Diagnose Situation: Explore Tough Interpretations

Exploring tough interpretations about what’s happening in your situation is a part of exercising leadership. Since the challenges we are working on don’t typically have a clear end in sight, exploring tough interpretations is a tool that helps us look into what might be going on in the situation.  Unless you’re willing to look at versions of the truth that aren’t immediately apparent, you may easily be going down a road that is not going to take you to the change you want.  It’s hard because it forces us outside our comfort zone. It requires us to consider points-of-view that challenge how we think and how we see the world.

Interpretations are more than just an opinion about something. It’s a version of the current or future reality. It’s an explanation for why things are the way they are.  How do you make a tough interpretation?  It usually means continuing to explore an idea until it starts to become difficult or tough.  It needs to feel a little uncomfortable to know you are doing it right.   A few examples:

• Easy interpretation: We lost the game because the refs cheated us. Tough interpretations: We lost because we didn’t prepare enough. We lost because we have hidden issues among our team and we don’t trust each other. We lost because some key teammates crack under pressure.
• Easy interpretation: To succeed and distinguish ourselves from the competition we need a new strategic plan. Tough interpretations: What good is a new plan if our culture still stinks. We are unable to execute a strategic plan. We don’t like to actually focusing on certain strategies and prefer the flexibility that comes with not really committing to anything.
• Easy interpretation: He is distant from his family because he prefers to do his own thing. Tough interpretations: He is suffering from mental illness. We’ve failed to be there for him in the past. There are unspoken issues among the family that keep him away.

Do you see how the exercise of leadership looks different based on the interpretation? It’s the difference between lodging a formal protest with the athletic conference or helping players develop mental strategies for handling the stress of close game situations. It’s the difference between hiring a consultant to guide yet another strategic plan process or experimenting with making the company commit to the current strategy. It’s the difference between rarely seeing your loved one or gathering family members for frank dialogue about your part of the mess.

Being able to explore uncomfortable interpretations is a skill necessary for leadership. Absent the ability to explore tough interpretations, we interpret what’s going on around us in a simple, easy and benign ways. This leads to technical strategies rather than adaptive approaches. This can be comfortable, but rarely leads to progress. Holding and exploring tough interpretations helps us imagine multiple ways forward and helps us diagnose what the exercise of leadership really needs to be in a given situation.

How do you develop the skill?

Practice it. Look at something going on at work, at home or in the news and imagine multiple interpretations. Recognize which interpretation might be easiest for you to “believe.” Don’s stop believing it, but simply recognize it as one of several different ways of looking at the situation.  Often times practicing this skill is most easy when you approach it like you are “renting” the idea versus owning it.  Exploring tough interpretations is just about coming up with every idea possible to look at the situation through different lenses.  By renting the ideas it gives you some freedom to make tougher interpretations that you normally wouldn’t.  You develop this skill by giving yourself permission to explore a lot of different interpretations, even the ones you may not be committed to 100%.  This can be difficult because often times our feelings get in the way.  Feelings are important and are one piece of the puzzle, but make sure you are also looking at the cold hard facts.

Tips for success:

• Base your interpretations on actual data you can observe such as what someone said or did, not your feelings.
• When talking about tough interpretations with others, use language like, “One interpretation might be…” and “Another interpretation could be…” That type of lead in will help you and others remember those interpretations are possible ideas, not necessarily your opinion.
• Imagine four people: The rudest person you know; the most negative person you know; the bravest person you know; and the person you know who is most able to get a handle on a complex situation.  Then ask yourself: What would each of those people say about what’s going on here?
• Pretend this is happening to someone else in some other city, country or planet and come up with interpretations from that vantage point.

Q and A

Question: I am a parent on the local school board.  Lately we’ve had some pretty big debates between the teachers, parents and administration about the quality of education our children are receiving.  Parents blame the teachers, teachers blame the parents, and administrators blame lack of funding.  Everyone believes so firmly in their own thinking that I’m wondering how we can move forward?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

(Ideas for this section?  We are looking for a historical anecdote.)

Inspiration

“If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.” ~Albert Einstein

“As a species, we humans possess some unique capacities.  We can stand apart from what’s going on, think about it, question it, imagine it being different.  We are also curious.  We want to know ‘why?’  We figure out ‘how?’  We think about what’s past, we dream forward to the future.  We create what we want rather than just accept what is.  So far, we’re the only species we know that does this.” ~Margaret Wheatley

Resources

Book: (Any good books on this topic?)

Movie: Moneyball directed by Bennett Miller

Song: “Beautiful Day” by U2

Energize Others: Work Across Factions

Working across factions happens when someone who holds certain values and beliefs engages productively with another who holds contrary or different values and beliefs. “Productively” is the key word. Truly working across factions is a rare skill, fraught with risk, but also with the tremendous reward of actual progress on what you and others care most about.

We use the word “work” for a reason. Exercising leadership can be hard and challenging. Leading puts us on our edge with no clear promise of future returns. One of the hardest parts of leadership is working across factions.

The cable news channels are filled with talking head pundits on panels from across the political spectrum. The pundits speak eloquently (maybe!). They each are there to represent their faction (i.e. liberals, conservatives, libertarians, moderates, extremists, etc.). No one is there to work across factions. Their interaction is reduced to mini-speeches, given to each other and their audience. Each mini-speech has the goal of trying to convince others that their faction is right, or maybe even more likely, appealing to their own hard liners and enforcing their already strong held values and beliefs.  Some would argue that there’s actually very little dialogue anymore related to convincing the other side you are right because the conversation has become all about enforcing what you already hold true.

Exercising leadership on adaptive challenges involves working across factions, not simply trying to beat them into submission or annihilate them.

What are factions?

Factions are groups of people who share common values. They are often loyal to the same things and share a common orientation to the work before them. Factions can be political (conservative, liberal, etc.), generational (boomers, gen-x-ers, company founders, new hires, etc.), geographical (rural, urban, headquarters, field office, etc.), spiritual (religious, agnostic, atheist, etc.), personality driven (introverts, extroverts, etc.) among many more.

Why is it critical to work across factions?

The engagement and work of multiple factions is necessary to make progress on adaptive challenges. One faction ruling (the country or the office) with a 50.1% majority is fine for technical problems. Trying to solve adaptive challenges in the same manner is a recipe for little progress. Adaptive challenges are about values and culture. Values and culture can’t be imposed upon other factions. They need to be crafted together. It’s when diverse and divergent factions find common ground that progress can be made more quickly and for the long-haul.

Working across factions looks like:

• Asking questions so you can learn about them, rather than giving mini-speeches.
• First identifying commonalities and building off those, rather than focusing on disagreements.
• Speaking to the loss or perceived loss the other factions might experience, rather than sugarcoating the situation.
• Your own faction possibly reacting negatively, or even a little jealous, as a result of your outreach.
• Getting to know the other faction beyond the issue or stance you both hold.  Note: This does not mean you have to switch your own beliefs and values or that they will change theirs.  It just means you gain a better understanding of each other in order to draw energy to forge ahead.
• Being in one faction for a certain project, and then finding yourself on a new topic or project, in a new faction, but with people who may have held opposing views when you were focused on the first project.

Working across factions is hard for three main reasons:

1. It runs counter to societies default behavior. Unfortunately, most of us mimic the cable news pundits in our own life. We seek first to convince others, or put pressure on our own to not deflect, and then to pat ourselves on the back for doing so.
2. It requires us to spend more time “diagnosing the situation” than we like. People only know what they know and to work across factions we need to understand where they are, their loyalties and values. We need to imagine the situation from their point of view and do so in an authentic and honest way.
3. Our own faction doesn’t like it. “You did what? You met with who? And you didn’t even convince them they are wrong? “Who the heck do you think you are?” It can be especially hard to work across factions if you hold an authority position among your faction (i.e. the senate majority leader or the manager of the accounting department). You have been put in that position to advocate for certain things. Your faction might not like you working with the others.

Tips for working across factions:

• Focus on building trust first. Just ask someone to go to breakfast or coffee with you. Don’t make this too complicated.
• Find the commonalities.
• Have a mindset that you might not be right. Be open to possibilities and discovering new things together.
• Ask questions. Not loaded ones such as, “Don’t you think the company will crumble if your ideas get implemented?” But sincere questions such as: “What do you care most about related to this situation? What does success look like from your point of view? What do you wish other factions and groups understood about you and your beliefs? What do you stand to lose if progress is made on this issue?”
• Once you deeply understand where they are coming from, start with “yes-able” propositions. Ask something of the other faction you are 99 percent sure they will be able to agree to. Build from there.
• This last one is less a tip and more a way of being… Don’t see things as a zero sum game. Don’t try to annihilate the other faction or their thinking. See the value in the faction and work to blend it with your faction and others.  It’s about working together for the common good.

Q and A

Question: I am an associate in a law firm and currently working on a very large project with two different stakeholders.  Each group is positioning themselves to be right and by the way they are treating each other, clearly don’t think the other party has anything to offer.  What needs to be done to get us all working toward one common goal?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

??? – story about World War I and a cease fire where all of the soldiers came out of their trenches and shared food and built relationships until the generals put a stop to it because they thought it would keep the soldiers from killing each other.

Inspiration

“Leadership is diving for a loose ball, getting the crowd involved, getting other players involved.  It’s being able to take it as well as dish it out.  That’s the only way you’re going to get respect from the players.” ~Larry Bird

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” ~Anonymous

Resources

Book: Team of Rivals

Movie: Les Miserables

Song: “Meet Me in the Middle” by Diamond Rio or Gladys Knight & James Joseph Iii Wilson

Song: “Where is the Love?” by the Black Eyed Peas

Movie: Lincoln

Musical: West Side Story???

Movie: The Blind Side

Movie: West Bank Story

Musical: Oklahoma (farmer and cow man)

Manage Self: Experiment Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Leadership – the activity of mobilizing people to change – rarely feels comfortable when you are doing it. Our experience suggests your ability to get beyond what’s comfortable has a direct relationship to your ability to exercise leadership.

Many successful entrepreneurs understand this instinctively. As soon as one idea or product is a success and things become comfortable (the money is coming in, the stress is reduced), they are already thinking about the next idea, improvement or service they can create and market. They are constantly pushing themselves to expand their thinking, try new things and build new capacities. They are regularly experimenting beyond their comfort zone.

The way you work and engage with others, your preferences and style, may have worked well for you up until now. Think of that as your comfort zone. You may have achieved some, or even a lot of, success based on operating within your comfort zone. Good for you. But, chances are you need to push beyond what’s comfortable to make more progress on what’s most important to you. Marshall Goldsmith’s book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful hits this idea home.

Expand your comfort zone through safe experimentation. When we experiment we learn. When it comes to daunting adaptive challenges facing our organizations and communities, learning is progress. Each time we stop to ask whether our normal approach – our comfort zone – is the correct one, we open ourselves up to move beyond our comfort zone. We may discover new options. We build the resilience required to lead.

This should be obvious, but experimenting beyond your comfort zone will mean you are uncomfortable. We crave comfort. Our default is comfort.  So much of our lives are based on routines and experimenting beyond your comfort zone throws off that routine.  Exercising leadership requires you to get beyond that default, to resist the human urge of comfort and to do so for the sake of progress on the issue you and others care about. As we have said elsewhere, leadership is an unnatural act so it takes extra work to accomplish it.

Experimenting beyond your comfort zone might also look different for every individual.  Many things like personality, culture, position, etc.,  factor in to who we are and what we define as our “edge” – the place where we start experimenting.  Try not to compare your experiments to those of others.  Instead, to start thinking about experimentation ask yourself some of the following questions: What is progress?  What does experimenting for you look like?  What would success look like, and what are some small steps I can take to get there?

We often create a story in our heads that it has to be some grand experiment.  The reality is that it can be as small as asking a question when you would normally say nothing, or on the contrary, staying quiet when you would usually speak up.  The important thing is that however you choose to experiment, it is a conscious choice, and you learn something.  And while it sounds risky, and it is, you will open up opportunity to think differently, engage differently and act differently which hopefully means the outcome will look different.

So how do you know if you’re doing it?  Ask yourself the following two questions.

1. Am I outside my comfort zone with this effort/project/initiative? (See the indicators below.)
2. Am I experimenting frequently, unsure of the exact outcome of each experiment?

If the answer is “no,” you probably aren’t leading anyone to do adaptive work. You may be managing the status quo very effectively and that may be hard, challenging work, but its not leadership. Leadership is about change (for you and others) and change requires going beyond our comfort zone.

Indicators you are safely outside your comfort zone:

• You are feeling incompetent but willing. You may not see the next step, but you are willing to put your foot out.
• Your pulse quickens but with confidence. You feel a healthy level of anxiety.
• You are taking conscious action. Experimenting beyond your comfort zone is a choice, not a reaction.

Indicators you have gone too far:

• You have lost your identity. Change should occur in small increments, not in a way where you are no longer recognizable.
• You have no clear purpose. Don’t experiment for the sake of experimenting. Don’t go beyond your comfort zone just for the thrill. In the exercise of leadership, know the reason behind your risk when you go beyond your comfort zone.
• You enter the danger zone. Think of a safer approach if you are on the verge of being fired, dismissed from the effort or quitting. The idea is to experiment safely beyond your comfort zone, not to become a martyr for the cause.
• The anxiety is consuming you. The anxiety you feel for going beyond your comfort zone should feel interesting and healthy, not destructive and consuming.

Simple ways to practice experimenting beyond your comfort zone (give one or two a try in the next week!):

1. Arrange a meeting with someone in your organization or community who makes you uncomfortable.
2. Ask colleagues to describe what they think is your comfort zone.
3. Change your routine.
4. Take a stand on something. (Or don’t take a stand on something if your the person who always takes a stand.)
5. Ask a question you don’t know the answer to. (The safest step is to ask one person. The more people in the room, the more outside your comfort zone it could be.)
6. Ask a clarifying question like “What do you mean by that?” when you might normally just make an assumption.
7. Referencing the Take Care of Yourself chapter, if you usually work 50 or 60 hour weeks, try to work a 40 hour week and evaluate how that feels and what you observed in yourself and others during that time.
8. Engage an unusual voice by personally inviting that person to your next committee meeting – take it one step further, and have a plan for how to get them involved.
9. Try experimenting in a “safe” social situation with your friends or people you have a little more trust with.  This is one way to get yourself used to doing it more although your friends might wonder what’s going on if they see you act differently.
10. Debrief with someone after you’ve attempted something and focus on what you learned.
11. If you are used to always talking or being the first one talking, consider counting to 10 before saying something next time.

 

Q and A

Question: As a local county commissioner, I’ve always been partial to the way we’ve engaged in politics.  You know, taking phone calls, attending community gatherings and personal letters to constituents.  Unfortunately, we’re just not getting a lot of feedback this year, and we really need some guidance from community members.  How can we hear from more people?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

Inspiration

“People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” ~Thomas Sowell

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~Albert Einstein

“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need the courage of the young. Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world which you will find before you. May every one of us be granted the courage, the faith and the vision to give the best that is in us to that remaking!” ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1932

“By the time the rules of the game are clear, the windows of opportunity have closed.” ~Santhanam Shekar (I don’t remember who this is. If we want to use it we’ll need to make sure he or she is a good role model)

Resources

Book: Ripley’s Biography (famous for going outside of his comfort zone “Believe It or Not”)

Book: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith

Song: “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus

Movie: “Moneyball” directed by Bennett Miller

“My Life in 5 Chapters” – like a poem? http://www.lifetrekcoaching.com/poems/bio.htm

Movie: Armageddon

TV Show: The Walking Dead

TV Show: Parenthood (when Christina runs for Mayor to provide services for her son with autism)

Poem:  The Real Work (poem by Wendell Barry)

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Poem: Emily Dickinson

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.

The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.

Intervene Skillfully: Give the Work Back

The ideas in this book ask you to go against the grain, to do the opposite of what feels natural. Leadership is an unnatural act.

Giving the work back, a notion designed to allowed people to intervene skillfully, is the act of engaging others in the process of exercising leadership.  While the idea of “giving the work back” can be difficult for anyone, it can be especially hard for those in any kind of an authority position.  Authority can be positional or it can also be based off of someone’s knowledge, skills set or credibility.  The manager, principal, CEO, pastor, director, parent, etc. is put in charge. Most, if not all, of the others connected to the system expect him or her to lead the way, solve the issues and move the system forward.  The pressure on authority is great.

Here’s the problem. That works for technical problems.  You can just assign the work and move on.  But adaptive challenges can’t be solved, or even fully identified, by authority alone. A CEO or manager can instigate things, can use their authority to focus attention and provoke thinking, but eventually the people with the problem have to get their hands dirty and get busy.

Adaptive challenges require the involvement and commitment of stakeholders. You make that happen by giving the work back.  If you want to give the work back you have to operate under the assumption that you don’t have the right answer.

For simplicity’s sake, imagine there are only three phases associated with any adaptive challenge.

1. Phase one is problem identification. What’s the issue? What’s going on? What’s not satisfactory? What’s the gap between where we are now and where we want to go?
2. Phase two is solution identification. Of all the things we could do, what should we do? What’s the best way to proceed? What will we choose to value most?
3. Phase three is solution implementation. Who will do what, when and how? When will we report back? How will we stay in communication?

Giving the work back in phase one and two is a leadership behavior! Doing so in phase three is simply delegating, which is important but is more the exercise of authority than leadership.  Often times this idea of giving the work back gets conflated with delegation. We believe that delegation belongs to authority while giving the work back belongs to leadership. It’s not just about spreading out the work by assigning tasks and getting volunteers so people feel involved in the process – that would be delegation. Giving the work back is about getting people truly involved in the deeper level of what is going on and allowing them to become true stakeholders of the challenge at hand. It is creating the space to allow others to exercise leadership.  Delegation is a transfer of authority.  Giving the work back is a sharing of responsibility.

Aside from delegation, another temptation is to work in a silo to define the problem and the way forward and then spring your wonderful idea on everyone else. Don’t. Instead, give the work back.

Giving the work back in phase one and phase two looks like:

• Asking lots of questions: When you think about the future of this project, what concerns you the most? What’s going to keep us from being successful? What holds us back? What are the hidden issues.
• Convening diverse factions to wrestle with those types of questions.
• Not initially offering solutions if you are in authority. See if solutions emerge.
• Talking less and listening more.
• Asking divergent groups to work together to develop a one-pager that describes the challenges (if in phase one) or potential solutions (if in phase two).

Giving the work back in phase three looks like:

• Continuing to ask questions: What challenges are you facing? Where are we getting the most traction? What has surprised you? What does it mean?
• Convening diverse factions to share learning and make decisions about where to spend resources.
• Being available for support but not jumping in to save people who are floundering.
• Celebrate successes, large and small.
• Help people see failure as progress (We’ve learned something!!)
• Look for connections and identifying resources that could make the work easier.
• Remind people to take care of themselves by getting enough rest, good food, exercise and laughter.

Some hypothetical examples:

• The culture of a university is unproductive. It lacks innovation and collaboration. The university president can hope and wish for culture change but can’t automatically make it happen. If its about the culture, it’s about the people themselves needing to change.
• A community is unhealthy. Rates of obesity and malnutrition are increasing. Depression too. Its effecting the workforce and economy. A health-oriented organization – the medical society or a philanthropy – can spend their days focusing on the issue, but progress will only be made when the people of the community begin to make different choices about diet, exercise and their lifestyle.
• The biggest concern facing the future of a manufacturing company is the disconnect between the plant workers and the executives (overalls versus suits). Even if the senior executive and the foreman agree relations must improve, they can’t solve the issue alone. The men and women throughout the organization actually have to engage with one another and be open to one another.

Why must you give the work back?

• Unlike technical problems, adaptive challenges cannot be solved by authority alone.
• Divergent perspectives are needed when wrestling with a tough challenge.
• Engaging others encourages those divergent views to surface.
• It stimulates commitment and creativity and makes it more likely that a collective vision will emerge.
• It creates buy-in from those people engaged in the process.

Our experience suggests giving the work back is one of the more difficult leadership behaviors. It runs counter to our culture, which says authority figures are responsible for solving tough challenges, not all of us. Those in authority buy into it (“Yes, I am the one in charge and must save the day!”) and those not in authority collude in it (“It’s not my fault, I’m not in charge!”). Those with authority get a bigger ego. Those without authority avoid responsibility.  And no matter if you are authority or not, we tend to not give the work back because the things we do, and do well, are what make us feel of value which cause us to not share with others.  Everyone wins in the short-term. Everyone loses in the end.

When should you “give the work back?”

• When you start telling yourself you are the only one doing anything (or when you actually are the only one doing anything).
• When you feel overwhelmed by the challenge.
• When people are only turning to you for answers instead of taking risks or working with others.
• When you have people who currently aren’t involved but should be/want to be engaged.
• When there are others more qualified to handle the work.

Q and A

Question: As a company that is quickly growing from a small sized to medium sized organization, management is realizing we need to start developing some of our lower level employees into taking on more responsibility.  How do I relinquish control and delegate some of my work – isn’t that giving the work back?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

Inspiration

“You can delegate authority , but you cannot delegate responsibility.” ~Byron Dorgan

Resources

Book:???

(Ideas for this section?  We are looking to list books, films and other resources connected to the idea.)

Diagnose Situation: Understand the Process Challenges

Process challenges are issues or barriers that exist among members of a group, community or organization. Simply put, process challenges are people challenges. They are about how people work (or don’t) together.  They exist regardless of the content challenges facing the group. Process challenges could be thought of as the problems behind the problems… or even the problems behind those.

Good politicians understand this instinctively. The issue isn’t how to build the highway, but rather how to create the community support for it. Here are more examples:

• A start-up company is developing new technology to make our lives better, but the founders of the company are at odds with one another, each having a different vision for the company.  Content challenge = developing the new technology. Process challenge = reconciling two different visions.
• The year-end budget report is due by Friday. The boss asked for a new format with additional information to help management make better forecasting decisions, but didn’t specify what should be in the new format. The budget team is struggling. The report has been the same report for years, since before any of the current staff were hired. The team has no quality ideas for how it should be different and are beginning to stress over getting it done on time. They are not even sure why senior management wants something different. Content challenge = new budget report. Process challenges = imaging a whole new way of presenting information (shifting their paradigm), working under stress and uncertainty and lack of clarity between management and the budget team.
• A community action group has rallied a neighborhood to speak with one voice about the need to replace the dilapidated school. Parents of young children, the elderly and single people are all in favor.  But, the majority on the school board and the majority of the broader community come from a different political perspective than the community action group.  Content challenge = building a new school. Process challenge = building bridges between the community action group and the majority on the school board.
• A non-profit executive director lays out a new vision for her organization that she believes will keep the organization relevant for years to come. The vision includes new programs and services as well as a public relations effort. Content challenge = the stuff in the vision. Process challenges = helping staff and stakeholders embrace the vision… better yet, helping staff and stakeholders inform the vision!

What makes it hard to understand the process challenges?

• They seem like a sideshow, but they are the main event. It’s more fun to work on the new technology (aka content challenge) than to work on issues among the co-founders (aka process challenge).
• It takes time and discernment to identify the process challenges. Content challenges are usually easier to see. In our quest for a quick fix, we get satisfied by working on the content challenges.  We want to quickly jump to a solution.
• Consciously or unconsciously, we don’t want to uncover the real problem. It just might be too messy.

To lead you must understand the process challenges connected to your organization, issue or community.  If you can identify and understand the process challenges at play, you or your group, have a better chance at implementing changes and understanding the adaptive elements of an issue.  Understanding the process challenges will also help you to focus more on “how” to get things done instead of focusing just on “what” has to be done.

Key ways to understand the process challenges:

1. Build relationships with others. This is a prerequisite for #2 and #3. The more you care about others the more they will share the real challenges from their perspective.
2. For process challenges related to a specific issue or project, ask this question: “As we are working on _____ (insert name of project), what could really derail us?”  The answers will usually be process challenges.
3. For broader process challenges affecting a community or organization, ask this question: “When we think about the future of ______ (inset name of community/company/etc.), what concerns you the most?” Listen to their answer and then ask “Why?” three times. You should be getting to the process challenges by the second “Why.”
4. Ask yourself if the same process challenge can apply to two totally different content challenges.  If the answer is yes, you have most likely identified a process challenge.

Q and A

Question: I’m currently the secretary of our neighborhood association.  Past experiences with this group haven’t always been positive.  How do I help people let go of the past, including past disagreements, and move ahead to focus on the vision we have for our neighborhood?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

During World War II the race was on among the Americans, Germans, Russians and British to develop the atomic bomb. The best scientists in each country were eventually assigned the task and massive amounts of materials had to be harnessed to conduct the research. The content challenge was to engineer the splitting of an atom, thus unleashing its destructive force. In America, process challenges were abundant while the scientists were busy on that massive and complicated content challenge.

The Army and Navy each had separate research efforts underway and it took years before information and learning was shared between them. How information and knowledge is shared is usually an important process challenge. Huge amounts of materials – from steel to chemicals – were needed, but those same materials were needed to produce tanks, ships and planes. A significant process challenge for those working on the atomic bomb was how to gain enough influence over the supply chain to divert enough materials to their project. Simply focusing on the content challenge – the splitting of the atom – wouldn’t suffice.

Inspiration

“Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together.” ~Paul Ryan

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” ~Bernice Johnson Reagon

Resources

Book: “Buy In” by John Kotter

Movie: Les Miserables

Movie: The Devil Wears Prada

Movie: Hoosiers

Activity: Why? Why? Why? (to discover process challenges)

Manage Self – Get Used to Uncertainty and Conflict

Anyone can lead, anytime and anywhere, but not if you can’t handle uncertainty and conflict.

The difficult challenges holding back your organization or community are fraught with uncertainty. You can’t lead if you can’t handle uncertainty.

Leadership is about change and change brings conflict.  You can’t lead if you can’t handle conflict.

We tend to covet comfort and avoid conflict.  At the Kansas Leadership Center we call this “Kansas nice.”  When people are in a group or face-to-face everything seems wonderful and fine, but when they get to the parking lot they release all of their frustrations.  When you care enough about the common good of your organization or community, you choose to face uncertainty and conflict in the moment for the sake of progress.

By their very nature, adaptive challenges lack ready-made solutions.  Where you see need for change, others fear loss.  Afterall, as mentioned in another section, it’s not that people don’t like change, it’s that they fear loss.  People get passionate about issues that affect them.  Opinions vary.  Values come into play.  In the midst of adaptive work, no one knows the outcome.  As uncertainty rises, expect conflict will too.

John F. Kennedy said, “Leadership and learning are inseparable.”  Adaptive challenges are all about learning.  When the stakes are high and unknowns outnumber knowns, people get uncomfortable.  They will do everything they can to settle things quickly.  The better you get at holding steady in the midst of uncertainty and conflict (so you can continue learning), the more prepared you are to lead people through discomfort toward a shared purpose.

A healthy relationship with uncertainty and conflict is needed.  Rather than viewing them as things to avoid or eliminate, view them as signs an organization or community is bumping up against important work.  Often times this notion of uncertainty and conflict can be pegged as a bad thing – if the group is not certain of where we are going or if we are engaging in debate, we must be doing something wrong.  We contend that this notion is not bad.  It is certainly hard, but it is not bad.  It also doesn’t mean you have to become completely comfortable with uncertainty and conflict, in fact, it might be odd if you did.  Instead, you can harness the discomfort created by uncertainty and conflict and turn it into motivation.  While the risk may feel high, it’s most important that this concept not just be tolerated but embraced.

What happens if you don’t get used to uncertainty and conflict?  It’s the Abilene paradox.  We all start moving down a path that no one either wants to go or should be going, all because we don’t want to speak up and help change the course of direction <insert reference>.  We end up never really altering anything at all because the space hasn’t been created for discourse that might actually allow for change.

How do you handle uncertainty?

• Don’t forget what you do know.  Make it your compass to navigate uncertainty.
• Stay grounded in your purpose.  Remember why the discomfort is worthwhile.
• Treat the situation as exploration.  Act experimentally and keep the risk at a manageable level.
• Don’t put a time stamp on progress.  Adaptive work always takes more time than you think it will.
• Be smart about what you ask of others.  Set your pace based on their readiness.

How do you handle conflict?

• See it coming.  Know what triggers you and what  might trigger others.  Existing with conflict is easier if you see it coming.
• Don’t take things personally.  Focus on what’s best for the organization or community (AKA “the common good”).
• Keep one hand on the thermostat.  Keep conflict productive not inflammatory.
• Value it.  Productive conflict is a sign you are doing adaptive work.  Expect it, hold steady and learn to manage it, not eliminate it.
• Put on the shoes of the opposing view.  Try to see where others are coming from.
• Focus on observations vs. interpretations.  This will help you bring information and data to the discussion rather than feelings which can trigger emotions.

Tips to Help You Get Used to Uncertainty and Conflict:

• When something is on your mind – say it.
• If your default is to keep everybody happy in a group environment, resist the urge to be the peacemaker.
• Only come to someone’s defense as a conscious choice rather than a default to save them.
• If you feel yourself starting to take something personally, get on the balcony and try to make some observations about what is going on.
• If you said a meeting would only last an hour end the meeting on time no matter if there is resolution or not.

Q and A

Question: I’ve been working on an issue with my church and am finding myself continually triggered by a key player. It causes quite a bit of stress and often derails me from making progress. How do I “push through” this conflict and inherent ambiguity without going crazy?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

Edison and the light bulb example – this definitely relates to uncertainty

Inspiration

“In fair weather prepare fro foul.” ~Thomas Fuller

Resources

Book: “Insanely Simple: The Obsession that Drives Apple’s Success” by Ken Segall

Song: “Wake Me Up” by Avicii

Song: “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus

Song: “The Dance” by Garth Brooks

Example: a healthy person’s immune system is constantly battling uncertainty and conflict within the body

Example: Nature of Jazz Music – sounds that don’t necessarily go together but eventually resolve

 

Activity: Put a puzzle together

Energize Others – Engage Unusual Voices

It’s tempting to think one of two ways: you can go it alone, or you can work with the people you always work with.  You may think you can save the day and make the daunting challenge disappear.  It’s also tempting to think you can simply get the work done by working with those you already know and who are already “with” you on the issue or challenge.  These ways are false.  Leadership on daunting challenges requires you to engage unusual voices.  Do not violate this rule!

Usual voices are those you usually engage.  Unusual voices are those you seldom engage.

For a senior executive in a company, usual voices might be the other senior executives, the corporate board and friends and colleagues from other companies similarly positioned in their companies.  Unusual voices for this individual might be the frontline employees or the actual customers.

For a neighborhood volunteer, usual voices might be the neighbors and his or her family members.  The unusual voices might be people at city hall and business owners.

Ed’s son Jack came to him one day with ideas for a new playground at school.  His classmates (Jack’s usual voices) had been bantering about the subject for a few days.  They were in agreement that something should be done and that they deserved an awesome playground.  But progress wouldn’t be made, Ed explained to Jack, unless Jack and his schoolmates found a way to engage voices that would be harder and less obvious for them to work with.  These unusual voices in Jack’s situation were the teachers, administrators and parents.

Leadership on daunting challenges requires you to engage usual and unusual voices.  If you look around the table and everyone looks like you, you probably need to engage unusual voices.

Why is it important to engage unusual voices?

True progress isn’t made without them because they see things other voices don’t (i.e. the senior executive is detached from the experience of the customer, but the front-line employee deeply gets it) or because some of the work actually belongs to them (i.e. the school kids alone can’t build a new playground).

Why don’t we engage unusual voices more often?

• We don’t set high enough standards for ourselves in how we connect with people and build relatioships.
• It’s risky.  We fear we might be rejected.
• Time.  Engaging unusual voices requires time people are unwilling to give.
• Assumptions.  We assume those outside our circle lack expertise or differing perspectives.  We may also fear they might know more than us.  Simply put, we’re afraid of what we don’t know.
• It’s outside our box.  We don’t even think about it because it represents a totally different paradigm.

How to get started engaging unusual voices?

1. First identify your usual voices.  Don’t disengage from them, but simply understand them to be your usual voices.
2. Identify other voices that are connected to your issue.  Pinpoint all those who will be impacted by a cause or decision.
3. Begin meeting with them over coffee or breakfast.  Make it simple.
4. Meet them where they are.  Don’t engage unusual voices by trying to convince them why you are right and they are wrong.  Listen to them.  Come to conversations with empathy.
5. Only after working hard to understand them, begin asking for their feedback on your opinions.

Q and A

Question: Every year near the holidays, our church has a community-wide dinner to support the needy in our community.  The original intent was to serve a hot meal to the less fortunate, but instead it has turned into a social event for the town’s most prominent.  How do we get back to the original purpose?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

(Ideas for this section?  We are looking for a historical anecdote.)

Inspiration

“In these troubled, uncertain times, we don’t need more command and control; we need better means to engage everyone’s intelligence in solving challenges and crises as they arrive.” ~Margaret J. Wheatley

Resources

Book: ???

The Good Samaritan example from the Bible

Song: Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morrisette

Move: Schindler’s List

Movie: Finding Nemo (Dori and the Dad)

Religious: Zachieus reaching out to the tax collector

Activity: Consider watching a different news channel than you are used to watching. (If we only watch the same news all of the time, it reinforces what we already believe.  An unusual voice could be a different news source.)

Movie: Les Miserables

Song: “Where is the Love” by the Black-Eyed Peas

Song: “Man On Fire” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Manage Self – Take Care of Yourself

For a moment, think about what success looks like for you?  Where are you?  What does it feel like?  What types of relationships do you have?  What are you doing?  Now, think to the present.  What is holding you back from the vision you just had?

During his first job after college, working for the headquarters of his fraternity, Ed remarked one day to his colleagues that what they needed was a little time to sit in a beanbag and read Life magazine.  Enough with the constant movement, crazy schedules, hurried pace.  They all needed time to think, distill and rest so they could be at their creative best.  To this day, his early colleagues still poke fun at Ed for his “beanbag and Life magazine” speech.  He was getting at what we now call “take care of yourself,” one of the key ideas under the leadership competency Manage Self.  It is all about being at your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual best in order to have the capacity to exercise leadership and make an impact.

Leadership is risky.  You stand a better chance of succeeding when you are at your best.  When trying to get others to take on difficult challenges (aka when you are trying to exercise leadership) you need your wits, creativity and energy.  We can all imagine times when we were stressed out, maybe that’s even right now for you.  Your focus and quality of work plummets.  Your relationships hurt.  Your health suffers.  Your ability to rally anyone to do anything outside their norms (and that’s what leadership does!) is dramatically diminished if you are overwhelmed with work and life.

We reinforce this idea with our current colleagues.  Ed makes it clear that we want employees that are “fully-whelmed,” not overwhelmed and not underwhelmed.  To become fully-whelmed, the expectation is that our team members work a hard, efficient and fun 40 hours each week.  Here is a recent memo from Ed to our team:

Several times in 2013 the staff heard me describe my aspiration that they are not over-whelmed or under-whelmed, but rather “fully-whelmed.”  We aren’t interested in people coasting or being stressed out.  I don’t want our people working 60, 70 or 80 hour weeks.  While in some work environments that type of effort is rewarded and even expected, at KLC it is misguided.  You won’t be at your best working that much.  I believe 40 hours of your “best” is much better for KLC (and you!) than 60 hours of “stressed-out-you.”  In that spirit, let me be clear with the expectations from senior staff. 

• Hard, Efficient and Fun 40-hours.  We expect you to work a hard, efficient and fun 40-hours each week. 
• Family and Friends.  We value family and friendships, and believe you are a better employee if you do too.
• Sleep and Exercise.  We value sleep and exercise, and believe you are a better employee if you do too.
• Outside Interests.  We value being involved in civic life, faith communities and/or hobbies, and believe you are a better employee if you do too.

Come talk to your supervisor or me if you are out of whack on one or more of the above.  Also, speak up if you see senior staff or others sending mixed messages about those items. 

Bottom-line:  KLC is a place that will allow you to create the best life possible for yourself.  Why?  Because we care about you and because KLC will be stronger if you are happy and healthy.

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Sidebar: Promoting “take care of yourself” helps an organization thrive too!

A key to our thinking about the “hard, efficient and fun 40,” as it has become known in our organization, is that embracing it promotes important decisions and innovation.  People are forced to prioritize (“Of all the things I could do, what should I do?  What will have the most impact on our purpose?”).  Equally important, the hard, efficient and fun 40 leads to innovation that probably would not have occurred otherwise.  People will find new ways to get things done when their time is limited.

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We recognize that this way of operating is not the norm for everyone.  You may even be reading this thinking, “Well, that’s great for you guys, but I don’t have a job that would allow for that!”  The point here is not around duplicating the “hard, efficient and fun 40” (although more power to you if you can), but it is around doing the things that are in your control to make conscious choices to take care of yourself, which can lead you to exercise leadership at your best.  You may not be able to control your work environment in it’s entirety, but you can make choices about what you do and how you work.

This is beyond work-life balance, this is about doing what you need to do for yourself so you can lead others.  When we neglect to take care of ourselves, we can’t bring our best selves to the work, our volunteer opportunities, our church, etc.  If we can’t bring our best selves, we’re less likely able to engage in leadership effectively.

What does taking care of yourself look like?

• You recognize when you need to take care of yourself.  You are self aware enough to see the need coming and prepare for it so you don’t become overwhelmed and fall apart.
• You find what balances you, such as personal projects, quiet time, physical activity, etc.
• You have kindness and compassion for yourself and the work you are doing.
• Holding to your own purpose and saying no to things that may add work with little to no value for that purpose.
• Simple things like: staying home when you’re sick, using your vacation days (how many of your vacation days are actually left over every year?), making it a priority to eat healthy and exercise

Why don’t we take care of ourselves more?

• Competing values.  We choose to make managing work and family more important than taking care of ourselves.
• It’s risky.  We fear job loss, income loss and the perception that we’re selfish.
• It’s against the culture.  Caring for ourselves is not valued enough culturally (see the beanbag and Life magazine reference earlier in this piece).

Six warning signs that you need to take care of yourself:

1. You become restless, irritable and discontent.
2. You can no longer meet people where they are.
3. You start forgetting things.
4. You become physically ill.
5. You take things personally that were meant as constructive criticism.
6. You realize you are crazy busy working and seldom leading.

What is the cost of not taking care of yourself?

While only you can answer this question at it’s core, the highest cost of not taking care of yourself, is the ability to lose out on your ability to make a lasting impact on the common good of whatever matters to you most.  Ask yourself – what is the cost of not taking care of yourself?  For your organization?  Your family?  Your community?  Those you care about?  For you?

Q and A

Question: If you want to get ahead where I work, you are expected to put in 60 – 70 hour weeks.  Balance that with my family, church, and volunteer obligations and I know I’m approaching burnout.  I’ve seen some of my friends crash and I don’t want to be them.  What should I do?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

Prime Minister Winston Churchill read a novel everyday during World War II…

Thomas Edison – most famous power napper ever – had cots throughout his office

Inspiration

“Take care of your body.  It’s the only place you have to live.” ~Jim Rohn

Resources

Book: Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness Singing With Others by Stacy Horn

Book: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene’ Browne

Book and Article: Self Care as Ethical Imperative by John C. Norcross, Ph.D. and Jefferey E. Barnett, Psy.D

http://www.nationalregister.org/trr_spring08_norcross.html

Book chapter from : Faculty Health in Academic Medicine 2009, pp 127-146 “The Ethics of Self-Care” by Craig Irvine

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-60327-451-7_10#

Book: Expectations and Burnout: Women Surviving the Great Commission by ??? (ask Allie)

Book: Discovering Soul Care by Mindy Caliguire

Book: Crazy Busy

Song: “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed

Example: Spain and Italy – take naps in the middle of the day

Google – food, places to eat, exercise, etc.

Intervene Skillfully – Speak from the Heart

Robert Greenleaf ushered in a new way to think of leaders: as servants.  He coined the term “servant leadership” and has helped millions of people think differently about their role as a manager or authority figure.  Those moved by his ideas would no longer think it was their employees jobs to serve them.  It would be the other way around.  People discovered this approach uplifted the spirits of employee and managers alike.  Uplifted spirits became better performance, which became more success for the organization or company.  Greenleaf, the long-time AT&T executive, was on to something and a movement was born.

Our notion of “speak from the heart” connects with this wonderful idea of servant leadership, although most see it as something quite different.

Our experience tells us when most people think about speaking from the heart in a leadership context, they usually think about themselves (or whoever is doing the leading) sharing their heartfelt feelings and stories and being vulnerable in the presence of those they are hoping to lead.  Exercising leadership often puts you in vulnerable situations which can trigger emotions.  An authentic display of emotion is important and can be useful when speaking from the heart.  This is not to be confused with default emotion that may be less about speaking from the heart and more about the individual.  This way of thinking, emotion for the sake of emotion, typically connects with a few and distracts many.  And while the hope is that emotion can be a strategic choice, when in doubt, allow who you are to shine through.

The leadership idea here is to speak from your heart in a way that connects to the heart(s) of the person or people you are trying to lead.  A more complete name for this idea would be “speak from your heart TOWARDS their heart.”  It is speaking with a purpose in mind.  You are communicating your values or what you have to say at a different level that connects those values to another person.  The key to this idea is that it’s not about you, it’s about them.

What makes it hard to speak from the heart?

It’s hard to do this if you don’t have a genuine care and concern for those you are hoping to engage with.  This is the root of Greanleaf’s servant leadership idea.  Leadership – different from management – is about helping people transcend their current state towards a new one.  People themselves, not just the world around them, need to change.  You’ll struggle to speak from the heart and lead others if you are more focused on you and what you want rather than on them and their aspirations.  Taking into account that in an adaptive challenge it’s not in peoples heads, change can’t just occur in the heads.  It needs to occur in values and belief systems.  In theirs hearts.  That is why this is so important as an intervention.  It is emotion with reason.

Remember, the exercise of leadership is often about finding connecting interests and helping others to the same.  Picture a singer holding people in rapture.  The words they are singing.  The music playing.  If they are really good they have a way of capturing the audience into their story.  Others will be more likely to work on tough adaptive challenges with you if they know you connect – heart to heart – with them.

How do you do this?

1. Know what others care about, what’s in their heart.  What matters to them?  What do you care about?  What matters to you?
2. Speak to their hearts, and not just when you are hoping for something in return.  Tell them you care about their future, their hopes and dreams.
3. Consider sharing a brief story with purpose that allows you to connect.  Ask yourself “Who does the story serve?”
4. Needs to be really authentic, a little more revealing, should feel at least a little vulnerable.
5. Make your display of emotion a strategic choice, but err on the side of allowing your humanity to show through.
6. You can be strategic about speaking from the heart by composing yourself and thinking through what you are going to share.  Speak out of passion, not because you are emotionally triggered.
7. Ask questions like: Why is this important to you?  How would you feel if this was successful?  What about this matters to you?
8. Go beyond active listening to deep listening.
9. Make eye contact.
10. Understand the environment.
11. Position yourself to connect with people (e.g. don’t look down at the floor, don’t close your eyes, don’t cross your arms, etc.)
12. Be fully present.
13. Speak to a group in the way you might speak to an individual – the intensity should be the same.

Q and A

Question: The board of our local hospital has lately been focused more on trying to turn a profit than on the mission of why we exist.  They want graphs and number charts when we’re making our case about the things we need, but it just doesn’t seem to be getting to the core of what our hospital needs right now.  How do I get through to them?

Answer:

What History Tells Us

(Ideas for this section?  We are looking for a historical anecdote.)

Inspiration

“When he spoke, the masses knew from his words that they were somebody.”

“When Dr. King gave his address on that Thursday afternoon [at the end of the march from Selma to Birmingham] he spoke from his heart and the depth of his soul. He spoke for all of us. Dr. King called upon the conscience of a nation. In his moving and eloquent address, Dr. King urged us to march on.”

Representative John Lewis in “A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Resources

Book: The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling by Annette Simmons

Any other books on storytelling?

Movie: Les Miserables

Song: “Brave” by Sara Bareilles

Movie: Animal House (“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” ~Jim Belushi’s character)

TV Show: Dragnet (“It’s more than just the facts.”)