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Oct 2

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Rushing ahead for more of the same

I’ve been thinking about change and transformation. It seems to me that most things that are “new” are often just the same things we’ve always had, perhaps with an incremental change here or there. A new computer has a slightly faster chip or a screen that’s an inch larger on the diagonal. Even the questions we asked are often worded in such a way as to create the context or framework for the answer.

The current buzz word flying through the air is innovation. For me the challenge with innovation is not to design a process that creates an opportunity for brainstorming or mind mapping that leads to the slightly different. And I will concede that any process or method has built-in biases for outcomes.  The challenge is to create an environment or an experience that pushes us to go beyond our assumptions and self-imposed boundaries.

Perhaps the key is to live the questions, to hold the opposing demands together: experimenting with reproducibility, spontaneity with stability, and surprising serendipity with effective efficiency. This is easier said than done. The beginning is to move to the level of systems thinking where we not only seek to understand and be understood, but to integrate the pieces into a whole.

Creating an environment that fosters space for innovation will require strategic planning and storytelling, mission statements and poetry, and schematic drawings and publicly visible art. My hope is to discover a road less traveled rather than rushing along the interstate of life, rushing ahead for more of the same.

Sep 6

Sailing with Dragons

I’ve been thinking about the tsunami of information that seems overwhelming and at the same time, necessary. The number of words written on WordPress can exceed 43 million per day, which doesn’t count traditional print media or any of the other popular social networking and blogging sites. There are organization strategies known as knowledge management systems that attempt to make sense of the tide of information. There are individual strategies for organizing e-mail and schedules.

And yet, we need to implement effective strategies to contain and manage the knowledge necessary for the linear processes in our work and life. And additionally, we need to have flexible strategies designed to help us, and the organizations we are a part of, make sense of the knowledge and information. When we have effective management processes and time to tell the stories that make sense of what is happening, our organizations will begin to thrive.

Having an effective process map and the narrative stories to give direction are not the only helpful things for organizations. It can also be helpful to go sailing with dragons. A few weeks ago I wrote about our maps and talked about the dragons that live beyond the edge of the known world. A willingness to live the full adventure, to accept the contradictions and paradoxes encountered, to not have all the answers, . . . these are keys to innovation and discovery.

The College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the study of Cartography, succeeding generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. 
    Jorge Luis Borges in Of Exactitude in Science

Sep 5

Fragments . . .

This past week I spent much of my writing time working on a new article for the Kansas EMS Chronicle column that I write. After writing on the blog for a couple of months, I found it challenging to put together a full-length article for a print publication. I kept asking myself, “How has blogging changed the way you write?”

Sitting on the porch this afternoon, I was readying say everything by Scott Rosenberg. Near the end of the book he suggests that blogs are fragments of ideas, conversations, and information. The on-line world is full of fragments, some linked together, some standing alone.

In reflecting on fragments, I thought of archaeologists who piece together pot shards and of researchers who discover fragments of ancient manuscripts. Every fragment is part of a whole and has a story to tell. Each blog post is only a fragment of what I’m thinking about regarding organizations and the development dynamic the fuels their growth. And, yes, it has changed the way I write.

So, why blog? The posts are fragments my reflections on the conversations that are going on in organizaitons formally and informally. They are fragments of the ideas in the world of people who care about how organizations can function at their best. In the end, the blog allows me to share my reflections on the pieces of thoughts and ideas that I hope will be a small, but useful contribution – a part of the resources for organization development.

Aug 27

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Seasoned by Reflection

You’re the coach. It’s the NCAA basketball finals. Your team is down by 1 point with 4 seconds to go. Do you want your all-star rookie or your 4-year, seasoned veteran to take the last shot? My guess is that you’ll choose the seasoned player, even if her stats are not as impressive as the rookie’s. Experience in performing under pressure can give the seasoned player better odds.

Seasoned players and leaders have spent years reflecting on the situations they’ve encountered, considering what worked and what did not, observing what was required to meet the challenges. Reflection is an important part of personal development. The goal of reflection is understanding, synthesis, and integration of experience. It is not about judging the past as bad or good, criticizing yourself, or self-aggrandizement. It’s taking time to think about and recognize what happened, accepting the past as it is. Then it’s taking the next step to learn from what happened and identify your role, behavior, and response.

Think there isn’t time to reflect? I use the time spent driving to-and-from events or meetings. I often take a walk in the early evening. And, I set aside specific time to write and think each week. All of life’s experiences can teach us things if we are open to reflecting and learning.

Aug 25

People You Won’t Meet at the Water Cooler

The best leaders, the ones developing field leaders, won’t be the ones standing around at the water cooler. They are the ones working to get things done. But they don’t get things done by doing everything themselves. They start by looking around at the people they are responsible for leading and assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

A good leader knows that the people around them may possess strengths that the leader does not and is willing to allow people to be good at what they do. A good leader also assesses areas that need to be improved. Developing these areas will go a long way to creating new leaders. The challenge in developing leaders is to construct the environment and situations which will challenge people to develop and stretch their knowledge and abilities, even allowing them to fail — without significant consequences.

Once a challenge has been met, it is important to do two things: The first is to review what worked and what didn’t. Respectful dialogue and healthy debate can be part of a process that can improve not only the field leader, but the entire organization. The second is to go out and try again. In Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, the research is presented showing that people who are expert at their chosen task have practiced it for more than 10,000 hours. Trying again, assessing, improving, and trying again has been called by many different names over the years – from Total Quality Management to After Action Review; it is a proven method for exercising, growing, and building capacity.

The leaders who develop other leaders get things done. They don’t give up. They create challenging opportunities. They continuously act, learn, and improve. They put the well being of the organization and their people ahead of their own interests. They are committed to doing excellent work, work that makes a difference and is sustainable over time.

Aug 24

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Measuring Leadership Success

We recently rolled out our new presentation on developing leaders that is based on our research. It is worth revisiting the question of how leaders measure success.

Managers measure success in terms of goals met, projects managed, dollars saved and made, and people organized. Many managers use leadership of one type or another to accomplish all of these things. The cycle of information and resource management continues to be compressed from year to quarter to week to hour to minute. As managers it becomes tempting to quickly make the decisions and allocate resources quickly and effectively.

Given the driven pace and risks in every decision, it is more difficult than ever to think about developing leaders. And yet, in the end, a legacy isn’t built out of the best flowcharts and financial graphs; it is built out of the investments made in building people’s capacity to lead, investments in people’s lives.

I would argue that it is not enough to hope that people will watch and learn, or to send people to leadership training once a year. In order to develop leaders a deliberate approach is needed, becoming a leader is not magic. Energy and resources are needed to create the conditions for success. The joy of watching people grow in competence and confidence is the reward.

When I think back on one of the people in my life who was a developer of leaders, I reflect that after his death, the thing people remembered the most was his commitment to creating the environment for others to grow and succeed. Surely, that is the measure of a leader’s success.

Aug 13

Beware of Straight-jackets

I’m reading Cats: The Nine Lives of Innovation. I’m taking a break from my usual preference to look at what’s working to look at Lundin’s challenges to innovation. He lists the following four challenges to our ability to innovate, calling them “straight-jackets”. I include them here along with my comments:

  1. Distractions. Noise, doubts, fear, and the accumulated opinions, thoughts, and feelings of  a lifetime that drown out new ideas. When is the last time I turned off all electronics to experience life uninterrupted?
  2. Normal. Our preference for standardized and repeatable experiences and process inhibits breaking out in new ways. Of course, this is the safe and secure, normal and average way we stay in our comfort zones.
  3. Failure. We’re taught from childhood to avoid failure. In recent years I’ve seen parents applauding children for everything from taking a step to playing with toys. To create something new, we have to be willing to risk failing, to risk not getting the applause and approval of co-workers, family, and friends.
  4. Leadership. Here I think he means the old style of authoritarian, command and control management, where everything is measured, directed, and done by-the-playbook. To innovate, we have to go where the energy and passion are.

I’m ready to think about and discover what it means to be innovative and creative in my life and in the interactions I have with clients. After all, while we may spend time talking about how innovative Toyota or General Electric are, in the end, people are the ones who create new things and ideas.

Aug 9

Are we there yet?

The road trip continues with over a thousand miles completed. Like kids on a long car trip, organizations are prone to setting goals and then asking, “Are we there yet?”

Setting, working toward, and meeting goals are an integral part of a successful organization. Trust and energy are built when members experience the commitment of everyone to the process and the shared drive to deliver on time and within deadlines. Growth happens as successes are celebrated, new challenges appear, and further goals are set.

For organizations and leaders, goal setting is an ongoing journey with way points. Are we there yet? Yes, we are and we will be!

Aug 8

Actions Speak Louder than Words

I am on a road trip with my parents, heading for western New York where my Father was born and grew up. We’ve been talking about what we remember from the past as we drive along. One of the things I will always remember is the emphasis from my parents on not only knowing what I believe, but always remembering that my actions would speak louder than my words.

Lou Holtz, football coach, who we use as an example in the Friesen Group presentation on field leadership, talked about this principle in reference to trust. He observed that his college football teams changed personnel every year. But, the questions were always the same*:

1. Do you care about me?
2. Can I trust you?
3. Are you committed to the success of the team?

 In Holtz’s opinion, the answers to these questions are best given through actions. When we act in an authentic, trustworthy, and consistent manner, we will gain trust. My personal goal remains to be authentic, trustworthy, and consistent – the same person in the workplace, community, and home.

 *Holtz quote from “The Art of Innovation” by Tom Kelley, p. 85

Aug 7

Economic Transformation

Here’s a link to Otto Scharmer’s new paper on Economic Transformation. The question on the table is one that many organizations face today: how do we meet the challenge of a “double-split” .. the horizontal split that is seen in organizations where silos have grown up between different departments or different committees .. and the vertical split that occurs between leaders, group members, and the communities they serve.

Join the dialogue at the Presencing Institute.

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