It reminds me of a story that I heard when taught at IMD (a long time ago) which was called “The Paradox of Friendship”. Following the professor, a study had been commanded by Bell Labs in order to discover why, in a predictable manner, the creativity and innovativeness of its Research project teams was always plummeting 10 to 14 months after they had been assembled. The psychologists who observed the phenomenon came back with an amazing cause: People we “neutralizing each other”. In other terms, they had become conflict avoidant and would rather settle for comfortable neutrality, leading to a certain mediocrity, than take the personal risk to challenge the status quo and “rock the boat”. The teams were colluding, little by little, to remain in their comfort zone, no dissonant voice was welcome and whistle-blowers were ejected. The recommendation of the consultants was to inject regularly some “trouble maker” that should be protected by the team leader and who would ask the “stupid questions” that nobody dared to for a long time.

Just as I had been elected the President of the Tourist Board of the ski resort of Villars, where I lived, in 1997, an article came out in Switzerland’s leading newspaper. It was accusing the resort very fairly, in some areas and somewhat “below the belt” in others. I remember how defensive was the journalist, when I took the phone and called him to… thank him for his paper, reinforce some of the very fair criticism he was making and asked him to invite another 12 of his peers, from other publications, to help us turning the place around and act as mystery shoppers. After clarifying that I was not trying to get free articles (which we ended up having anyway as they were so surprised by our low guard approach) against a free week-end of skiing, the 12 journalists and spouses came. We learned a lot from their experience as mystery shoppers and the quality of their reports was way above anything we would have had from the traditional consultancies.

“Dare to disagree” is the title of the excellent TED speech here below. I encourage you to take a look at it. It is excellent.

Have a courageous week all and… speak-up and if you are in a leadership position: ensure your people dare to challenge you: Leaders have the followers that they deserve…

This is what Warren Buffet does, aside from being as well a radical philanthropist, intending to transfer the bulk of his fortune to foundations. His quote about why he wouldn’t transfer most of it to his children is worth reflecting “I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing”.

In the recent Shareholders Meeting of the company he presides, it is a very different lesson that “The Oracle” (as he is also sometimes called) gave to his fellow Business Leaders and C.E.O.s in particular. Because he feared that the meeting might turn into a convention of satisfied people colluding (see bonding vs bridging) rather than behaving as true “Strategic sparring partners” of the Board, Buffet invited a long time critic, Doug Kass, partner in a hedge fund named Seabreeze Partners Management. And Doug Kass, as per expected, challenged Mr. Buffet, in front of the audience and during the meeting. He may not have asked the toughest question but he did challenge him on some crucial and painful points (such as his succession).

In a fascinating article, dedicated to Warren Buffet’s courage and wisdom, Jason Zweig (http://topics.wsj.com/person/Z/jason-zweig/1586) from the Wall-Street Journal comes with interesting figures:

Zweig quotes a poll of more than 500 US corporations, made by the National Investor Relations Institute in 2011. It found out that

• 80% of the entreprises were limiting and controlling who could interfere and ask questions during the quarterly results presentation.
• 25% accepted “pre-cooked” questions and only 12% were leaving the floor truly open to questions from anyone…
• Still, following the study mentioned by Jason Zweig, 76% of the companies were training their executives to answer the questions they thought would be asked (talk about spontaneity and authenticity)…

So, where do you think that the debate is richer during the shareholders’ meeting? In a company such as Berkshire Hathaway or in the places where, the “usual suspects” ask the politically correct questions, planted in their hands by outdated and collusive zealots? Of course, the risk is bigger but solid leaders like Warren Buffet or… yourselves can cope with it. And imagine the goodwill that you will create…

I was thinking about this, when awaiting the Board member of a client of ours, coming to address the audience we were working with. The man was a highly respected professional but hard hit by feedback saying that his capacity to create rapport and engage on stage could improve. I had been told that, rather than blaming the audience (What we call the “How can I fly like an Eagle when I am surrounded by turkeys?” syndrome) he chose to bite the bullet and worked hard on his style. The man was very good on stage. He was smiling, listening, exploring, showed vulnerability and transparency… After an almost two hours interactive session, I thought he was done but, as I was seeking to close, he looked at me and said: “Didier, one more thing: I’d like now to get the feedback from the audience on how well I met their needs and connected with them”… Such a display of integrity and courage caught them (and me as well) wrong-footed but, rapidly, they engaged with him and provided constructive as well as reinforcement feedback. You may imagine the respect and connection this senior executive has managed to establish with the audience.

Esa Saarinen, the famous Finnish Business Philosopher, once told me: “There are few things as frightening as asking feedback to your children…” I tried and I agree with Dr. Saarinen. But what Warren Buffet and this gentleman did was far more courageous… How many of us will dare to do so at their next important meeting and harvest the trust, respect and connection this will bring them in return?

May we continue to enjoy our never-ending learning Leader Journey…

A part of the interview really resonated with me: “What is special is the care that we take in delivering a $20, a $50 and $100 device. Just because it’s low cost does not mean the quality and the experience has to be cheap. Our specialty is our innovation and speed to market. So whilst the big brands jostle PowerPoint strategies from one department to another via multiple gatekeepers, we just get on with it. The Mi-Fone brand is a people’s brand. Our messaging is all about aspiration…within reach. We are not selling a device. We are offering a lifestyle that Africans can resonate with. With our emphasis on youth, music and culture we are also known today as the “Hip Hop brand” of the telecoms industry.”

Three important features come out of this quote, for me:

• Alignment: Clearly, Alpesh Patel has a very clear positioning in mind and is charismatically preaching it to his troops: “Low cost doesn’t mean low quality or poor experience”. A shared, lived and credible positioning is needed in order to ensure that, when given freedom to operate and experiment, people still remain aligned. On this, I encourage you to review the powerful interview of Lt General Van Riper, one of the brightest strategists the US Marines ever counted on. It is thanks to that clarity that leaders may let go of their anxiety and remain “in command but out of control”. When reading the article, one can feel the passion, the sense of mission that Mr. Patel strives on. He has a revenge to take and a noble objective to achieve.
• A few, simple rules or principles: “Our specialty is our innovation and speed to market” and that probably shapes-up the culture at Mi-Fone, to the point that “So whilst the big brands jostle PowerPoint strategies from one department to another via multiple gatekeepers, we just get on with it”. I can imagine that the decisions made by the employees, the initiatives they take are always weighed against the yardstick of speed and innovation. When lived with integrity and authenticity, such principles rapidly shape-up the culture of an organization and become the intangible assets that my remarkable colleagues, Carmen Migueles and Marco-Tulio Zanini, work with. A wonderful example they give is the one of a baby-food manufacturer. They have built such a trust relationship with the market that they can command a price sensibly higher than competition. Its leaders are, nevertheless, acutely aware that the smallest deviation from that principle could ruin this enviable position. So they made sure that the message of uncompromised quality is passed and lived at any level of the organization and that, under stress, a simple operator won’t hesitate for a second to interrupt the whole production line, should he see anything appearing even vaguely suspect. It is something similar which induces people at Mi-Fone, not to cover themselves behind endless and soporific PowerPoints and gatekeepers but rather to decide quickly and get on with the work. I always liked this clip produced jointly by the Santa-Fé Institute and what was, at the time an advanced think tank with Ernst & Young, unfortunately disbanded. It refers to two types of birds and why one of them almost completely disappeared when a “Disruption” happened in its part of the world and why the other survived. Take a look it is short (1’27’’) and fascinating (I showed it once, several years ago)

A procedure driven, gate keepers’ infested organization could never survive a major disruption. A flexible, agile and purpose driven one will.

• Purpose: “The Mi-Fone brand is a people’s brand. Our messaging is all about aspiration…within reach. We are not selling a device. We are offering a lifestyle that Africans can resonate with”. This is something customers and employees can stand and engage for. Mi-Fone sells a lifestyle not a device. Remember Simon Sinek’s simple but powerful model of 3 concentric circles. What made a company such as Apple (and those who know me will tell you how “Apple allergic” I am !): It focuses on the “Why” instead of boasting on the “What or the How”…

I don’t know what the future fortunes of Mr. Patel and Mi-Fone will be but I found refreshing that a young entrepreneur with such ideas undertook to challenge the “global heavyweights” in his field. I will follow that evolution with curiosity and learn from it…

In an article published by the H.B.R., Downes & Nunes talk about “Big Bang Disruption” (see their webinar http://blogs.hbr.org/events/2013/04/big-bang-disruption-why-classi.html). Following the authors, in the old days, one could see disruption happen and disrupted companies were the first responsible for their demise, largely due to their arrogance and complacency (the box called Dream or Illusion by Nick van Heck http://enablersnetwork.com/2011/so-here-comes-the-depression-again-watch-your-unconscious-reactions/) The story of Harley-Davidson looking down on Japanese motorcycles, just good enough to take parts of the market that it would not bend down to seize, is still in our minds.

But, take a few examples:

• Downes & Nunes mention Tom-Tom and Garmin, known for their GPS quality. From the day Nokia, Apple (with a few hick-ups) and Androïd decided to add maps and navigation as standard features on their mobile handsets, Garmin lost 70% of its market value and Tom-Tom 85%. Could those two companies have preempted that disruption?
• Imagine you run a “Radio-Taxi” business in the gigantic 12 million inhabitants megalopolis of São-Paulo. More than 600 drivers pay you a healthy sum each month to be connected to your system. How could you ever guess that a “Pizza-freak” in New-York, frustrated by the long delivery time of his favourite meal, could kill your business in a record of time? Based on the company he built (where customers could see their pizza underway via the GPS that the biker was carrying, an angry customer, sick and tired to wait for taxis that never seemed to come in São-Paulo, applied the same system to cabs. Following the drivers who were testing the app, their business was up 50%, risks highly mitigated and cost 10% of the membership to Radio Taxis… Could the Brazilian Radio companies have preempted that disruption?
• If you were Unilever or Colgate Palmolive, how would you have guessed that a team of idealists, seeking to diminish the usage of clean water, would invent an electrolysis system, cleaning the laundry without water (and as an unexpected benefit/damage without detergents)?
• If you were a retail bank, would Google appear as a major disruptive threat through its OB3 initiative (a business supposed to provide cheap access to wi-fi to isolated parts of the world). What would prevent Google (for any strategic or opportunistic reason) to provide people with a free access to Wi-Fi, wherever they are in the world, against their opening of a bank account in the new, virtual “Google Bank”? If that fictional scenario were turning real, how many retail banks would this threaten?

How could these companies ever “guess that future”? How could you keep on the radar screen people who are far from being your obvious competitors? Downes and Nunes claim that, in “Big-Bang Disruption”, the assailants may not even know you exist nor have the intention to attack your market. You are just a collateral damage…

In the Disruptive Economy, strategy can indeed prevent us from thinking and become a blinder. This is why Nick van Heck and I have started recommending to our clients to engage their organizations in the permanent “strategizing” process. Strategizing is a process of “Intelligentization, development and engagement of the organization.

• Intelligentization: As most of you know, the human brain is hit, every second by 11 billion bits of information. The conscious, “intelligent” brain may only process 50 to 70! This was fine under the “long Term Regime”. It is NOT under the Disruption Economy, where the Management Team acts like the conscious brain and should digest 10, 100, 10’000 times more to keep-up. Continuing the metaphor, if we were able to equip the rest of our body with small decision centers that could see threats and opportunities come and react on them, without jamming the already very busy conscious brain, we could make a huge step forward. And this is what Strategizing is about: clarifying what the strategic intent of the organization is, at all levels. Give people time and space to co-create clarity, meaning and ownership around that strategic intent and what it means to them. This is how an intelligent organization will emerge, little by little, through organized and impromptus strategic dialogues between the people.
• Development: By encouraging people to strategize, we also lift the overall awareness and edge of each and every one in the organization. People will think strategically, explore, be curious about what is happening outside the organization. People’s knowledge about competition, technology, innovation, customers will increase whilst the collective intelligence raises.
• Engagement: We are back at the famous Kennedy janitor’s quote of “I am sending a man on the Moon”: How do you think that your people will feel when they realize that they contribute to enhancing the strategic thinking in the company? As Seligman, founder of the Positive Psychology approach, has demonstrated, the two pillars of sustainable satisfaction and engagement at work are to have a solid sense of purpose and to feel able to influence things… That is what a strategizing process allows.

Strategy prevents our people from thinking! Strategizing creates intelligent organizations, develops its people and motivates them.

I recently read an excellent book on the “Midlife Crisis” which I warmly recommend. I was relieved to see confirmed that this critical moment of our lives, poorly understood and commented by so many, does not necessarily mean that one suddenly buys a Harley-Davidson and dates a man/woman 20 or 30 years younger…

Instead, its author, Murray Stein, describes accurately the three psychological stages that human beings go through, during that moment of transformation. For him, if many similar changes happen to us during our lives, the midlife one is nothing less than a “last chance”. This is a Moment of Truth when we still have the energy to challenge ourselves in depth, understand what our true self is and realize the part of ourselves which is the mask, the armor (see previous post). Refusing that invitation may have dramatic (psychiatric) or sad (depression) consequences for the rest of our lives.

Whilst reading this for my personal benefit, I could not stop drawing a parallel between the steps of change that Murray Stein describes for an individual and those we see when an organization, under the impulsion of Transformational Leaders, decides to re-invent itself:

• Separation: is the “burial of a lost and grieved past image of identity and security” for Stein, who adds “The fundamental cause of this distress is […] a type of separation anxiety.” What makes this step particularly painful is the fact that “Terrified at the prospect of facing the future without a familiar […] identity, this man or woman invents the illusion that nothing is actually different!” In other terms the denial is a defense mechanism, used by human beings scared of throwing themselves in the Change Journey… Have you seen that before, in business? We call this first step the “Mourning Process”. It is the most unpleasant and the one for which most of us, university trained, highly rational and cognition rich leaders, are the least prepared… How do we deal with fear of separation, fear of the unknown, tears, threats, anger, nervous laughing, cynicism, criticism and over emotional people? Our default mode is to invite people to become rational again and it does not work at that stage… Yes but we do not want to collude and cry, badmouth and criticize with them… So what do we do? Listening with empathy, maintaining the course, showing understanding (not agreeing), paraphrasing to prove we understood, summarizing what they say at the rational but more important at the emotional levels are all we can do at that moment. Forget about the rationale… We are into “over-emotionalism” and trying to reason at this moment is “throwing pearls to swines”, it is insulting their right to be sad, upset, scared, anxious or angry… Skilled Transformational Leaders know how to go through that inferno and get out of it without too many burns. They display true respect, empathy and understanding.

• Liminality: “The English liminality comes from the Latin limen meaning doorway or threshold” explains Stein who calls “Psychological liminality, a person’s sense of identity which is hung in suspension”. The impact of that identity loss is a “prevailing feeling of alienation, marginality and drift”. During that transition, “there is an unusual degree of vulnerability, […] highly charged images and thoughts and sudden losses of confidence” continues the author. Whereas the previous phase was dramatic and painful this one is highly uncomfortable because it is accompanied by doubts, uncertainty, questions and exploration. Even the leaders, deep inside themselves, may be subject to those unpleasant moments. In Business Transformation, we call this phase the Reactive Process. The previous step was so charged with unpleasant emotions that an overreaction is possible. People want to “get on with it”. “Give us the PowerPoint, tell us what the new organization is and let us go back as quickly as possible to “business as usual”… The bigger danger here is that the organization will use its force of inertia to minimize the change and bring it back, as much as possible to the 1.0 mode that it is comfortable with. Another danger is for the people to anxiously succumb to the “headless chicken syndrome” and exhaust themselves into projects that are meaningless. The boat was sinking but at least they were rowing… Accomplished Transformational Leaders work hard in that phase to co-create clarity, meaning and ownership around the Purpose of the change they want to see happening. They will connect, listen, explain, be didactical, be reachable and communicate, communicate, communicate.

• Reintegration: “The new state of consciousness that emerges from a prolonged experience of midlife liminality contains a dual sense of key limits and larger purposes and tasks” explains Stein about this third stage. He quotes Carl Jung explaining what he felt in that very moment or re-emerging: “It was then that I ceased to belong to myself alone, ceased to have the right to do so. From then on, my life belonged to the generality […] It was then that I dedicated myself to the service of the psyche. I loved it and hated it, but it was my greatest wealth”. The presence of a Higher Purpose is clearly felt here. A new Authenticity is also emerging. When we work with Transformational Leaders, we call this The Anchoring Process. If that step does not take place, the whole effort will be at risk soon or later. It is the time to “anchor” the changes solidly into a new Purpose. We must create new “emotional markers” to which people will be able to hang on when a new storm comes their way. At this stage, skilled leaders will know how to leverage on Pathos, the emotional agenda, through the use of four tools: Stories, metaphors, gestures and symbols. In a recent blog, I was mentioning the great mastery of Pope Francis in using those, with integrity and authenticity, which has projected the Catholic Church in a new forward looking dream instead of remaining into the self-defeating mode it had been locked in under his predecessor.

To all of you, C.E.O.s, Board members, executives and other “significant leaders” battling courageously to move your people and organizations forward, I hope this parallel between personal change and Business Transformation was useful…

Have a good week!

]]> http://enablersnetwork.com/2013/the-midlife-crisis-of-organizations/feed/ 2 http://enablersnetwork.com/2013/the-midlife-crisis-of-organizations/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DidierMarlier/~3/3ottjHEcrHk/ http://enablersnetwork.com/2013/the-crossing-of-the-threshold/#comments Fri, 10 May 2013 11:27:55 +0000 Didier Marlier http://enablersnetwork.com/?p=2065
Read the full article →]]> One of the critical points in Joseph Campbell’s seminal work (the Universal Myth, the Hero’s Journey) is the “Crossing of the Threshold”… It is probably one of the most painful and difficult steps to take…

The Hero has come to where he is, thanks to the skills he has patiently developed through life, by falling and getting back on his feet again… Little by little, as Carl Jung explained, the Hero has identified with his mask and the attitudes, gestures, styles and behaviours have become such a powerful armor that this has become part of his identity: The Hero has become his mask and believes now that his “winning formula” is a vital part of himself.

There is nothing wrong with choosing consciously to wear an armor, to protect us in specially challenging times of our lives. As an adolescent, I suffered acne for years. It was so bad that it got me the nickname of “Martian”, as my school mates used to say that my face reflected well what that planet should be like with all its craters… Needless to say that, with such a “handicap”, being successful with girls was close to “Mission Impossible” when I was 16… So my winning formula, my coping strategy, the Mask I started to wear was the one of a wise, spiritual, Far Eastern religion inspired “hippie”… My interest in Taoism and Buddhism could free me from having to chase girls and the absence of success with them was therefore justified… I am still grateful to that identity as it helped me during a painful part of my adolescent’s journey. Needless to say that, having turned 23 and become one of the most successful ski instructors in the resort, by miracle, the prestigious uniform became my new armor and my esoteric mask didn’t last very long as I became a far more self-assured person. We all have the possibility of using such coping strategies during life. Wearing a mask is often helpful. It is just fundamental not to be fooled by our own construction, so that, when times change, we are able to challenge ourselves to literally “throw the mask down” and reinvent ourselves. And… trust me, I am experiencing it these months…

The “Crossing of the Threshold” is nothing else than choosing between hanging on to our old self or having the courage and energy to reinvent ourselves. By staying faithful to the previous personality we chose, we risk that it may not fit the new situation and start to become more of a promise of failure than a winning formula. It may be filled with comfort, automatisms and habits but projects an unauthentic image of ourselves. On the other hand, reinventing ourselves is a painful process… It requires a separation from concepts we held for true, sometimes even from people we loved. It suggests identifying and “challenging our orthodoxies”. And nothing grants that, by burning the fields behind us, we will head towards a new “Promised Land”…

So the temptation is great to refuse the invitation, to remain hidden in the emotional and intellectual comfort of our ancient beliefs. And indeed, the “crossing of the desert” may be long, unsecure and uncertain. The crew accompanying us may rebel and criticize our decision to cross the line, adding to our own doubts and pressure.

The world is going through increasingly unsettling societal, economic, environmental, political and other challenges. These probably bear huge threats and, equally promising opportunities. Those who believe that, this is mainly a reshuffling of the cards and that the useless gimmick of B.R.I.C. is “where things will happen now”, will totally miss the train of evolution.

Over the last twelve months, my partners and I have witnessed both executives and companies struggling with the necessity of change. We have seen promising leaders having the intuition that the “Disruption Economy” was coming their way, trying to respond to it with 1.0 strategies, organizations and leadership style.

But, if crossing the Threshold is such a difficult and painful step in one’s personal life, there should be no surprise that it is equally challenging for leaders to take that decision for the business they are responsible for.

Enjoy the Journey…

]]> http://enablersnetwork.com/2013/the-crossing-of-the-threshold/feed/ 6 http://enablersnetwork.com/2013/the-crossing-of-the-threshold/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DidierMarlier/~3/kHlQr0lZDjk/ http://enablersnetwork.com/2013/stop-creating-addicts/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 14:42:11 +0000 Didier Marlier http://enablersnetwork.com/?p=1886
Read the full article →]]> Here is a recent post from our Canadian friends of The Leadership Group. Trevor and Dale Stevenson have been working for years at bringing neurosciences in the world of leadership and business. Here is what they have to say:

Take this quick test. What is the immediate answer that your brain provides?

“A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”

Most likely your answer is 10 cents. The sum $1.10 neatly separates into $1 and 10 cents, and 10 cents seems the right price for a ball (small and light) relative to a bat (big and heavy). More than half of a group of students at Princeton and at the University of Michigan gave precisely that answer. It’s the easy answer. It’s also the wrong answer.

The correct answer is: The ball costs 0.05 $.

Why We Like a Quick Fix

It’s human nature to look for “the quick fix” – in fact, our brains are wired that way. They are wired for efficiency and they are wired for pain avoidance. According to cognitive scientists like Daniel Kahneman, author of the book Thinking, Fast and Slow and winner of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, there are two modes of thinking: intuitive and reflective.

1. In intuitive (a.k.a. “System One”) thinking, impressions, associations, feelings, intentions, and preparations for action flow effortlessly. We’re usually in this mode when we brush our teeth, banter with friends, or play tennis. The brain produces a constant representation of the world around us that allows us to do things like walk, avoid obstacles, and contemplate something else all at the same time. We’re not consciously focusing on how to do those things; we just do them. It’s easy.
2. Reflective (a.k.a. “System Two”) thinking is slow, effortful, and deliberate. This mode is at work when we complete a tax form or learn to drive. Both modes are continuously active, but System Two is typically just monitoring things. It’s mobilized when the stakes are high, when we detect an obvious error, or when rule-based reasoning is required.

The brain is in System One mode all the time – it’s always finding shortcuts. Reflecting on the bat-and-ball experiment, Kahneman observed: “Clearly, these respondents offered their responses without first checking. People are not accustomed to thinking hard and are often content to trust a plausible judgment that comes quickly to mind.”

Efficiency and the ability to avoid pain are obviously useful skills that mostly serve to keep us healthy and safe. This is why, when we’re presented with challenges that are time consuming, repetitive, or potentially painful, the brain immediately looks for a simple, easy solution.

In leadership, however, the quick fix is rarely the best path. But, being wired for the quick fix as we are, leaders have to put effort into overcoming those primal, reactionary neural habits to replace them with less natural – but ultimately more powerful – skills.

Let us now consider a common leadership scenario, a conflict between team members:

Alice leads a team of 15. This week, one of her team members has come into her office every day to complain about another staff member. The complaint is that So-and-so spends too much time texting instead of working. Alice’s brain’s initial instinct is to AVOID the problem: she hopes it will sort itself out.

Toward the end of the week, however, the complaints escalate and now they are accompanied by tears and anger: So-and-so should not be paid to be texting; the plaintiff’s own work is suffering because she needs So-and-so’s input to complete the job. The situation is now affecting most of Alice’s team, who are on edge, splitting into camps and taking sides, and avoiding each other.

The situation is becoming painfully stressful and Alice’s brain’s natural instinct now is to eliminate the source of that pain. She debates two options:

1. She can tell the plaintiff exactly what she should do to avoid or solve the problem. Alice knows she’ll follow orders, because Alice, “the boss”, has emboldened her with her blessing.
2. Or, Alice might opt to take care of it herself. After all, she knows from past experience that if she threatens So-and-so that the work had better be done by the end of the day “or else”, the work will get done.

Although either of those quick fixes will be momentarily satisfying, neither one will resolve anything important. Both are neural shortcuts which allow Alice’s mind to rest easy: “I dealt with the problem. So-and-so got the job done.”  Yes, but at what cost? What are the long-term implications of relying on System One thinking – of throwing out quick solutions rather than sitting down together and sweating it out?

Alice’s team members are struggling with something that the recent conflict merely hinted at. Have they learned anything useful? How long will it be before another trite conflict overtakes the mood of her entire team and Alice is again called on to deliver another shot of temporary resolution?

Leaders as Pushers

The concept of leadership can be confusing for the brain. Leadership often implies a hierarchy and puts individuals in charge of directing others. “Director” is even a job title! And yet, we want our team members to think independently, to be productive, to come up with their own answers, to think for themselves and bring innovative ideas to the table.

The command-and-control brain is the brain that wants to avoid the difficulty working things through. It’s also the biological equivalent of a drug pusher! When you tell a staff member what to do, it creates dependency. Your staff become dependent on you to solve problems and resolve conflicts rather than developing those skills themselves. They get a quick, effortless resolution (maybe) to their problem without having to fully engage System Two thinking. Guess what they’ll do the next time a challenge arises?

The long-term impact of Alice’s leadership style is that it creates a team of addicts. Everyone is on edge; no one is motivated to think for themselves; everyone is waiting to be told what to do next.

How Coaching Eliminates Addiction

“No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective” - Peter Drucker

If managers risk creating followers who become addicted to – and dependent upon – their direction, the alternative to commanding-and-controlling is to become a coach (all the great leaders are). If command-and-control is like stopping for fast food on the way home, coaching is like planting a vegetable garden. The first is quick, convenient, and temporary; the other requires initial effort and patience, but pays off for the long term.

Coaches focus on improving performance. They detach themselves from the need to find answers and direct outcomes and instead focus on mentoring others to view situations in new ways, to overcome the need for quick fixes, to find new paths to achieving goals.

Coaching is effective because it creates the right conditions for peak brain performance – conditions that make the most of each individual’s multi-faceted intelligence, eliminate cognitive errors, improve concentration and focus, unleash creativity, and secure strong relationships with others in the workplace.

Learning the coaching style of leadership takes effort because it goes against our most primal instincts. It requires System Two thinking. Coaching leadership relies on the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) – also known as the “executive” brain – which is responsible for strategic thought, morality, attuned communication, fear moderation, emotional balance, intuition, and impulse control. We aren’t hard-wired for these things because the PFC is, in evolutionary terms, the youngest part of the human brain. The old “reptilian” part of the brain – the amygdala, whose only concern is pain avoidance – easily hijacks the PFC. It takes training and practice to learn to moderate emotions and primal instincts.

But, there is a huge payoff for the hard work. Leaders who become successful coaches are rewarded by independence. Independence from solving the problems of others. Freedom from refereeing other individuals’ conflicts. Release from the stress of responsibility for outcomes you cannot control.

Thanks to Trevor and Dale for allowing us to reproduce this very recent material of theirs. Have a great week all…

“Last week I was very nearly “copywronged”. What else would you call it when someone tries to forcibly enter your head and take your ideas for their own?  Maybe “copyraped” is a better term.

But there was no point turning to the law for help.  The lawyers were the perpetrators.

When clients hire me as a business speaker the contracts are normally quite standard affairs, confirming particulars of the engagement, a cancellation clause plus a bit of confidentiality for good measure.   But every so often a lawyer will tuck in a sneaky Intellectual Property smash-and-grab clause.

Last week’s was a classic.  It required me to sign over the copyright of all the ideas and materials I would be using in my session to the client for their unlimited use, anywhere in the world – forever.  They weren’t going to pay extra for this privilege nor would they allow me – get this – to use the same ideas with any other clients ever again.

This is a bit like going into a store, buying a new pair of Nikes and then insisting the retailer stops selling the same shoes to anyone else because you want to feel exclusive.  Good luck with that.

I am not saying I have anything against lawyers.  My dad and brother are both successful lawyers so family loyalty prevents me from saying anything disrespectful about them.  That, and the threat of a super injunction…

I do however have serious reservations about this piratical approach to IP.

• For one thing, it’s bad business.  Playing legal hardball creates an immediate faultline between a client and new service provider like me, when we should be concentrating on building a fruitful new relationship.
• For another, it’s bad manners.  No, it’s worse.  Like someone trying to make you sign a “pre-nup” on the first date,  it’s creepy.
• It’s unenforceable (if I had signed they couldn’t possibly have made good on their threats),  and counter-productive (had they insisted I sign the clause, which in the end they didn’t, I would have simply walked away from the job).
• But most importantly, it’s out of date.  In our post-industrial economy,  you create value by sharing ideas not hoarding them.  Have these guys never heard of open source?  Or the creative commons?

Yes, they’ve heard of it.  And it terrifies them.  They point at copyright infringements in the developing world and see themselves as all that stands between capitalism and chaos.  They’re the thin, grey pinstriped line.  Where would we be without them?

Quite possibly better off according to a young British inventor I met recently who sees his more successful and more famous inventor father pumping millions into patent litigation when he’d be better off just inventing more things.

My own father-in-law offered an interesting take on things.  He’s a distinguished designer who has recently turned expert witness for US manufacturers seeking to prosecute companies producing fake car parts.  Rather than pay ruinous legal bills, one car giant has recently signed a deal with the counterfeiters which goes something like this: “You agree not to produce the fake parts for an initial period of, say, three years.  And when you do, make them with our blessing and at a quality that we’d be proud of.”

From pirate to partner.  Everyone wins.  Except perhaps the lawyers…”

I suggest you read excerpts (translated from French) from this interview, thinking not of the politician they aim at, but of yourself and your colleagues. It is worth it…

• Disrespecting communication means disrespecting your audience: “There seems to be some kind of a negative fantasy when it comes to communication. It looks as if communication were bad, communicating means lying or betraying, manipulating, using the message. But, in fact, to communicate is simply to respect the other, understand his/her thirst for understanding, knowing or being informed”. For Ginisty, many leaders seem to be reticent about communicating as their unconscious bias is that it is mainly a non-authentic, window-dressing exercise. If their intention is respectable, the impact, as we read, is disastrous: People feel disrespected, manipulated, ill-informed and become suspicious…
• Abdicating the agenda: “If you do not take the initiative in terms of communication, Nature abhorring Void, others will communicate for/instead of you. This implies that you will constantly be under fire and reacting in front of what is happening or to the criticisms of your opponents.” On top of eliciting a tremendous badwill as seen under the previous bullet point, not communicating means abdicating the agenda and being relegated to a reactive position instead of being purposeful.
• No communication means no leadership!: “People assume that the President and his Government are in the lead, doing “something” but nobody knows for sure what it is. There is a lack of readability, a lack of making it known. Ask people around you about their perception of what is the main intervention axis of the Government, and people are confused in providing you with a clear answer…” This reminds me of those silly bumper stickers we saw on cars in the 80’s: “Don’t follow me, I am lost too!”… It is difficult to do worse, in terms of leadership.
• No communication in times of hardship, leads to the “boat is sinking but at least I am rowing” syndrome: “Ministers, as they lack clear direction and impulse from the top, feel it is their freedom or duty to act and communicate. By so doing, these create confusion and cacophony and, worse, they dilute the overall action of their Government in a series of unrelated tasks”. The lack of a clearly communicated “Superior Purpose” from the part of the leader, will inevitably create anxiety and chaos amongst his leadership team, ending in everyone “pulling the blanket” at their advantage, creating silo vision, misalignment, politics and tensions when one brings it at organizational level.
• “People expect communication and not communication events”: Often, we explain to some clients that running a great yearly Convention is good but far from enough. Engagement (and communication) must not be “events” but on-going, all year round “processes”. As Christophe Ginisty says, closing his own radio interview: “A promise feeds itself with follow-up!”

Too often, we see well intentioned leaders hesitate to communicate for all sorts of good reasons:

• “We are not ready yet!”: when profound changes occur (new strategy, reorganization, merger or acquisition), leaders hesitate to go out in front of the troops to communicate, as they, themselves, are unsure about the new structure, impact etc… This is a fatal mistake. They come across as isolated, arrogant, neglecting their people and anxiety raises rapidly, accompanied by all sorts of negative fantasies…
• “My boss isn’t clear himself, so what can I say?”: This is another classic and it is very fair to say. But, courageous leaders will take the initiative to connect and communicate what they know and don’t know, what they can promise and not promise. Hiding in your office is not the solution and your people will go and collect the gossips of others in the organization, making things worse for you.
• “I don’t know yet what to say”: Saying that you don’t know is already a courageous act of communication. The “Disruption Economy”, term Gerd Leonhard and I have chosen to describe the new, emerging, economy we are faced with, has profoundly shaken one of the old assumptions: “Leaders should know”. Well… They don’t always know! And when they have the integrity to admit it, far from losing credit, they gain respect and often get their people to stand-up and raise the level of their own game.

We often look at politicians with disdain, and I admit to be one of the first to do so. But here is something we can learn from them and where we should be humble about: How better are we than Mr. Hollande in our communication?

But… I am growing a sincere admiration for the recently chosen Pope Francis (much more than for the conservative Cardinal he was). After the initial moment of surprise (I understand Jorge Mario Bergoglio wasn’t part of the expected “would be Popes”) he seems to draw endless positive comments about the way he took charge.

Neuroscientists explain that there are four “ways” to talk directly to the emotional part of the brain, without going through the, sometimes, cynical, overcritical rational part of it: Symbols, gestures, metaphors and stories. Let us review how the Pope is working with those levers as this is something every business leader should know and master:

• Symbols: From the start, Pope Francis has gently but firmly rejected all the symbols of an opulent and distant Church. The gold ring was replaced by silver, the driver in an armored car by walks with the public, or the usual Palace of the Popes by a simpler home. And these are just a few…
• Gesture: A powerful moment in the Catholic Church Easter celebration is “Maundy or Holy Thursday’s” washing of the feet. In the Christian tradition, before the Last Supper, Jesus, in a sign of humility and love, washed the feet of the Apostles, reminding them to “love each other as I have loved you”. Pope Francis “broke with tradition by going to a youth detention center in Rome, rather than the city’s chief cathedral, where he washed the feet of a dozen young detainees. Among the group were two women and two Muslims.”, following a CNN report.
• Metaphor: Saint Francis of Assisi’s story matches well with the declared intention of its new leader to make it “a humbler Church at the service of the humbles”. Jorge Mario took the name of Francis as a clear reminder of this metaphor.
• Stories: The fact that Pope Francis seems to act in accordance with his words (the good old “walk the talk”) has seen quantities of stories emerging, forming already what will surely be “the Legend of Pope Francis”: the Pope that humbly went paying is hotel bill upon being elected, the one who sat at the back of a church to pray with the faithful, etc…

Whatever our spiritual or religious beliefs, Pope Francis is an great example for us, in business, when it comes to leading through Pathos. Too often, hard nose leaders refrain from using the emotional lever by fear of exposing themselves, appearing vulnerable or inappropriate. But, on the contrary, it seems that 77 years old Pope Francis knows how to take calculated risks, projects the image of a very strong and determined leader and strikes a perfect balance between emotions and reason.

As a Brazilian priest, friend of mine said: “let us now hope that those who chose him will unconditionally follow him…”