An exploration of leadership that transforms and ways to transform leadership.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Moving Through Change
There is no place to hide from change. However, we can choose how to deal with it. Change moves us into confusion. One way we deal with the discomfort of this stage is to hold onto what we know. In this case we continue to define competency according to what the past required. To move with change we need to redefine competency according to what the new circumstance requires. Gaining new competencies gives us a greater sense of control over our situation. This sense of control bolsters our confidence. As our confidence continues to grow we become more comfortable with our circumstances. Comfort can lead to complacency. We begin to coast. We either initiate a change to keep us growing or change will find us. Either way the cycle begins anew:
Leaders promote disequilibrium, change, and growth. These occur within the context of time. Following are musings on time. I offer them as thought starters.
We have all the time there is. Time is democratic. We all have the same number of seconds in a minute, minutes in an hour, hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a month, months in a year. What differentiates us is how we choose to use the time we are given.
Want to live a full life? You already are. Each moment of your life is occupied. You may be eating, sleeping, working, playing, thinking, relaxing, whatever. It is your responsibility to choose how you occupy each moment. You have a full life. With what have you filled your life?
We usually think of time as linear--past, present, future. Yet the past is present in its influence of our current reality, and how we view the future influences the present. If I view a goal as possible or impossible, that perspective will influence how I act in the present. What I have done in the past determines my present and future circumstances. What I do now influences how I perceive the past and future. My present influences how I interpret the past. My view of the future impacts how I perceive the present and past.
There is only the now. We create our past through memory and our future through anticipation. Both are imagination. We image our past and future from the now. Time flows from the now. When is the now? We can’t nail it down. If all there is is the now and we can’t identify that, we have eliminated time.
Life is messy. It is disorderly. We attempt to gain order out of the disorder by gaining control. Control restricts. It eventually strangles the life out of life.
We say that things change in time. But time is change. Without change there would be no time. Change is life. We seek change to avoid boredom. Yet we try to minimize change to gain control. Our attempts to control lead to slow suicide.
We seek to control by knowing. We are limited by what we know. Knowledge locks us in to the past. We can only know what is or has been. Knowledge limits change, which limits life. To stay within the known is to remain in the past.
Knowledge brings clarity. We are unclear about that which we do not know. Growth involves change. This means having to venture into the unknown, which is unclear. Insight is clarity emerging from confusion. Questioning leads to certainty. Certainty eliminates questioning.
Life requires growth, which requires change. This calls for openness. Closed systems experience entropy and die. Perfect equilibrium is death. Open systems evolve to higher complexity.
If you know what I am talking about, I am then simply reiterating what you already know. This reinforces stagnation. If what I share confuses you, then I have moved you into the unknown. It is from the realm of the unknown that growth emerges.
Our situation remains the same when we continue to operate from the known. We simply keep getting what we have always gotten. We may rearrange the furniture, even replace the furniture, yet we are still living in the same house. We must change houses if we are to live in a new place. By changing our minds, we change our lives.
The success of any organization depends upon both good management and good leadership. The question facing managers is, “When am I to lead, and when am I to manage?” Miriam Kragness, Ph.D., author of the Dimensions of Leadership Profile published by Inscape Publishing, offers some guidelines to help managers respond to this dilemma.
According to Kragness, the management model focuses on the command and control functions. These include planning, executing, evaluating, communicating, and motivating or persuading others to support organizational plans and objectives.
Leadership is concerned about helping people identify the needs and opportunities to which they want to respond and determining how they may best make a contribution. Leadership also addresses creating a work environment where everyone can learn from each other and build on each other’s talents.
An organization needs an emphasis on management when it: · is inefficient · can’t seem to make decisions · has trouble setting priorities · does not follow through · produces inconsistent results · is foundering financially · lacks a sensible business strategy
Leadership is to be the primary focus when an organization: · is trying to stay abreast of a rapidly changing environment · is experiencing high turnover or employee dissatisfaction · is losing customers or failing to attract new ones · is continually making mistakes · faces one or more obstacles to survival or success that it does not know how to address · lacks a sense of meaningful purpose
Kragness points out that there is a third role that also needs to be exercised--followership. “An organization needs to develop followership,” says Kragness, “when it needs to sustain present effort, increase it, or plow new ground; in other words, in any organization that wants to survive.”
The Dimensions of Leadership Profile is a registered trademark of Inscape Publishing.
To be a leader, someone needs to be following. To know if you are a leader, take this test. Look over your shoulder. If there is no one there, you are not a leader.
You are a leader when others choose to follow you. It is the followers who make you a leader. This requires that you have the ability to induce others to follow your lead, even in the face of changing circumstances and fluctuating needs.
To assume and retain the lead of a group requires flexibility and versatility. Flexibility is the willingness to adapt your approach to the requirements of each specific situation. Versatility is the ability to meet those requirements. Flexibility is a matter of attitude. Versatility is about skills. If you want to lead, you must be willing to change your approach with each shift in the environment and have the ability to implement the needed approach. The key to being a leader is knowing what each situation requires and how to meet those requirements. In other words, you must know what needs to be done and how to do it.
A leader moves people to create that which does not yet exist. This requires moving from the known into the unknown. This can be frightening for leader and followers alike. As the pressure mounts, the leader is increasingly tempted to surrender to the fears. A critical trait of leadership is courage. The first step in developing the courage to lead is to become aware of your fears. Self-knowledge precedes self-management. Only by knowing your fears can you manage your response to them.
What ultimately carries a leader through the inevitable pressures and fears to be faced is an unshakable belief in what is being created. The leader must be driven by a mission that is deeply rooted in the leader’s values. To lead courageously, discern your purpose and clarify and commit to your values.
Coping with stress and maintaining a healthy lifestyle also contribute to successfully dealing with the pressures of leadership. To strengthen your resolve, practice stress management and other processes that contribute to your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
The goal in developing courage is not to eliminate fear; it is to learn to act in spite of the fear.
Organizational learning has been promoted as a necessity for organizations expecting to contend with today’s rapid pace of change. The question that comes to mind, though, is what are organizations to be learning?
Peter Senge, who popularized the concept of organizational learning with the 1990 release of his book The Fifth Discipline, defines the learning organization as one “that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.” According to Senge, “A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. And how they can change it.” This implies that reality is not an objective static state but a dynamic creative process. Reality is what we perceive it to be.
The subjectivity of reality is illustrated by a tribe in the Kalahari who know that the world ends 250 yards beyond their local area. It is reported that if you take them to that boundary, they will see nothing beyond it but a void. If you step over that line, they are no longer able to see you and mourn your departure until your return into the existing world.
We may be quick to judge such beliefs as pathetically ignorant. However, all of us have our 250 yard limit; that point where we believe something to be impossible, untrue, or nonexistent. Some examples. In 1880 Thomas Edison, commenting about his own invention, declared that “The phonograph...is not of any commercial value.” Noted astronomer Simon Newcomb stated in 1902, “Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.” In 1913 the American Road Congress decided, “It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement of passengers.” It was the opinion in 1920 of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Robert Millikan that, “There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.” In 1977 president of Digital Equipment Corporation, Ken Olsen, stated, “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
Our reality is built upon our assumptions--the way we perceive ourselves, others, and the world around us. Our assumptions drive our behaviors. Our behaviors, in turn, determine our results. Our outer reality is ultimately a manifestation of our thinking. To achieve significant and lasting change requires us to address our assumptions. Psychologist William James recognized this when he wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, “The greatest discovery in our generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives!” What we are to learn, then, is to identify the assumptions responsible for our current outcomes and alternative perceptions that will support the achievement of our desired results.
The first step in this process is to evaluate our current results. If we are satisfied with the present outcomes, there is no need to do anything different. If we keep doing what we have been doing, we will keep getting the same results. However, if we want different results, then we need to examine what actions have led us to where we are now and what assumptions have been generating those behaviors. We then must identify the results we desire, the new behaviors that will achieve those results, and the assumptions that will be congruent with the behaviors.
A useful process for uncovering individual and group assumptions is dialogue. This process differs from the usual mode of group discussion. The intent of dialogue is not to come to conclusions but to explore the rationale behind people’s perceptions of an issue. In a dialogue, as we share our views on a particular topic with each other, we also share the data upon which we base our conclusions. We then invite the other group members to ask questions to help clarify the assumptions that underlie our view. This process is repeated with each member of the group. The purpose is to understand the experiences and information that have led each person to his or her stance. By suspending judgment and debate, dialogue helps create a pool of common meaning. The group can then synthesize from this reservoir of meaning new assumptions to support the achievement of the intended goal.
To remain competitive in an ever-changing environment, it is necessary for people, individually and collectively, to continually examine their own thinking. What we must learn is how to always be ready to change our minds.
You have heard it said many times, “We learn from experience.” Well, we don’t. If we learned from experience, we would not keep making the same mistakes.
You may know someone who has been at the same job for ten years. Yet that person describes performing the role in the same way as it was performed a decade ago. That individual does not have ten years of experience at the job but merely one year of experience repeated ten times.
We do not learn by simply having experiences. To learn, we must reflect upon our experiences. Too many of us live life in a semi-comatose state. We interact with others and our environment. If a situation turns out in our favor, we credit it to luck. If circumstances turn against us, we bemoan our fate.
To live life fully, we must live consciously. We need to continually review our thoughts, behaviors, and results. We need to determine what is helping us to reach our goals and to express our values. Those are the actions and attitudes we want to reinforce. When we find thoughts or behaviors that create negative outcomes, we need to take the initiative to think and act in more positive ways.
A helpful exercise is to review your day before retiring each night. Identify your accomplishments for the day. Congratulate yourself on your successes, no matter how small they may seem to you. Determine what you did that contributed to the positive outcomes so you can reinforce those behaviors. Review what you want to do differently. Decide what actions might bring you more positive results in the future. This simple daily exercise is one way you can tap your inner wisdom.
MITCHELL R. ALEGRE has been a consultant and trainer in personal and organizational effectiveness since 1974. He is president of his own consulting company and is Coordinator of Special Projects for Niagara University. He has served as Senior Consultant for the Healthcare Careers Center of the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, as Training Associate for the Institute for Work/Family Balance at the University at Buffalo, and as an adjunct faculty member for other colleges in Western New York. He has authored numerous articles and two books. He has been a recipient of the Trainer of the Year Award from the Niagara Frontier Chapter of the American Society for Training and Development. He has been recognized for Outstanding Teaching and Dedication by Niagara University’s College of Business Administration. He was the first to receive the Leadership Award presented by the Buffalo Chapter of the International Management Network and was similarly honored by the Buffalo Chapter of the International Management Council. The New York Leadership Educators Consortium has recognized him with both their Innovative Program Award and Visionary Award.
