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Posts from the ‘Kathleen’ Category

Jan 20

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Using questions to create doorways

I continue to consider what it means to crack the cognitive egg. Critical thinking is essential to creating new neural pathways. Questions are a tool to stimulate critical thinking. Questions can be trivial or complex.

In an organization, trivial questions may sound like:

  • Who is in charge?
  • How many departments do you have?
  • How often do you have an all-hands meeting?
  • What is your mission statement?

On the other hand, complex questions are meant to create dialogue and discussion. They provoke people to search for the answer and learn along the way. They stimulate other important questions. They can’t be answered once-and-for-all, but keep showing up over and over again. They require re-thinking assumptions and prior lessons.

Here are the above questions revised to increase their complexity and stimulate critical thinking:

  • How does your organization define leadership? Who in your organization demonstrates those leadership characteristics?
  • If you could draw a picture of how your organization divides up and shares responsibilities, what would it look like? Do you see any patterns? How has this picture changed over time?
  • What are the formal and informal ways communication happens in your organization? What are the benefits and weaknesses of the formal and informal communication methods?
  • How does your definition of leadership, the way you manage responsibilities, and communicate say about the core values of your organization? What is significant about the values of your organization?

A final question: How do the answers to these questions fit with what you thought the answers were yesterday?

I close with a quote:

It is easy to ask trivial questions . . . . It is also easy to ask impossibly difficult questions. The trick is to find the medium questions that can be answered and that take you somewhere. – Jerome Bruner in Understanding by Design, 2005, p. 105.

Jan 19

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Colors of winter and a reflection tripod

Prairie Colors of Winter

In the long days of winter, I encountered the beautiful golds of the prairie on my walk through the woods. I continue considering the importance of being present and reflecting. I recently read a good definition of what it means for us to reflect written by Dr. Daniel Siegel of UCLA in Mindsight. He says that the fundamental components of reflection are a tripod: openness, observation, and objectivity. Here is a summary of his definitions:     

Openness is the willingness to accept things as they are, without expectations and preconceived ideas about how we think things “should be”.     

Observation is our ability to watch our roles in events and our reactions to them; we are able to see how we fit into the context of life as we experience it.     

Objectivity allows us to have thoughts or feelings and not be had by them; we are able to see that our thoughts, feelings, beliefs are temporary.     

I like this analogy on many levels. In photography a tripod stabilizes a shot, giving it more clarity, detail, color, and shadow. In reflection, we can choose to be open, observant, and objective about ourselves, others, and our context. With the reflection tripod, we gain clarity, detail, color, and shadow about events around us and our role and reactions to these events. Reflection can give us distance and freedom to choose our actions and reactions. We can turn off our internal autopilot and change our behaviors, which leads to the possibility of change in our organizations and relationships.

Action precedes transformation; take time to reflect.   

Sand Creek Reflection

Jan 16

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Things we don’t see

Prairie Hoar Frost II

This past week I took a number of photos when a hoar frost settled on the Kansas prairie. Since then I’ve been reflecting on this photo:

Prairie Hoar Frost III

In the photo is a beautiful red farmstead. I drive past this scene several times each week, but I have never noticed it before. The fact is that I have seen it, I just haven’t noted the obvious.

Whether driving in the car, walking in the woods, drinking tea with friends, or leading an organization development project, I continue to challenge myself to be present and aware – to see things I don’t see.

Jan 15

Why we’re happier on Saturday

I was intrigued to see research stating that we are happier on the weekends. This seems intuitive to me. But the research is instructive. We’re happier because we spend our time doing things that we are internally motivated to do, setting our own schedules, and relating with people we feel connected to.

For those of us who are interested in improving organizations, this relates back to my post about ending management as we know it. Research continues to challenge us to create workplaces that support autonomy and control over what, where, when, and how we do our tasks. When people are motivated to work because they want to contribute and increase their mastery of the task, effectiveness and efficiency increase.

Some would argue that their workplace can’t permit autonomy and allow people choice over what, when, how, and with whom they work. I will concede this point. But I will continue to argue that even if a given workplace requires stringent quality controls, opportunity remains.

In those cases (hospitals and air traffic control come to mind), the opportunity for management is to support employees in gaining mastery – to get better and better at what they do. The other opportunity is to clearly and regularly communicate why what employees are doing matters – that the purpose is in service of the larger common good.

As our organizations continue to wrestle with constructive ways of changing management practices toward evidence-based practices, let us all enjoy the weekends ahead!

Jan 9

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Scrambling cognitive eggs

The Learning Organization has been a buzz word in companies since MIT’s Senge published The Fifth Discipline in 1990.  Yet organizational learning can happen only when individuals in the system learn. And, in most organizations, the individuals in the system are adults.

In my last post I talked about the ways that our brains continue to grow and change throughout our adult lives. There are implications for adult learning environments. Adults work primarily with concepts and patterns, not facts. If we want adults to learn facts, it’s best to introduce the information in small amounts followed by a question, “How does this fit or not fit with what you already know?” Followed by more questions for reflection:

How does this change your view of the way things work?
What do you agree with?
What do you disagree with?
What new patterns do you see when you consider the new information?
Does this make you think of a story or something you’ve experienced?

Those who already practice critical thinking may recognize some of these questions. Critical thinking and reflection are what allow adults to learn, to grow new neurons, to lay down new neural pathways and reinforce old ones. Shaking up our cognitive pathways allows us to continue to learn and grow . . . allowing our organizations to be learning organizations. Let’s make sure our learning opportunities are appropriately scrambled and not all in one basket.

Jan 8

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Cracking the cognitive egg

Researchers continue to describe new findings on the human brain. Long-held beliefs are changing as we learn that our brains continue to form new neurons and connections throughout our lives. I can see applications in organizations for the information being uncovered. From education and training to relationship building and communication, our brains impact how we function and learn.

One of the areas that intrigues me is how I can stimulate my brain to grow and change, to create new neurons and new memory pathways. Dr. Kathleen Taylor suggests that as adults we should focus less on adding to our storehouse of facts. While information is important, a brain tune-up requires that we move out of our comfort zone. Talk to people we normally bypass. Go to lunch with someone who sees things differently. Drive a different route to work. Read a book from a less frequented section of the library or bookstore.

The good news is that as we age, our brains are more likely to see patterns and integrate what we learn into the neural system. The challenge is to take action to continue building our individual system so that we can effectively contribute to the bigger systems to which we belong. So, here’s to scrambled neural pathways and cognitive development …!

Jan 7

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Getting outside of the box

How often have you heard the request, “We need to think outside of the box.”? At the start of the new year, we traditionally pause to reflect and set new goals. But how many of the goals from last year do we even remember?

As I considered this dilemma, I was challenged to get “outside the box” and do a thought experiment by Ron Ashkenas, a blogger at HBR. He suggested firing myself and reapplying for my job. Here are his questions that I asked myself along with a couple of my own:

What are your qualifications?
What would you say in an interview about the changes you would make and the improvements you would engineer?
What unique “stamp” would you put on this new job?
How do you feel about the business strategy and the quality of the leadership team?
What would you change?
What are your strengths? What will you do this year to grow and increase your strengths?

While this is not at the level of the thought experiment that allowed Einstein to come up with e=MC2, the experiment allows me to challenge myself and survey the organizational landscape around me in a different way.

Dec 29

carpe diem!

Often organizations find themselves waiting for the next strategic planning cycle. As individuals we wait to make New Year’s resolutions until January 1. It feels comfortable, “We’ve always done it that way; one more week won’t matter.”

Yet, there is nothing like the present moment for beginning to take action on moving our organizations and ourselves in new directions.

carpe diem! (seize the day)

Dec 19

Getting more of what we want

Anticipation

 At our house, against all efforts to re-focus on giving rather than receiving, I still hear the line, “I want _______ (you fill in the blank).” In organizations, this often comes out as people say, “If only _______ (you fill in the blank).”

But is that who we want to be? Is that who I want to be? … someone who asks others to meet my wants? … someone who lives in a world of “if only”?

My Dad has always said, “If you want to meet the right people, you must first be the right person.”  Or we might turn to Peter Drucker, “The successful person places more attention on doing the right thing rather than doing things right.”

As I anticipate the gifts of the holiday season, tangible and intangible, given and received, I seek to be the right person, to want what I have, and to engage in the present moment with hope and anticipation. When I’m focusing in the right direction, my dreams and possibilities have a chance of becoming reality.

Dec 18

Quiet desperation

Whatever your faith tradition, the U.S. culture this time of year is filled with celebrations and parties. The year is winding down while colorful lights push back the winter darkness. We are waiting, waiting for the shortest day of the year to be past, waiting for a new year with its possibilities.

Winter Lights

Yet, in this season of waiting and hoping for new possibilities, I still hear voices of resignation. People voice resignation to events around us that are out of our control, in our organizations, families, and the world. In Walden, Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

And yet, we get to choose. A colleague reminded me that only 10% of our organization life comes to us through formal channels. The rest comes through informal interaction. In those information interactions, we get to take responsibility for ourselves, our behavior, our relationships, our development, our emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.

I ask myself and challenge you to do the same, “What am I doing to develop my capacity to be authentic and present? Am I willing to interrupt my routine to reflect and then be proactive in my life? Am I willing to take responsibility for my actions, thoughts, and physical environment?”

As individuals, we can choose to contribute – appreciate – give freely, or we can choose to hoard – criticize – take. We can act to begin ending the cycle of resignation and desperation. We can act to take a walk, read an article or book, and offer a word of encouragement to those around us. We can be the light that helps to push back the darkness. We can be the change we wish to see in the world.

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