informal coalitions

Leadership – Passing the baton?

2009-06-26T23:19:14+01:00

In his post Doing by Not Doing, Johnnie Moore draws attention to an intriguing session by Israeli conductor Itay Talgam at this year’s DLD (Digital, Life, Design) Conference in Munich. In it, Talgam uses the role of the orchestra conductor as a metaphor for organizational leadership.

He contrasts a range of styles, from the rigid control of Riccado Muti to the ‘hands-off’ approach of Leonard Bernstein, and invites us to draw lessons from the contrasting relationships that the various conductors develop with the musicians.

Talgam emphasizes the importance of creating dialogue between conductor and orchestra.

"Who," he asks, "Is responsible for interpretation?"

In particular, he argues that the players need to bring their whole selves to their work. And that this can only happen if the conductor creates the necessary space. He cites Bernstein as telling the members of his orchestras,

"I cannot use you as an instrument. Not even as a professional. I need you as a full person … Bring whatever you have … then we can start a dialogue."

Watch the video and see what you think.

Can you identify aspects of your own organization’s leadership in Talgam’s talk?

In particular, what do you think of his last example of Bernstein in action (or inaction) - his "doing by not doing", as Johnnie Moore describes it? Does it distribute leadership to the orchestra? Or, as Earl Mardle implies in his comment on Moore’s post, does it still keep Bernstein in the leadership spotlight - the ‘heroic’ individual around whom everything revolves?

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The “What You Will Learn” trap in learning and development`

2009-06-15T22:11:25+01:00

It has become almost obligatory for descriptions of management courses, development workshops, training programmes and the like to include a section headed "what participants will learn". This seems like common sense. After all, if we don’t know what people will learn, how can we know that the investment has been worth it?

Some training and development providers eagerly rise to the challenge. They produce detailed lists of the new knowledge, skills and attitudes that learners will acquire as a result of their participation. And they take confidence from the belief that clearly defined outcomes, coupled with the packaged ‘transfer of knowledge’, will ensure the desired learning. The anxiety-reducing promise of structure, predictability and control acts as a further incentive to follow this route.

Unfortunately, this is the same trap that designers of formal change programmes fall into when they assume that their well crafted strategies, plans and projects will guarantee particular organizational outcomes. The reality is that they won’t.

Organizational dynamics

Organizations don’t work in the simplistic, if-you-do-this-you’ll-get-that sort of way that most approaches to organizational change assume. Nor does individual and group learning. This is especially the case where the focus moves beyond what might be called the ‘foundation’ knowledge and skills in a particular profession, craft or administrative function. A statement of so-called ‘learning outcomes’ then becomes - at best - a declaration of intent. What actually happens, in terms of individual learning and organizational impact depends on:

the conversations that people have with others (and themselves!), to make sense of the formal content of the learning event and of any other matters of interest or concern that arise informally;
the immediate actions that they take as a result of this initial and subsequent sense-making (learning) process;
the novel and/or habitual ways of thinking and behaving that this leads to over time; and
the extent to which these local conversations influence, and are influenced by, the more widespread patterns of taken-for-granted assumptions that reflect earlier sense-making activity.

Most importantly, this learning takes place in the context of all of the other things that are going on for individuals in their own ‘here and now’. Often, some of the most important (that is, useful) knowledge that participants might gain has nothing to do with the manifest purpose and content of the formal events at all.

The normality of not knowing

Those who design and run learning events - whether as consultants, academics or in-house training and development staff – need to become comfortable with this natural state of ‘not knowing’. And so do those who commission specific interventions. We don’t know what, specifically, each participant will learn as a result of engaging in the process. Indeed, we cannot know. Nor can we say how they might decide to act as a result. Less still can we predict what impact the subsequent actions of participants and others might have on overall organizational performance.

Changing the conversations

What we can say, though, is that learning events offer new ideas, new experiences, new interactions, new possibilities, new skills, new frames, and so on. And these can provide stepping stones to improved activities, capabilities and performance. They can also lead to personal and collective insights that open up new ways of seeing, thinking and acting. In the process, new patterns of conversation might emerge. And, if the conversations change so will the organization.

What is most important here is for leaders (at all levels) to pay attention to the ways in which this 'new learning' is helping to shift the patterns of conversation and action. Actively participating in this ongoing process, to help shift those patterns in organizationally beneficial ways, is a primary leadership task and part of the wider and continuing process of organizational change.

The messy reality

So, despite their "What You Will Learn" statements, leaning events can’t offer guaranteed outcomes. This might not fit neatly with the ‘measurement culture’ and ‘managerialist’ assumptions that dominate current management practice. But it is a reflection of how things are in the messy reality of everyday organizational life.

Informal coalitions expressed as a de Bono “bonto poem”

2009-06-10T21:35:24+01:00

On a couple of occasions, I have posted a poem to the blog. These were meant to provide some light relief from my more serious musings about informal coalitions and all things organizational. This post adds a third. It is based on Edward de Bono’s notion of a "bonto poem", which I came across a couple of days ago.

If you fancy a break from the usual ‘thinking’ diversions of crosswords, sudoku or whatever, the bonto offers a potential escape route. It challenges the writer to create a poem that ‘makes a point’ within a strict set of rules – and using just four lines of verse.

The rules for the bonto

The following rules for the bonto are reproduced from Thinking Training’s post on The De Bono Society site:

The first line should be as bizarre as possible
The second line finds a reason for the first line
The third line states the consequences of the first two lines
The fourth line encapsulates the poem and states a philosophical reflection on life
There are only four lines
The first two lines rhyme
The last two lines rhyme
Maximum of seven or eight syllables per line
There must be an equal number of syllables in each and every line!

The poem

I was challenged by Dennis Perrin (of Thinking Training) to produce a bonto based on my work. So – for better or worse – the following effort distils informal coalitions into 32 syllables (there are a few more than that in the book!):

Structured change plans, programmed to fail

Hidden dynamics will derail.

Outcomes don’t match up-front visions?

Try informal coalitions!

Anyone who is overcome by my 'poeticity' – or a glutton for punishment - might also care to look at the two earlier offerings:

A re-write of Kipling’s If, reflecting on my experiences on the MSc in Managing Change.
A "found poem", London’s Secret River, inspired by an OD workshop that used this technique as a facilitation tool.

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Other posts relating to Edward de Bono include:

How does informal coalitions differ from participative management?

2009-06-09T12:31:58+01:00

I am often asked how my informal coalitions view of organizational dynamics differs from established approaches to participative management and organizational change. The latter aim to involve people more fully and directly in the decison-making and action-taking life of an organization and to adopt a more collaborative stance to problem solving and implementation.

This post sets out to explain the fundamental difference that I see between the two, and the implications that this has for consulting and, more importantly, leadership practice.

Joint Problem Solving is the generic term that I use to describe a deliberate management strategy aimed at involving people formally in the organization's problem-solving, decision-making and/or sense-making processes. It includes such things as working groups, task forces, structured dialogue sessions, large-group change methodologies, team workshops, and so on. It sits at the ‘flexible’ end of a spectrum of formal, rational and ‘legitimate’ approaches to organizational change. This ranges from what I call Management Edict at the ‘tight’ end (imposed, directed and programmed) to Joint Problem Solving (involving rather than imposed, facilitated rather than directed and ad hoc rather than programmed).

Although Joint Problem Solving is a more participative approach than Management Edict, it still sits within the conventional management paradigm. Amongst other things, this assumes that:

managers can design, plan and build the future;
identifying and using other organizations' 'best practices' will assure success;
linear cause-and effect relationships can be identified and leveraged to achieve predictable outcomes; and
intended outcomes will be achieved if plans are implemented as designed.

In the book, I mentioned that some managers might pay lip service to Joint Problem Solving, by using one or other of the above examples of this approach but constraining this to such an extent that it becomes little more than Management Edict in disguise. However, even where it is used as a genuine attempt to involve and empower people, it still doesn’t address the complex social dynamics of organizations. Which is where informal coalitions comes in.

Organizations as complex social processes

The informal coalitions perspective is concerned with what’s happening ‘under the table’, in the hidden, messy and informal dynamics at the heart of everyday organizational life. It looks at the implications that these dynamics have for everyday leadership practice. The focus therefore shifts to the shadow-side of the organization (its informal relationships, political dynamics, social processes, individual idiosyncrasies, cultural patterns, paradoxes and so on) and to what I have called relationship dynamics (the everyday conversational interactions through which people perceive, interpret and evaluate what’s going on and decide how they are going to act). Relationship dynamics are concerned with the socially complex and ‘constructionist’ nature of these interactions, with power relations, and so on.

Relationship dynamics

The critical points to bear in mind here are that:

these interactions happen 'twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week' – with or without the involvement of those in formal leadership positions (i.e. line managers at all levels);
they impact upon all of the formal, 'above the table' activities - whether these are governed by the assumptions and practices of Management Edict (impose), Education and Training (inform) or Joint Problem Solving (involve);
it is through these local (i.e. one-to-one and small-group) interactions that people decide how they are going to act; and
it is through the complex interplay of these local actions and interactions that organization-wide outcomes emerge.

Some of these interactions will be governed (or at least initiated) by the organization’s formal, structured processes (meetings, conferences, workshops etc). Others will occur informally. Often, the latter will take place ‘around the edges’ of the formal sessions (agreeing positions in informal conversations before meetings, discussing ‘undiscussables’ during breaks, or shaping interpretations and responses after the event). Many more of the conversations will take place at times and in places unrelated to the formal, ‘legitimate’ processes of the organization. All of these conversations, though, contribute to the organizational outcomes that emerge and the results that are achieved.

Some of the outputs from these interactions will find their way into the formal arrangements of the organization (strategies, structures and systems etc) - both enabling and constraining ongoing formal interactions and influencing potential outcomes. Others, though, will remain ‘in the shadows’. For example, people continually coalesce informally around particular interpretations of the world and supporting narratives, which seek to initiate, support or frustrate specific changes and ways of working. The narrative themes, which these informal coalitions reflect, continue to influence the ongoing sense-making process in a reflexive way. However, these themes will remain in the shadows (or ‘under the table’) until they gain sufficient momentum to ‘surface’ as formal propositions and overtly enter the formal arenas of the organization.

Organizational culture as a patterning process

Another dynamic that affects the ongoing sense-making process is the emergence of patterns of taken-for-granted (cultural) assumptions. These form over time, as people make sense of their experience in particular ways (rather than others). From an informal coalitions perspective, the more that people make sense of things in a particular way, the more likely they are to continue to make sense in similar ways. These assumptions therefore tend to channel sense-making imperceptibly down established, culturally familiar pathways. This is why cultural change is so difficult to bring about. At the same time, the dynamics of the conversational process hold the capacity for novel outcomes to emerge and change to come about.

Consulting (and leadership) implications

As a consultant, I seek to apply these insights directly when I’m consulting with individual managers and teams. And hopefully, the conversations that we have will affect the ways in which people interact 'back at the ranch'. But these conversations represent only a minute fraction of the total number of conversations that constitute everyday organizational life. They typically only involve a relatively few people and happen every now and again.

Informal Coalitions therefore emphasizes the need for leaders (at all levels) to pay attention to the conversations and interactions that are going on day-in-day-out, and to seek to 'shift' the content and patterns of these conversations in ways that are organizationally beneficial. I try to help managers understand these dynamics and to explore the options that they have for trying to affect those conversations. The focus therefore shifts to the everyday interactions that they have with their staff, the informal conversational networks through which people make sense of what’s going on, and the impact that their own behaviours have on the sense-making process.

For the reasons outlined earlier, managers can act with intention and insight in doing this but can’t be certain what outcomes will emerge. Ultimately, it is the conversations that individuals have with each other that will determine the detail of the actions that they will take and the overall outcomes that will emerge. However, the more informed that leaders are of the dynamics of informal coalitions, the more likely they are to be able to engage with this process in organizationally enhancing ways.

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Who are the main players in organizational communication?

2009-06-02T18:21:44+01:00

Who are the most significant people when it comes to communicating in organizations? Is it the Internal Comms department? Or line managers? Or is it, perhaps, those influential, ‘tuned-in’ and/or well-linked individuals, who have no formal comms role but who seem to be highly active informally?

Well, all of these have a part to play. And the last two are particularly important contributors to the sense-making process that sits at the heart of the informal coalitions view of organizations. But to leave it at that would be to miss the crucial role that others play in the dynamics of organizational change and business performance.

The need to make sense

As human beings, we each need to make sense of the world around us and to author our part in it. To do this, we take whatever cues we can from the diverse mix of formal events, everyday happenings, and other people’s words and actions. We perceive, interpret and evaluate these cues through the conversations that we have with others (and with ourselves) as we navigate our way through life.

Some of these interpretations will be congruent with the current conceptions that we have of our self, our roles and our relationships. Others will create some dissonance. Either way, we continuously draw on this interpretive mix in the ongoing construction of our identity. And it is this that enables us to go on together as individuals in a relational world.

The critical thing that I want to highlight here, though, is that everybody does this. Not just a selected few. And they all do it all of the time.

People take whatever opportunities they can to make sense of what’s going on - and to talk about ‘their take on the world’ with others. These conversations follow no set or predictable pattern, whether in terms of their timing, content or outcome. But all of them help to shape people’s understanding and determine the actions that they and others will take.

Emergent outcomes

What happens ‘overall’ then depends on the complex interplay of these local conversational interactions, both within and beyond the formally recognized ‘boundaries’ of the organization. Managers can act with specific intentions in mind, encourage the process, and seek to activate particular informal influence networks. But they can’t control the pattern and content of the ensuing conversations. Nor can they mandate the outcomes that will emerge.

The most important communications, then, are not those that line managers have with staff. Nor are they the formal messages that communication specialists craft for managers and others to ‘deliver’. They are the conversations that people have with each other – throughout the organization – as they go about their work and as they interact informally together.

And it is not simply the actions of a seemingly influential or well-connected set of individuals that determine the outcome of organizational change and performance - important though these people can be. Everyone is a player. People continually exchange stories, as they go about their everyday activities; and, in the process, they co-create the future. These stories blend their perceptions and interpretations of formal messages with their own experiences of the day-to-day reality of organizational life. This process is self-organizing and the outcomes emergent. It is not about "getting the message across". It is about joint sense making and relationship building.

The leadership challenge

The challenge for those in formal leadership positions – throughout an organization - is how they might participate in this process in a deliberate, informed and organizationally beneficial way.

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Earlier posts on organizational communication include: