It is conversations that shape our experiences. Creativity and the potential for change within organisations lie with 'shadow conversations' and their tension with the legitimate. - Ralph Stacey (paraphrase)
To get attention for new or different ideas at work, we have set up an approach that now combines 3 building blocks: a monthly alert with summaries and links to interesting material on the internet; a series we call 'Challenging Minds' to get people together and talk about these ideas; and since this year CoachingOurselves (here's their MIX-story). These building blocks, which are very low cost, stand on themselves and can also be combined into learning (or rather: exploring) trajectories on all kinds of subjects.
- Our alert is for everyone who likes to get it. We share the public content of the alerts on internet, at Diigo (an online bookmarking site), so do take a look if you are curious, or take an RSS-feed. Because of tagging and RSS the content can not just be read by everyone with internet access, but can be fed to their own internet- and intranet sites.
- We run Challenging Minds sessions both for open groups--everyone can attend whatever role or level they have--and for closed groups of managers. We now teach others to run their own sessions, either with our content or content of their own.
- CoachingOurselves groups now run in and across several departments, with more to come. Do read their MIX-story as their approach to management development is really wonderful!
Some themes we are passionate about are: leadership / management innovation, trust, engagement & incentives, ethics, complexity, systems thinking (John Seddon, here's his MIX-story, do read it as it may be an eye opener!), risk, and diversity (both in the sense of equal treatment and diversity of thinking).
Our subjects & content cover many of the moonshots formulated by this community.
We address several issues with our approach.
Management paradigms. Our company is quite traditional. Command and control management, incentives, focus on shareholder value, key performance indicators, performance management, mid term plans, surveys to measure employee engagement, a divide between 'talents' and 'the rest', and so on and so forth... Now it doesn't help much if people on the workfloor (such as we) question these approaches at the coffee machine. So my 2 colleagues and I have tried to find other ways to address these issues and get awareness for different ideas & approaches, and to inspire co-operation, dialogue and change along the way.
Learning paradigm. We entered our business school after our former department (on knowledge- and information management) was shut down. From a knowledge management angle, what we found at the business school was a quite traditional approach to learning. On site programmes, classroom based, external faculty as experts, nice binders often tucked away after class is over... We couldn't and still cannot complement these programmes directly, as they are made by experts who keep doing what they do. So we follow another route to improve thinking and the cross-over to work by creating a space to discuss new ideas and new solutions.
Learning audience. Our business school focusses on high level managers and talents. From our perspective, this approach is too limited. There are many curious, intelligent people out there who are neither senior managers nor branded as talents, who use (and want to use) their brains & hands to better help their customers and to make their company a better place. And who have information and experiences that are crucial to do so. So we have tried to invent ways to involve them and connect them with others with like interests and to do something for them.
Cost. This plays a role in two ways. First of all we don't have any budget ourselves. And we will not get budget to bring in lecturers with new or different thoughts. So we invented our alert and Challenging Minds to navigate around this and influence and stir up thinking in an different way, and then added CoachingOurselves (also very flexible and low cost) to our mix. Second: programmes at our business school are not very cheap, a.o. because managers etc. have to be on site and because external faculty asks quite substantial fees and then hire people who ask even more. So we have tried to complement this still commmon approach by working towards flexible, low cost, easily transportable alternatives (easy to reuse by other people, less or no personal involvement of expensive experts, easy to implement at other locations).
We have been developing our approach – which we sometimes jokingly refer to as “The Movement” – since the beginning of 2009. Gradually, without a pre-defined plan, bottom-up.
Our approach now consists of the following elements:
- Research Alert: monthly alert with links to & summaries of interesting video's, podcasts, articles, reports, blogposts etc. Anyone within our organisation can subscribe. The alerts are sent to subscribers per mail and are also published on the intranet. Number of monthly issues published while writing this: 17. Current number of subscribers: 800. We dubbed our alert 'Research Alert' because obviously we do quite some research to get at good, innovating and well researched stuff, but also because it sounds a bit authorative. However we make a point of always including one or two brilliantly funny items. Laughter frees up minds very effectively (ours included). You can take a look at the public content or take an RSS-feed here: http://groups.diigo.com/group/ibs-research-alert.
- Research Alert specials, covering the themes we raise in the Challenging Minds series (see above). The specials are filled with stuff from our research alerts; we update them each month. They are published on the intranet, and are sent to the attendants of the Challenging Minds sessions as post-session follow up, so they can dig into a theme further if they want.
- Challenging Minds series : videos--which we get from internet and often pre-publish in our alert--followed by knowledge cafes. We learned the knowledge cafe format through David Gurteen; our innovation is that we combine it with video (and sometimes a lecture). The Challenging Minds sessions are free to attend for everyone within our company who is willing and able to attend, but since this year we also run them for closed groups such as high level managers and talents from a specific business line as part of their leadership programme. We post the video's on our intranet through a kind of internal YouTube and have published an explanation about the format on our internal wiki, to help people to understand and copy the approach, or tailor it to their own needs and concerns. Number of sessions organized thus far: ca. 26. Current number of participants: ca. 600 total. Themes covered:
- Trust, Engagement & Incentives (videos of John Mackey, Nick Epley, Dan Pink)
- Business Ethics (videos of Dan Ariely, Barry Schwartz)
- Leadership Innovation (videos from the 'Design Flaws in Organisations' series--Gary Hamel, Shoshana Zuboff, Terry Kelly; and of John Chambers of CISCO)
- Systems Thinking (video of John Seddon)
- Complexity and Diversity of Thinking (material of David Snowden, Ralph Stacey; lecturer: Mireille Jansma--we are developing this particular topic into a workshop now, so people can actually practice together at applying complexity thinking to the issues they face)
- Risk (video with Nassim Taleb and Daniel Kahneman)
- Diversity (this as a separate series of 5 sessions; Diversity of Thinking is covered in one of them).
Note: The Challenging Minds format (video + knowledge cafe) is utterly simple. We use it to to get people from different work contexts to connect and to reflect together on new thoughts without any stress or 'wanted outcomes'. Also we don't say--nor think--that we learn attendants The Truth; we just play some good & challenging counterpoint to a main tune and let reflection kick in and see what happens. For the attendants this approach is quite new and refreshing however - their responses are great. Part of it, we think, is that they can talk and share and think as adults, also about subjects which are not officially 'theirs' (outside their line of work and beyond the responsibility they carry officially qua role or department). The energy which is created by people talking freely is really amazing and a great joy.
- CoachingOurselves: peer-to-peer management development method by Henry Mintzberg and Phil LeNir (www.coachingourselves.com). Our company is the first company in The Netherlands working with CoachingOurselves. CoachingOurselves is now being used by five departments, both at group level and in the business. We are exploring how to tie in CO learning topics to the themes we cover in our Research Alert and Challenging Minds sessions, into formal management learning programmes, and into events like business managers coming together to discuss topics like setting strategy, building trust etc. Much work remains to be done. However the approach does catch on, as it offers wonderful opportunities to empower and (re)engage managers, and to turn individual learning into real action to improve our organisation. Do check their MIX story here: http://www.managementexchange.com/story/coachingourselves-no-money-no-time-we-need-management-development-really-works.
- Cross over to CoachingOurselves: we get interesting thinkers/practitioners like John Seddon and Dave Snowden directly in touch with CoachingOurselves, to make new learning topics. We hope this will help to further spread good ideas/approaches both within our own company and elsewhere.
- Tying it all together: we have now started to plan a kind of miniature trajectory combining all of the above, to see how that works. We will use content of our alert as pre-work, then have people together and do a Challenging Minds session and then offer a related CoachingOurselves topic to work through, explaining our combined approach along the way. After which the attendants will get additional info related to the subject. This way more people can experience our approach and take it further if they want, into their own business lines and/or companies (we consider to make this an inter-company event).
Note: We pick the topics and content ourselves. We try to choose the name of topics (the names of the categories where we stuff content) so they ring a bell with managers, such as 'leadership' and 'engagement' (rather than management and motivation). We find our content by reading books and checking footnotes, through RSS-feeds of interesting sites, by browsing and following interesting links, by checking TED and EDGE, by searching social bookmarking sites, through tips at Twitter and Facebook, etc. etc. There really is no one size fits all recepy for this, except being curious and liking surprising finds that change your own thinking. And this is just about being changed by reading stuff. Bigger changes and surprises come from Challenging Minds and CoachingOurselves sessions. During these conversations new ideas come up, and actions: ways to combine new with old, what we do and what we aspire to, and how to get there. We organisers do not steer these events. We create a setting where people can connect and converse and new insights may be formed, new things may start.
Some details
IBS Research Alert
- Published each month
- We've made a collection of the links and summaries of the public content at Diigo (social bookmarking site): http://groups.diigo.com/group/ibs-research-alert. Do take a look if you want (you can also get an RSS feed on the general content or on specific topics).
- Recurring topics a.o.:
- Trust
- Engagement & Incentives
- Leadership
- Systems Thinking / Organisational Development
- Management Innovation
- Learning & (Open) Education
- Diversity
- Risk
- Talent Management
- Content sources: see above.
Challenging Minds - Format of (most) sessions
- Short welcome + explanation of the format + intro of the theme (5 minutes max).
- Show video(s) – duration is between 20 minutes and 1 hour (like with John Seddon’s Culture Change is Free lecture).
- Divide the group into subgroups of ca 5-7 people, taking care that people who don’t know each other (well) sit together. Often we do this by just assigning people numbers."You are in group 1, in group 2, 3..." Instruct people on when they are expected back.
- 45 minutes conversation in sub-groups about the theme. Some guiding questions may be: “What do you think of what X said? Is it pertinent for your work? If so, how? What can you / others do with this to improve work?”
- Get all people together again (this always takes some time as people really enjoy the conversations in the sub-groups and they don’t want to stop!).
- Group conversation with all attendants sitting in a circle. We just ask something like: “Who wants to start?” and wait for a first speaker. In the beginning people have to adjust but after like 5 minutes they stop addressing the ‘facilitator’ and the conversation gets lively. Duration: 30-45 minutes.
- Closure & thank you.
- Drinks.
Note: Some Challenging Minds sessions are with real lecturers. We then adapt the format to both speaker and audience. If there is a real professor on stage, he or she calls the shots and the format may turn more into a lecture plus question and answer thing. If the speaker is from our own company it is easier to shape the meeting into a real conversation.
Challenging Minds – additional info
- Beforehand, we do PR for the sessions (send invites, hang up posters, do some promotion on the intranet etc.). People who are interested in a specific subject sign up and attend.
- The total duration of a Challenging Minds session is 2,5 hours. We usually plan the sessions in the afternoon (like 15.30-18.00 hours).
- The number of attendants thus far is between 20 and 45. With over 35 people it may be handier to split the group in two for the conversation at the end of the knowledge café, as the circle gets too big to hear each other well.
- After each session, we send the attendants a special newsletter with links to articles, video’s etc. related to the theme.
- About each theme we make a page with links and additional info on our internal Wikipedia so also people who didn’t attend can watch the videos en read up further.
- The reactions are very, very positive! People love it to step out of their daily work and think & discuss broader themes linked to their own experiences and concerns. The sessions really energize them. Some people drive 200 kilometers to attend!
As to facilitating conversations, connecting people and make them feel their opinions are important and appreciated, we do a great job. As to actual change I am not sure yet.
Much depends on context and accident. For example when we started our alert and our Challenging Minds series and then CoachingOurselves, we could not have predicted that we would get an audience of high level managers. Nor can we now predict what happens while both employees and managers see and talk about our videos and lectures and CoachingOuselves topics.
However, as we reach more people, discussions are starting at places we don't even know. We get calls now from people we don't even know who want advice or just want to come over to compare notes. One of our 'video lecturers' whom we featured in Challenging Minds has been invited to do a half day workshop and to talk with a director.
This is not a hack, nor a 'solution'. We just try and experiment. And we are quite persistent.
Then after a while, get some people from your mailing list together. Show them a video or let them read an article which you think is important. Then talk and see what happens. Do this again and again, on 4-6 subjects you think are important. Invent new ideas along the way and TRY them. Continue with what seems to work, building from there.
Some people who have really inspired us--whether they know so or not:
- David Gurteen(through whose work we learned the knowledge cafe approach)
- Phil LeNir and Henry Mintzberg (who invented CoachingOurselves)
- Dave Snowden, Cynthia Kurtz, Ralh Stacey (for their work on complexity)
- John Seddon (because of his systems thinking approach)
- John MacKey (for his work on trust and the example he offers)
Jurgen Egges, Dick Ringelberg and myself have thought up and make/organise our Research Alert and Challenging Minds series, and are bringing in CoachingOurselves at work.
Hello Mireille
I have read your hack with the following criteria in mind:
- The need is to evolve out of Command & Control. Does the hack define an alternative?
- The alternative must be compelling. It must recognize the need to overcome the constraints of time, energy and motivation.
- An alternative without the use of technology is unlikely to succeed.
- The alternative must create a constructive collective by intrinsic means, i.e., desist from 'brain-washing' personnel for discipline and organization.
- I admire the energy you invest in progressing a constructive mind-set.
- However, your delivery is better thinking whereas the main problem is execution in the chaos of modern times. Would you say your approach fosters passion amongst personnel?
- The thinking method proposed has been practiced by Presidents and Ministers since hundreds of years. It is called Cabinet meetings.
- The method suffers from problems of turf protection. No suggestions to overcome the problem.
- To rely upon human energy for conducting organization in this age of technology is perhaps missing the bus.
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I just read your questions again, plus my reply, and I now think I didn't reply very well. I don't know why, but I think I now better understand the points you raised about effectuating real change. Is it oke if I take some time to consider your questions again?
Thanks & regards,
Mireille
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Thanks for your interesting questions and remarks. I will go through them..
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Our hack is about freedom from command and control in two ways: qua content c.q. the subjects we adress, and by the format of the discourses (Challenging Minds, CoachingOurselves). As to the content of our alert and our Challenging Minds discourses, we range the whole gamut from management innovation (a.o. the design flaws video series of Hary Hamel) to systems thinking of John Seddon who recently even did a half day workshop for 50 managers at work. He has very clear ideas about why command & control management – the traditional separation from decision making and work – isn't good, so perhaps his approach would count as a 'defined alternative'? He has posted in The MIX so you might take a look at his story. Qua content of CoachingOurselves: the whole idea revolves around organisational community building, so I will not explain it further here (they also have a story here).
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Yes the alternative must be compelling. My experience is that many managers understand the need for change, but that these ideas are still quite counterintuitive to many others. Even concrete examples from other organisations where changes in command & control thinking have really changed things for the better both in financial terms and in terms of customer service and employee engagement (CISCO, Aviva, BNZ, public housing repairs in the UK) are not enough to convince them. They still think that people must be controlled and incentivezed because otherwise they get lazy and things become a mess etc. etc.The only road I see is setting up small fenced in pilots or safe fail experiments, and let those results speak from themselves.
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Technology is overrated in my opinion; way more important is a change in thinking. In the public housing repair org described by John Seddon here at the mix, they now do repairs on the day and time the customers want individually, by stacking the repair requests physically on racks, matching them with pshysically stacked notes or whatever saying which repair person is available when. They will computerize this obviously, but it was the thought that they could do this at all that was important.
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However social media can speed up the flow of contextual relevant info between people and can speed up learning & solving issues.
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Yes I do agree that brain-washing personel for discipline and organization is not the way to go. :) A good sense of (meaningful) purpose as described by John MacKey in his essay 'Creating the High Trust Organisation' is a prerequisite I think (http://www2.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jmackey/2010/03/09/creating-the-high-trust-organization/). Plus giving people the autonomy and the means to act to serve this purpose.
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Yes my approach fosters a lot of passion amongst personel. First of all the experience of openly discussing sometimes really complex issues with colleagues from other departments or business lines is already inspiring, also because there is no demand for 'outcomes and deliverables' and because they are able to connect on a more personal level than is usual during day-to-day work. It is this connecting, and the act of reflection and of together exploring that is really meaningful to them. And also the subjects and the input we give them (videos, CO learning topics) are quite refreshing and new to them. So it helps them to better understand issues they have been struggling with. For example: many people hate yearly performance evaluations, targets and rewards etc. The TED lecture by Dan Pink really helps them to delve further into this. Other example: the 'Time to Dialogue' topic of CoachingOurselves opens them up to the way they usually talk (and only partially listen) during meetings, and to the idea that listening and asking questions and talking from a connection with the other leads to quite different and often totally unanticipated insights and results. So that inspires them in another way. And John Seddon is an eye opener about command & control management and about that it is really possible to organise our work so that people can really do a great, great job for their customers.
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I didn't kow Presidents and Ministers already do this in their Cabinet meetings. The membership of the cabinets is restricted I think? That would be a difference with what we do, as with us it is the citizens who come together? ;)
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What do you mean when you say that our method suffers from turf protection? That we protect our turf or that changing things in organisations is hard when a change touches functional areas where others are responsible?
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I regard technology as a tool among many others. Would you say that human energy and technology are opposites? What is it that you would do with technology to evolve out of command and control? Do you recognize that technology in organisations is often used to standardize and to serve command & control, rather than evolve out of it?
Best, Mireille
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Mireille -
Thank you for the post. I've actually been running a very similar program for one of my clients. It included both topics on self-awareness and Mintzberg's "Coaching Ourselves" program, as well as case discussions and general discussions in a variety of subjects. I've experimented with several discussion models, including the World Cafe, one-on-one, Socratic methods, and others and found that they delivered different levels of impact.
Here's something I'd like to add to your hack, which may also serve as food for thought for your program. Regardless of the approach, people have a variety of learning styles. These styles may be different, depending on the person and the subject. Take a look at Howard Gardner's work on nine intelligences and David Kolb's work on learning styles. The most effective model is the one designed based on Gardner's and Kolb's theories while delivering value suggested by Mintzberg.
Another thing I found effective is showing employees how these exercises are relevant to their everyday work. You may have a nice, productive discussion on the subject of trust, but your employees will forget the discussion the minute they leave the room, unless you show them how to use their new knowledge at work and follow up to make sure they are effectively using it.
Hope this helps.
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Matt,
Thanks for your suggestions. Glad to know that you're actually an advocate of 'reinventing the wheel'. :) (http://www.managementexchange.com/content/reinvent-wheel).
;)
I do think there may be some differences between what you did and we do. Both in content, context and background. I will leave this for another time though.
Qua learning styles: good tip! I don't know Kolb's work and will certainly take a look at it. Not knowing him, I do think we do cover and/or complement some general ways of learning:
formal/informal
Carthesian/social
alone/group interaction
text/pictures/video/spoken word
Again: I will take a look. Thanks so much.
Qua types of intelligence I am a sceptic I must admit. Much as I love the work of Howard Gardner, especially on business ethics, his types of intelligence are unscientific as there really is no way to falsify the idea. From all the intelleginces he distinguishes, it is only old fashioned IQ that at least correlates with stuff like adaptability to new situations and success. Plus IQ can't really be learned, as studies with identical twins indicate. The rest appears to be learnable. However even IQ is not a good predictor of success given all else is equal. Malcom Gladwell's point in Outliers, that chance plays a huge role, is very apt.
Thanks for pointing out the importance of people acting on what they learn or discover. This is really something we should keep in mind! We do try to have people translate thought into action, like in our Challenging Minds sessions. CoachingOurselves – which you know - of course revolves around it. But many people are not really in a situation where they can steer things directly, and even if they can influence and change things, quite often they feel powerless. Free flowing conversations between people who often do not have time to reflect and interact in a thoughtful manner does help. Explaining and enabling conversations about complexity does help.
Thanks again and best regards,
Mireille
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Interesting concept. In my world all associates have to bill their time to sot centers, and "indirect" is not really an option. The only way this flies for us would be as a series of "Lunch and Learn" with some support on the network for background material and the like.
I agree that the results will generally unpredictable.
It is a bit odd you discount Gradner's work as "unscientific", yet I do not see the experimental basis for what you are doing, or that it has a result, such as, "Departments that utilize these techniques are awarded more contracts or have higher contract/contact ratios", or "Teams that use these techniques win more creative awards for products developed".
I look forward to reading more on the techniques and such.
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Jim,
Thanks for your reaction. In environments where time has to be billed, Lunch & Learn meetings may indeed be a very good way to get people away from daily hassle and concerns to reflect on broader issues. By having lunch at the same time it may feel less like a formal meeting, plus at least part of the 'wasted' time would be accounted for. ;)
Also- thought popping up - you could do those sessions with both people from your work and clients, as a kind of open meeting ground, to start sharing and building rapport and trust in a way that is different and, well, playful.
When people are outside a focused frame of mind where they have to 'score' and are focused on their targets and on things or people that stop them from getting there, and instead connect by discussing stuff that relates to them all, without anyone being seen as an 'adversary', it is amazing what happens. Really amazing. Creativity, exploration, dialogue kick in. New ideas come up, are tested, some are rejected, some are changed, some held in waiting. And perhaps most importantly: people start understanding that it is a journey to improve things, a journey which can consist of small acts and big ones, of mistakes, of changing course, hitting a wall and trying again, whatever. A journey. They stop feeling they have to have THE solution; and at the same time they feel more connected and able and inspired to make things better. So in a strange kind of way it seems that by helping people to de-focus they can focus anew and get new energy and drive.
Well, this is what I see happening at our Challenging Minds sessions. About CoachingOurselves I hear the same kinds of stories from people at work (we are not present at those sessions).
On your comment on my comment on Gardner's intelligence types: I didn't mean to say that my approach is scientific. It isn't by a long shot. We are just trying, step by step. However, complexity thinking has helped me to understand that prediction and hence targets etc. only work for certain kinds of contexts. As long as we (companies) benchmark and copy and do targets – which are always derived from the known and don't account for possibility and chance – we will stay mediocre and unadaptive. We have to explore and adjust, even if there is no benchmark and no billable hour spreadsheet to give us peace of mind.
Well that is what I think. Sorry for the charade... Let me know what kind of details you are looking for?
Best, Mireille
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I really like this hack. It is so simple - and yet so few organisations create a safe place for game changing ideas. It takes real nerve to start something like this. Keep at it!
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Hi Mireille,
I posted a reply to your very interesting responses to me - but I did so as a response (ie a new comment) on my own 'hack', Practical Trust. Now it occurs to me that the way this blog works - in-line comments in separate 'territories' - that you won't have seen it. So maybe you could 'come over to my place' and read it there!
I think your initiative here is great...it seems to me to be opening up the space for new conversations in really interesting ways. What I notice is that you're working in a way that naturally moves the converation beyond the organisation itself to a broader arena of concern...I believe that this is an important step that demands new skills and invites new protocols of relationship. I think these implications deserve further teasing out.
Cheers, Theodore
Theodore Taptiklis
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Hi Mirielle
I like your idea of Challenging Minds and Coaching Ourselves conversations. May I commend a further type of meeting: Teach Us What You Know.
Organizations go to a great deal of trouble to attract new talent only to ignore what they hired them for. In effect, to send the message “forget what you know, this is the way we do it around here”. Rather than turn to external authorities, get the new people that you hire to present to everyone else “what they know” within no more than a week or so of joining up. You get a look at the new talent. They feel validated. Their ideas are still fresh and untainted.
At it's crudest level, if the newcomer comes from a competitor, this is a good way of obtaining competitive intelligence.
Kind regards
Geoffrey
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Hi Geoffrey,
Sounds like a very good idea. Also because new people - including 'talents' - tend to shut up and adjust quite soon after entering a (new) organisation. On the other hand it is of course next to impossible to "tell what you know" in a one or two hour lecture. But as you say there are quite some benefits, including giving people the feeling of being recognized and appreciated.
I will alert some people I know at work who do 'talent management' to your idea.
Thanks & kind regards,
Mireille
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Thanks Mireille, I like the way you recognize the complexity of the larger system that can act as a deterrent at time for the innovation you envision. As I read your hack - and the thoughtful insights generated from this post it occurred to me that it may be worth building strategies to link what people appear compelled to do currently in the organization to what they would like to renew and do differently to improve practices going forward.
I'd like to hear a bit more from you about how folks approach that problem of fitting the innovative designs created into the traditions that appear inflexible. Have you reflected on that fit - and what has been done to meld the seams so that people can move forward without losing what is entrenched or valued from current systems? Thoughts?
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Mireille, let me first say that your work sounds fascinating – and the innovation you tap into it looks impressive! Thanks kindly for tackling a question you are far more qualified to answer in the field of finance that I am. Thanks also for the wonderful thought behind your response.
I am intrigued with how you get at the notion of beliefs as a determiner to change. In the brain based work we’d see what you described as “easier changes,” as those that do not get deeply rooted in the brain’s basal ganglia – where beliefs or habits are stored.
I agree that strategies would differ when the change is linked to deep rooted values or beliefs. In that case we help leaders to work from their working memory. (See http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/working-memory/wonders-and-hot-sp... How do our strategies differ here. We design tools that help leaders to override their brain’s natural default for ruts, for instance. (See http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/basal-ganglia/override-your-brain...
Nuff said…. I do not want to bore you – but I would love to hear your thoughts elaborated on how you help leaders to move past ruts and embrace innovation at the two levels. To grapple with issues you raised so brilliantly here – is to begin to design a new work order – even as world groans under the weights of a tired and broken order. Thanks for extending the conversation into the exciting realm of implementation – where innovative action is hot!
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Ellen,
Thanks for your kind words and your wonderful (and difficult!!) question. I am sure I cannot answer your question in full, but here are some first thoughts.
Some changes can be gradual in the sense that new stuff can be integrated into old ways of doing or seeing things, or can be 'added' to them, like an elaboration or an extension. That is probably the easier kind of change because people then don't have to really switch their thinking. It is more like development, like 'thinking further' and like extending or slightly modifying current practice.
Other kinds of changes are more fundamental, like a paradigm switch, and that is really hard because it implies rethinking (or 'refeeling' or whatever) fundamental assumptions and ways of doing things, and leaving them behind. Such change is often not very comfortable...
Strategies in both cases might have to be quite different!
A hard part of your question for me, is the 'what people value' or 'feel compelled to do' part. People may very well value and/or feel compelled to do the wrong things. I mean I have noticed that although many people want good (or nice) things, they often choose methods which then get to be goals in themselves and grow beyond discussion. Or they confuse an 'effect' with an objective or cause (like with employee engagement). Or they build up vested interests in certain methods (like when you earn your salary as a lean six sigma black belt or as an LSS trainer).
So I think it is not perse 'good' to keep what is valued... And establishing consensus about what we value is a tremendous excersize in itself... As to me: I think we need reflection on and conversations about why we think certain things are of value; and that we also need empiry and real (safe fail) experiments to learn.
I know I haven't answered even a small part of your question. Really wonderful food for thought; I certainly will keep chewing on it...
Thanks & best regards,
Mireille
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Hello Mireille,
Your work proves that committed and sincere investment of energy to get people focused on an issue brings about a shift of mind. It creates Knowledge and lays the foundation for innovation.
In a way what you are doing with your energy is very similar to what MIX is seeking to do with the use of IT - Externalising, and Socialising ideas followed by Combination and Internalization. However, I cannot see MIX succeeding inside the organization for quite a few reasons:
- Participation may never exceed a few percentage points
- Managers will be required to categorize for context and they are notorious for neglecting to do what they do not have to
- The use of incentives will destroy sincerity and committment.
Wikipedia demonstrates that collective working that works in the external world may not work within the enterprise. Enterprise 2.0, modeled on the Wiki has not lived up to its expectations.
Shift of mind in professional work is my area of interest. The ntroduction above brings me to my Q: You have experience in using your technique with a closed group of managers. Are the hurdles to participation and refllection raised by me relevant? Is there a solution to them? Can the solution be rolled out?
You have done a great job of communicating your change effort. Excuse me if my query is abstract.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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Hello Raj Kumar,
Thanks so much for writing me!
I tend to like this quote of Margareth Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
My experience with working with managers is that most of them are quite open to new ideas if those are relevant to their work and shed some new light on the issues they face. The TED-lecture by Dan Pink, for example, really resonates with them, as does the lecture of John Seddon, 'Culture Change is Free'. Of course those managers already choose to attend our Challenging Minds sessions - or a specific session on a particular topic - so they obviously were curious anyway, but still. I can't get into too much detail here because after all I am discussing my work, but some ideas which we have asked attention for are now being brought to the attention of directors, who are in a position to really do something if they would want to.
So it is not just a matter of getting at least so many people involved (percentage), but – as important - a matter of who gets involved, at what level, with what kind of network and span of control (both formal and informal!). By addressing a wide audience at all kinds of levels and from all kinds of business lines we highten the chance that some ideas 'sing through'. As to managers having to categorize for context and neglecting to do what they don't have to do: the conversations help to contextualize, and the subjects we tackle are very obviously relevant to multiple 'formally recognized' issues anyway. Employee engagement sits high on the agenda of many organisations, as do trust, risk, ethics and customer focus. The financial crisis saw to that. Yes, incentives are a sure way to destroy commitment, along with a bunch of other negative effects, but many of the people for whose ideas we ask attention tackle incentives: Pink, Seddon, Mintzberg, Sutton to name just a few. The stuff on incentives in our alert hopefully helps to underpin the need to rethink incentives as well: http://groups.diigo.com/group/ibs-research-alert/search?what=incentives.
So I am not really pessimistic about the hurdles to participation and reflection you mention in your mail. However, I do not think that a solution to those and similar hurdles can be 'rolled out'. The idea of rolling out something may be valid for more simple stuff, but not for a complex process of influencing corporate thought & practice. Very important in our approach is that we improvise. We do something, something happens, we act on that. Or we learn through a colleague that something interesting happens elsewhere at work, and we get in touch and see whether we can help each other. This may sound quite slapdash, but we feel that complexity thinking (theory, research) substantiates our 'safe fail experiments' approach...
I have the same experience as you b.t.w.: web 2.0 (redubbed Enterprise 2.0 by software salespeople and consultants) doesn't work so well within organisations. One of the hurdles in my opinion is that people are stuck with departmental targets and their managers do not like it (let alone give or get credit) if a 'subordinate' does something for another department or for 'the common good'. I have some not so nice stories about that. Also, social media tends to be confused with social chit-chat. The term 'social' doesn't work within organisations: 'online collaboration' would be much better. But that still wouldn't solve the departmental goals issue.
Well, I do hope that I have answered your questions at least partially...
Thanks again for writing!
Best, Mireille
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Hi Theodore,
I am so sorry, you are right: I didn't see your reply. Will read up and get back to you soon.
Thanks so much,
Mireille
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Hello Mireile,
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. The only point we agree on is that E 2.0 is unsuited to the enterprise:
You: important - a matter of who gets involved, at what level, with what kind of network and span of control.
Me: DNA for change is decided by the System and not the people
You: The idea of rolling out something may be valid for more simple stuff, but not for a complex process of influencing corporate thought & practice.
Me: Means for a shift of mind has to be part of the way of working. Without this people cannot be part of the System. It follows it must be amenable to a roll out.
You: departmental targets are a hurdle
Me: The means must enable a constructive approach to departmental targets.
I was going to propose we agree to disagree till we produced conclusive evidence to carry our point. Then I realised you were talking about Apples whereas my concern was Oranges!
Clarification: In my hack I have made a specific point: "Policy and Strategy are the main instruments for rapid impact on results. However, they alone cannot transform performance. Without a delivery mechanism Policy/Strategy will fail to bear results." You have focused on changing the mind-set for creation of superior Policy/Strategy while I have concentrated on developing the Delivery Mechanism!
All the best.
Regards,
Raj Kumar
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Ellen,
Thanks for your kind words. However, I wasn't talking about finance and I am not an expert at all! I just try to use my brains. No actually I have to use them, whatever the subject is that grabs my attention. Perhaps it is a kind of latent boredom. But I am not an expert in anything.
I have checked your link on “Target Working Memory to Learn New Skills”. Interesting. Did you read Malcolm Gladwells article on the difference between choking and panicking? http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.html. Gladwell makes a distinction between panic and choking. It may be interesting as an addition to your learning subject.
As to your question how I 'help leaders to move past ruts and embrace innovation at the two levels': I don't. Actually I can't do anything. Sometimes I wish I could but I can't. The only thing I can do is create opportunities to let people discover things for themselves. Like in our Challenging Minds sessions. I cannot steer, but by creating a space for conversation and giving some input like a viodeo lecture, things happen. Small things, bigger things. But I cannot steer it. Yes, I steer by the topics and the lecturers we feature. But the conversations are open and we don't go for results. Personally I think that if people take with them what they learned and thought, also to another job, that is enough. I don't try to educate people into a job. I try to make them think and to let them discover the joy of thinking, the sensation of being free.
My son called me today, quite urgently. I think he was underway to the shower. He had suddenly seen that our cat also has his eyes above his nose, his mouth below his nose, his ears aside. He explained tnat and said: he looks so different, but we have the same ancestors, I see it! And cows too. And sheep too.
I was so proud of him and glad for him. For what he saw and grasped, but also because he did; because he experienced the joy and exitement of a fresh thought.
Best, Mireille
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@Ellen
P.S. I wouldn't know how sudden or gradual changes in conceptual thinking occur and would be visible at nerve cell level in the brain. As far as I know or understand it, conscience and thinking and understanding and beliefs etc. are emergent phenomena and there is no way that we can easily plot them to the ganglia or the corpus striatum or the amygdala or the frontal lobes or whatever. But perhaps I am wrong? If you know more about this, that would be wonderful! Let me know?
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P.P.S. Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, makes some interesting points about relating neuroscience to learning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdJ7JW0LgVs. What do you think?
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GREAT QUESTION Mireille, I so enjoy your challenges (and writings) - because you delve deep into the roots of interesting issues and come up with questions that spark movement forward for many kinds of thinkers! Bravo!
All respect to Willingham, the new research in plasticity suggests that we need many integrated brain sciences (beyond his psychology only approach) to see the wider wonders of the human mind in all we now know.
On that note, I would like to point you to a story of neuroplasticity that refused naysaysaying and went forward for applying real discoveries as they made sense. Mireille, you would love the NY Times bestselling book, The Brain that Changes Itself. Here is one story from that book that shows an opposite view from this video and shows why I spent an entire lifetime creating renewal strategies based on discoveries from the neuro and cognitive sciences, as well as 17 theories of learning and leading – and observation across many cultures. See the story that will stop you in your tracks with the human brain’s capability against all mainstream demands that it cannot happen – because mainstream has not looked into how it can. http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/brain-chemicals/brainpower-for-th...
Like you, I cannot be managed – and the reasons could well be the same. I have a desire to learn from thoughtful people, to engage differences in ways that teach me from opposite sides of issues, and a keen desire to build renewal strategies in negotiated settings - from the best science that’s proven to work well.
This man makes good points from his field, and integration of neuro fields adds a great deal to how the mind works when we engage its plasticity and help it to reorganize for improved results.
Thanks for the way you think, and apply and refuse to be managed! You inspire the rest of us on many levels!
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