informal coalitions

Reframing leadership – Seven would-be shifts in how we think and talk about leadership practice

2012-01-26T18:22:01+00:00

In the previous post I suggested that a wide gap exists between popular conceptions of organizational leadership and how people experience it day-to-day. I also suggested that this is due, in large part, to the continuing dominance of a view of organizational dynamics based on scientific rationality, control and predictability.

This deep-seated belief that there is 'one best way' – if only we can find it - is reflected in the ongoing search for pre-packaged ‘best practice’ solutions; universally applicable ‘n-step’ models; and so on. And the problem is compounded by the taken-for-granted assumption that leadership is exercised and performance delivered through the exception-al actions of individual leaders – the supposed heroes (and occasionally villains) of the organizational world.

Mismatch between rhetoric and reality

The fact that this framing of organizational leadership fails to accord with people’s everyday, practical experience of life in organizations (including managers’ own) makes it no less powerful in influencing their perceptions, interpretations and evaluations of what’s going on and how they are supposed to respond. The theory must be ok (one might think) – otherwise why would it persist? We just need to do things better and get them right next time and all will be well. In this way, unhelpful patterns of thought and behaviour become ever-more-firmly embedded.

Shifting the patterns

Here, I want to challenge these established conceptions of what's actually going on in organizations - and what that means in terms of the ways in which we think and talk about leadership practice. I've therefore set out below seven possible shifts in the ways that we conventionally make sense of leadership in organizations. And, as suggested in Informal Coalitions, if the conversations change so will the outcomes that emerge.

1. From elite practice to emergent property

Leadership would be recognized as an emergent property of people in relationship, not as an elite practice confined to individuals at senior levels in organizations. That is, it would be understood as a complex social process enacted by many people in the normal course of their everyday interactions; rather than as a rational, scientific endeavour practised by a few gifted and formally appointed leaders.

2. From individual dynamism to interactional dynamics

The approaches to selecting, developing and recognizing the contributions of formal leaders would shift considerably. The focus would be on the complex dynamics of interaction and the implications of these for leadership practice (i.e. on organizational dynamics), rather than on the current preoccupation with the traits, styles, competencies and so on of individuals who occupy formal leadership positions (i.e. on the so-called ‘best practice’ attributes of individual actors).

3. From controlling to contributing.

Those in formal leadership positions (as well as others who prescribe leadership behaviours or commentate upon their performance) would accept that they were not in control of organizational outcomes. As powerful participants in the ongoing process of social interaction, they would of course be contributing to those dynamics and outcomes in important and influential ways – whether intentionally or not. But they would not be in control of them. The concept of leadership and the expectations of others about the nature and omnipotence of the role would thus be substantially different from those which shape today’s understanding and rhetoric.

4. From diagnosis to dialogue.

The currently dominant view on leadership, based on a rational-scientific model of organizational dynamics, assumes that strategic and operational challenges can be dealt with by expert diagnosis – whether a leader’s own or that offered by specialist advisors. In contrast, an informal coalitions perspective would see it as inappropriate to look at organizations through a scientific lens; with its evidence-based explanations, rigorous analytical methods, and claims of predictability and certainty of outcome. Instead, it would recognize that knowledge in a social process is co-created through the everyday conversations and interactions that take place locally – between specific people, at specific times and in specific circumstances. Ongoing dialogue, focusing on joint sensemaking-cum-action taking, and seeking to tap into people’s collective wisdom, would therefore be seen as the essence of strategic and operational leadership.

5. From standing out to standing in.

Today’s conception of organizational leadership assumes that this is provided by someone (or a cadre of people) with outstanding ability - individuals who ‘stand out from the crowd' in terms of their intellectual capacity, charisma, vision, courage, risk appetite, and so on. It is seen as being exercised by standing apart from the minutiae of the action to see and address the “big picture” from a position of objectivity. Instead, from an informal coalitions viewpoint, a central element of the formal leadership role would be one of ‘standing in’ – that is, actively participating in the conversations around import-ant emerging issues (as Ralph Stacey might describe it). This means paying attention to what’s going on in the day-to-day conversations and interactions that comprise the organization; seeking to shift the patterns and content of interactions in organizationally beneficial ways.

6. From certainty to curiosity

The search for, and expectancy of, certainty and predictability would be replaced by the valuing and practice of curiosity. That is, there would be a preference for leading through questions, rather than a presumption that the leader’s role is to provide all of the answers; a capacity to embrace uncertainty and to accept a position of ‘not knowing’; a focus on noticing and exploring underlying patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving; and an ability to articulate these in ways that resonate with staff.

7. From colluding to confronting

Realizing the above shifts in thinking and practice would bring with it an increasing tendency for people (and particularly leaders) to confront - rather than collude with - the basic myths that sustain current management orthodoxy. The central illusion, that an organization’s fortunes can be assured if managers take action in line with the latest ‘recipe for success’, would be less in evidence than at present. Metaphorically, people would be much more wiling to ‘tell the emperor that he (or she) was not wearing any clothes’ – and the ‘emperor’ would be keen to listen! This tendency for people to confront rather than collude with policies and practices that run counter to their lived experience would also extend to the exposure and exploration of other shadow-side themes and behaviours, where previously these would have remained hidden and undiscussable.

A radical shift or more of the same?

The above statements reflect radically different assumptions about how organizations work from those that currently inform mainstream descriptions of, and prescriptions for, leadership practice. But these accord much more closely with today's experienced realities of organizational life – including what leaders and others do in practice.

It is in the give-and-take of real-world interaction that the capacity exists for new patterns to form and change to arise. This happens whenever sensemaking breaks out of existing channels and novel conversational themes arise. And so, if a sufficiently powerful coalition of support were to grow up informally around themes such as the seven set out above, these might emerge from the shadows and enter the mainstream. If not, the tendency will remain for current narratives - and the flawed assumptions on which these are based - to continue to shape people's understanding of leadership performance and development.

Leadership practice and development – Mind the gap!

2012-01-24T20:58:46+00:00

There is a wide gap between the currently dominant view of organizational leadership - as supposedly practised by those in formal leadership positions - and the complex social dynamics of organizational life, as discussed in this Blog.

Although leadership is supposed to be about creativity, innovation and change, and about enabling staff to pursue the leader’s assumed-to-be-far-sighted and inspiring vision, the reality tends to be much more mundane. And, despite what might be suggested by the formal trappings of organization, decisions arising wholly from rational analysis of ‘the facts’ and step-by-step decision-making are rare – if they exist at all. In practice, people tend to make progress through informal interactions, ad hoc sense-making conversations, ongoing political accommodations, and plain, common-or-garden ‘muddling through’. Most significantly, perhaps, whilst leaders might be formally ‘in charge’, they are not – indeed cannot be – in control of the outcomes that emerge from the complex interplay of the myriad local interactions that constitute everyday organizational life.

This is not a matter of incompetence. Far from it. But it might be portrayed as such, were it not to be covered over by the superficial gloss of management speak and formal process rituals that maintain the illusion of rationality, predictability and control. Or if there was no post-hoc rationalization of actual outcomes that savvy political behaviour demands.

Swimming against the (main)stream

Organizations comprise dynamic networks of people interacting with each other. And people have a habit of not conforming to the mechanistic assumptions that still channel much of the mainstream management thinking about organizational change and performance. Unfortunately, the veneer of goal-maximizing objectivity reinforces the fantasy that leadership is a rational, scientific endeavour practised by the few, rather than a complex social process enacted by the many. This has become so ingrained that managers who sense that ‘it isn’t really like that’ can find it extremely difficult to acknowledge this openly. And it’s harder still for them to escape from the deeply ingrained patterns of response that further sustain the status quo. In other words, the dominant management discourse and widely accepted narrative about leadership in work and society tend to enforce compliance. They do this through the expectations of rationality, predictability and control that they embody; the language that such expectations demand; and the ‘measures of competence’ that these imply.

Natural dynamics of leading - In charge but not in control

All of this might appear to be a damning indictment of individual leaders, were it not for the natural dynamics of organizational interaction that are highlighted in Informal Coalitions. It seems to me that most of the leaders with whom I have worked during my career – or have come across in other forums - have been trying to make a worthwhile difference in the complex, uncertain and ambiguous conditions in which they find themselves. The problem is that they are ‘on a hiding to nothing’ in their pursuit of leadership ‘perfection’, as this is prescribed by business school orthodoxy, sustained by popular misconception and reinforced by current performance measurement and reward mechanisms. All of these imply that they enjoy a level of control that is far removed from the reality of day-to-day experience.

Despite being formally in charge of the organization (or a part of it), they are not ‘sitting in the stands’, dispassionately observing and controlling other peoples’ actions. They are ‘on the pitch, playing’. Power relationships might ordinarily be weighted in their favour – and often significantly so. But what they think, say and do, and how this plays out in terms of outcomes, is ultimately determined by everyone else’s thoughts, words and actions that comprise the complex social process of everyday interaction.

The unrealistic expectations placed on formal leaders (particularly those in senior leadership positions), together with the mainstream ideological claims about the nature of their and others’ roles, tend to institutionalize leadership as an elite practice, rather than as an emergent property of everyday interactions. And the use of hyperbole in the business press and management consulting profession to describe leaders and leadership practice continues apace. This further reinforces the extraordinariness of the concept. As does its positioning as something distinct from, and superior to, common-or-garden management.

Although Mintzberg’s definition of leadership as “management practiced well” (Managing, 2009), offers a much more grounded description of the formal leadership task, even this ignores the wealth of informal leadership that is continually exercised by individuals, as they mobilize the actions of others in pursuit of collectively desired ends. So the current conception of leadership is well entrenched and shows little sign of abating. Indeed, most of the current leadership selection, development and reward prescriptions reinforce this position.

Shifting the patterns

Becoming aware of these dynamics, and recognizing the inadequacy of the current conception of leadership is therefore an important first step in shifting the conversations about such behaviours towards something more useful. So what patterns of talk and action might become evident, if the currently dominant conception of leadership practice was to be supplanted by one which more closely reflected the complex social reality of organizational life?

I shall attempt to offer some answers to that question, from an informal coalitions perspective, in the next post.

Reframing accountability

2011-12-13T21:59:36+00:00

Discussions of accountability can too often degenerate into the search for a scapegoat. That is, someone who can be blamed for perceived (i.e. headline) failure or underperformance. This might satisfy the felt need of some people for retribution. Or offer a seemingly clear-cut resolution to an otherwise more complex challenge. But it does little to encourage people to comment candidly on their own performance or to enable them, individually and collectively, to strive for excellence.

I would suggest that accountability for performance needs to be recast as the ability to account for performance (i.e. account-ability). This means people – throughout the organization - being able to give an authoritative account of those factors that impact significantly upon the performance of those systems, processes and practices that are relevant to their role. And doing this in ways that enable them to:

anticipate and respond in an informed way to the issues and challenges that emerge in practice (i.e. facilitate their response-ability);
learn from their experience and modify their ongoing practice;
account for their own perceived contribution (positive, negative and ‘inquisitive’) to issues, events and outcomes that emerge; and
provide value-adding information that facilitates the performance-related conversations and actions of others.

This shifts the emphasis of accountability away from a sense of judging people and towards one of enabling performance.

Why escaping the chains of the dominant management discourse is proving difficult

2011-10-24T11:20:03+01:00

Ralph Stacey has argued that a fundamental factor in the global financial crisis has been widespread adherence to a management discourse that bears little relationship to people's everyday experience of organizational life (see here). Despite a continuing gap between theory and practice, the view persists that a generalized set of rational, scientific principles can be identified and applied to organizations. As a result, the expectation that organizational outcomes can be predicted and controlled, based on rational analysis and formal processes, continues to dominate managers’ practice, consultants’ offerings and mainstream management publications.

So why does this unhelpful pattern persist?

As I’ve suggested elsewhere, when the sought-after benefits fail to materialize this is most often blamed on poor implementation rather than unsound thinking. That is, the above discourse contains within it the expectation that shortfalls will occur during implementation. Perversely, then, failure confirms its validity. It is part of what managers take for granted and ‘know’ to be true. By adopting a “do it better and get it right” stance to implementation, failure is rationalized as a problem with execution and the flawed assumptions remain to fight another day.

But there is also a further characteristic of the complex dynamics of social interaction that, paradoxically, tends to reinforce the dominant management discourse. This is the ability – and often the motivation - that exists post-event to explain outcomes in ways that imply the existence of rationality, predictability and control. Below, I’ve set out three contrasting examples of organizational dynamics, all of which fall foul of this tendency.

Example 1: Lateral thinking

I’ve mentioned Edward de Bono several times in this blog. In particular, I've drawn analogies between his comments on "the mechanism of mind" and some of the underlying dynamics of organizations (see "Series", at the foot of this post). De Bono is the inventor of lateral thinking. And he often makes the point that solutions arrived at using his techniques always appear to be logical and rational after the event - they would be of little practical value, he argues, if they didn’t make logical sense to people.

However, it’s crucial to recognize that this does not mean that those solutions could have been arrived at by logical thinking. The self-organizing, patterning process, through which information is processed and ideas generated, tends to follow established patterns of thought and action. This makes pattern-switching possible but unlikely, as alternative ‘pathways’ tend to be ignored or remain out of awareness altogether.

The asymmetrical nature of this patterning process means that the solution is logical in hindsight but not accessible using logic beforehand. And this provides the rationale for lateral thinking, which deliberately sets out to provoke a switch to a previously unseen or novel pattern that otherwise might only have occurred by chance or mistake.

The core dynamic: Solutions that have been developed through lateral thinking appear logical and rational in retrospect.

The false conclusion: The solutions could have been arrived at using rational analysis and logic from the outset.

Example 2: Commonsense reasoning

I’m part-way through reading a refreshing book by Duncan Watts entitled, Everything’s Obvious – when you know the answer. In it, Watts draws attention to a similar flaw in the commonly held view that we can predict and control outcomes, provided that we seek out and analyze, in a rational way, all relevant information.

He notes that, paradoxically, this view is reinforced when outcomes fail to match the prediction or plan. This is because, once the result is known, it is always possible to work backwards and create a narrative that links this outcome to the starting condition. And it then becomes ‘obvious’ – or apparently so – that such-and-such a factor caused the observed outcome. This is the same pattern of thinking to which de Bono draws attention above. That is, since we can link cause and effect (at least seemingly so) post event, it must be possible to do so in advance. All that we need to do is to include in our initial analysis the missing factor that (in retrospect) was so obviously crucial to the outcome.

The problem is that, as Watts eloquently argues, the inherent complexity of organizations means that it is impossible to know in advance which of the unlimited number of factors at play in any situation might prove to be critical.

The core dynamic: It is always possible, after the event, to construct a rational, cause-and-effect narrative, which links particular issues to observed outcomes.

The false conclusion: Outcomes can be predicted in advance and/or the desired result achieved with certainty, provided that the right factors are included in the initial analysis.

Example 3: Informal coalitions

As I pointed out in Informal Coalitions, a similar dynamic applies to organizational changes that have been brought about by the skilful use of socio-political action (i.e. normal organizational behaviour). If outcomes are to be considered valid and praiseworthy within the established management discourse, then these (and the way that they have been achieved) need to be made sense of in rational terms. As a result, the stories that are told about them are retrospectively constructed to appear rationally coherent, goal oriented and authoritative. This is especially so when accounting for performance to those whose judgements are critical to the way in which the individual or group’s reputation is constructed within the organization and, perhaps, beyond.

However, by ignoring or denying the unavoidably socio-political nature of organizational change, the illusion is maintained that this is ...

a rational, scientific endeavour (i.e. formal, intellectual, logical, matter-of-fact, designed, and so on) ...

which is practised by a few designated individuals ...

rather than a complex social process (i.e. informal, psycho-social, political, emotional, coalitional, interpretive, and emergent etc.) ...

that is enacted by everyone in the normal course of their day-to-day interactions.

The core dynamic: It is always possible, after the event, to create a rational, scientific explanation for the nature and process of organizational change.

The false conclusion: Change can be successfully brought about by the expert application of rational, scientific methodologies (such as ‘n-step’ change processes, strategic choice, Design Thinking, and the like) – provided that these are carried out precisely as intended.

And in the end

The dominant management discourse has itself been constructed through the complex social process of everyday interaction. And it is sustained through that same dynamic.

Amongst other things, this means that the more that people make sense of things in a particular way, the more likely it is that they will continue to make similar sense going forward. Also, open acknowledgement of the complex social dynamics of organizations would call into question the roles and standing (that is to say, the identities) of those in the occupations, industries and institutions that have grown up around a view of organizations based on the currently dominant management discourse.

So, given the daily reinforcement of the assumptions of rationality, predictability and control, coupled with the self-interests that are served by their preservation, we shouldn’t be surprised that ‘shifting this particular pattern’ is proving less than straightforward.

______________

Series - A lateral view of organizational complexity (speculative links between the work of Ralph Stacey and Edward de Bono):

Part 1 - Self-organization, continuity and change

Part 2 - Non-linear dynamics

Part 3 - Language, conversation and pattern breaking

Part 4 - Leadership implications

Enabling people to excel - remembering Sid's Heroes

2011-10-07T22:25:27+01:00

In the mid-1990s, the BBC broadcast a series of six half-hour programmes entitled Sid’s Heroes. This featured workers from a range of organizations (the “heroes”) who had been challenged to improve the effectiveness of a central aspect of their work, using techniques introduced in two-day workshops by management consultant Sid Joynson. Sid suggested that a 30% increase in productivity was readily achievable in the chosen processes. And, based on the evidence of the shows, his confidence was well-founded.

Sadly, on a couple of occasions, crass comments by managers in response to the workers’ findings undermined the work that had been done. But Sid’s insistence that “the experts” in relation to the work processes were in the room with him, not in the management offices, was well demonstrated. I recall trying to buy a copy of the series from the BBC – on VHS(!) – but it was never made available for purchase.

The series came to mind during a conversation over coffee yesterday morning with someone who is just switching careers from in-house management to external consultancy. His practice is likely to major on the operational excellence agenda that mirrors the Kaizen-based approach highlighted in Sid’s Heroes. I mentioned that I had been particularly taken by one of the episodes, which was based in a shoe factory in Lancashire. And, as it turns out, a compilation of clips from that programme has been produced as a five-minute video on YouTube (below). This appears to be the only visual record of the series that is publically accessible. So enjoy. Look out for:

A very supportive – if ‘healthily sceptical’, shall we say – MD and management team.
The star of the show for me, Hannah Garrard, whose latent leadership skills come to the fore during the programme – as she moves from a position of ‘leading cynic’ to prime mover. She’s only visible in the extract as the woman holding the clip board during the Day 2 ‘walking the job’ exercise.
Sid’s point about the powerful impact of managers’ behaviour – “You’re sending signals like a million memos won’t convey,” he says, in response to the MD’s slightly embarrassed comment that he was “sweating like a pig” after helping to move the machinery into a new, cellular arrangement that his staff had designed in half-an-hour or so.

It looks as though the book that accompanied the series is out of print. But copies can still be obtained via Amazon marketplace.