that question you will find that at some point you have sacrificed a relationship. 

In their book ‘The Art of Possibility’ Ben and Ros Zander introduce this very practice and the call it  ‘Being the Board’. Being the board is not about turning the blame on yourself, instead it is about access to possibility.

So next time you are tempted to say: "They just won’t listen", ask yourself: "well, how is it that I have become a context for that to occur?" And always remember rule number 6!

Related articles on this blog:

• Music and Leadership - July 20th, 2008 
• Redefining ‘Responsibility’ – October 22nd, 2007

_____________
(*) I borrowed this scheme from Clint Callahan – to whom I owe quite some insights in this domain.

Here is a talk/performance by one of the living legends in the world of music. Ben Zander is a leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven and the co-author of the best selling book The Art of Possibility. To my opinion the below movie tells more about leadership than any course on that subject in any business school. 

These are some of the elements that hit me most in this movie and they pretty much sum up the essence of leadership.

Learning to commit instead of control

He demonstrates how beginners concentrate on each step. As we grow up and learn we are able to see past the individual step and instead see the whole movement. The same goes for leaders: beginners always try to control each step and mature leaders are rather committing to the whole movement instead of trying to control each step.

Mature leaders are committing rather than controlling. As Zander conveys: "It is one of the characteristics of a leader that he does not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming."

Later in this performance he says: "A conductor does not make a sound. He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful… As a leader your job is to awaken possibility in other people."

Without mentioning the word, what Zander is talking about is ‘empowerment’. How I whish I knew about his insights when I was an MBA student – it would have helped me though those dull academic definitions that completely miss the point.

Responsibility

Through the metaphor of music, Zander shares his insights on taking responsibility. If eyes of your audience aren’t shining you should ask yourself ‘who am I being that their eyes aren’t shining?’. This question puts you in the position of what I would call "radical responsibility" and this entails both, good and bad news. First: you declare yourself ‘being in the driver’s seat’(Zander calls this ‘being the board’) and the bad news is: there are no excuses after that declaration.

Vision

Zander demonstrates how so many different people with individual ideas and situations can all be moved by one single piece of music at the same time. All humans are different but we can all connect through music. If a conductor were the leader of an organization, his vision would be the music that connects all different minds and motivate them to commit to the same goal. Of course, in order to do so there is one final ingredient to leadership, and that is passion… 

Passion

The ’shining eyes’ would not have been there if there if there wasn’t a spark from the leader. There is no better way to talk about leadership than to demonstrate it, and that is what Zander does – fuelled by his passion for music.

Related articles:
- Always Remember Rule Number 6!  (December 6th, 2007)
- Redefining ‘Responsibility’ (October 22nd, 2007)

Related articles: Do I need to Paint a picture? (May 2007)

Whenever something happens that interrupts our reality we can do one of the following:
A - Put all our energy in trying to get back to how it was before (“Why is this happening to me, it’s unfair”);
B – Take it as a starting point and look for other available options (“Something interesting happened, let’s see which options we have as a result of this change”).

This is a fascinating observation in organizational change and over the past years I have done some reading in order to gain clarity on how to get from point A to point B. What I found is that the term responsibility is fundamental on this track from A to B.

A Deliberate Choice

Responsibility is a choice, not something that happens to you. Everything becomes clear when we study the English definition for “responsible”: It literally means “able to respond” or “being capable of responding.” When people choose to take responsibility in a situation, they co-own it. This insight is fundamental for change management. We always have the choice of becoming the owner or the victim of a situation. William Glasser calls this the Choice Theory. An owner will look for solutions; a victim will search for a persecutor or a rescuer.

The Hard Stuff

So why is it so difficult for us to make a deliberate choice? In her book "The Last Word on Power", Tracy Goss explains that we are hard-coded to believe that there is always a way that things should be. And when they are that way, things are right. When they’re not that way, something is wrong with you, them, or it. As a human being, it is the source of our success and at the same time the source of our limitations. It defines our reality, our way of being, and our way of thinking. This, in turn, focuses our attention and shapes our actions, thereby determining what’s possible and not possible for us.

Goss offers a lot of advice on freeing ourselves from the illusion that we can control life so that it turns out "the way it “should”. Accepting that “life doesn’t turn out the way it should” is the equivalent of an alcoholic “hitting bottom”. You must go through a life-transforming experience before you can transform your relationship to the addiction and before you can move from denial to acceptance.

The Soft Stuff

In their book ‘The Art of Possibility’ Ben and Ros Zander introduce the practice of ‘Being the Board’. According to them one cannot assign responsibility  to someone else. Their practice of being the board is purely an invention and yet it strengthens you at no-one’s expense.
It all starts with the radical declaration: "I am the framework for everything that happens in my life". Then, you take the practice one step further: You ask yourself in regard to the unwanted circumstances: ‘well, how is it that I have become a context for that to occur?’.
You will begin to see the obvious and less obvious contributions of your past actions and thoughts. Being the board is not about turning the blame on yourself, instead it is about access to possibility.

The Compass

In case you would like to experiment with this new practice of responsibility, here is a little compass that will help you to stay on track. From what I have read in the three books that I discussed above I have learned that there are three behavioral indications that tell me how I am doing.

1. Am I controlling or am I committing?
When I blame you for something that goes wrong, I seek to establish that I am in the right. In return I gain control over the situation. However, in as much as I blame you for something that went wrong – to that degree, in exactly that proportion, I lose my power. Life does not turn out the way it should. The only behavior I can control is my own.

2. Am I being in the past, the present or the future?
The game of "shoulds and oughts" is a blame game that gives me a sense of control because it puts me in the right. Oddly enough all these conversations either occur in the past or  defer my responsibility to the future. I have no control over things that happened in the past, neither can I predict what will happen in the future.

3. Am I being right or am I being in relationship?
Whereas ’should haves’ are commonplace in the fault game, apologies are frequent when you name yourself as the board. That is because when you look deeply enough into the question "How did that thing that I am having trouble with get on the board that I am?" you will find that at some point you have sacrificed a relationship. In the fault game your attention is focused on actions – what was done or not done by you or others. When you name yourself as the board your attention turns to repairing a breakdown in relationship. That is why apologies come so easily.

Have you ever tried to find a definition of teamwork in management literature? I have; and I was overwhelmed, confused, over buzzed and totally blown away with all that expensive talk. However, none of it made sense.

Until a few years ago, teacher Saskia, whom I grew up with, told me about Complex Instruction (here in Flanders, where we live, it is locally referred to as CLIM). I was surprised about the straightforwardness of the concept and the first reaction that came to my mind was: ‘why didn’t they use that when we were young?’

In a nutshell, Complex Instruction (CI) is a cooperative learning method that stimulates social skills such as collaborating, communicating and taking responsibility. In her research, Elisabeth Cohen - one of the founders of CI, discovered that it is an effective way of reaching cognitive goals. In other words: her research showed that interaction facilitates learning.

One of the fundaments of CI is the assignment of roles which only deliver an optimal result when they fully cooperate. The premise here is that everybody is good at something and nobody is an expert at everything. So the design of CI classes and seminars is such that participants can only reach the best result if they stick to their role and fully cooperate. Following skills are explicitly addressed: listening, discussing, deciding; like for example in the 4-stage rocket preparation exercise.

Over here, in a school in the town of Grimbergen, teacher Saskia is successfully using CI with her 9 year old students for more than three years. She equals at least the intellectual results of the traditional teaching methods. But there is more: by the time her students turn 10, they have improved their skills to listen, cooperate and interact. I would say that’s pretty fundamental.

Like me, you may wonder: ‘if this thing works with 9 year olds, it can’t be that difficult with adult working professionals’. … well … About one month ago we installed a mechanism of 176 parallel workshops in a big project that needs to be run over the course of a few months. In order to get the team of 50 professional consultants to work with a uniform approach, we chose the CI roles and setup to get started.

It was obvious that these workshops can only deliver results if all of these professionals AND the more than 150 customers involved fully engage in these workshops, i.e.: listening, cooperating and interacting. I have to say that it takes thorough coaching on the following dimensions:
- Nearly all professional consultants see themselves as a facilitator (which blocks interaction, whilst ignoring the other essential roles)
- None of the professional consultants see themselves as a materials responsible (which results in missing chairs, beamers, keys, frustrated customers, wasted time, etc.)
- Listening and repeating back in a roundtable conclusion is seen by most as ridiculous (so all the points of view that were not listened to end up in the grapevine circuit and create complaints from a higher hierarchical level)

Phew! I have to say that CI with adult professionals is harder than I thought it would be. But the blocking factors are too fascinating to just let go of the concept: they are not based on CI as such, but rather on professional adult people taking themselves too serious to focus explicitly on listening, cooperating and interacting. In short, we may end up by redefining the hard-wired definition of taking responsibility. Anyway, I hope I will not be the only nutcase management consultant implementing CI with adults. The results are positive and the reactions of the adults are fascinating. So if you read this, please give it a go and share your experiences!

Click here for more materials to get started in CI.
Click here to link to Elisabeth Cohen’s basic book on CI.