seemore

The robot in the room

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:18:23 GMT

The recent news that Mark Zuckerberg is developing an AI avatar to attend meetings on his behalf feels, at first, like a dispatch from a dystopian future. But the truly unsettling thought is how quickly we might find it mundane. In a decade, we may look back at our insistence on physical presence as a quaint, inefficient relic of the pre-LLM era. Yet, there is a friction here that efficiency cannot smooth over. It’s the gap between being there and being present.

We already see this friction in the world of therapy. Studies into AI counselling bots often show promising results … until the curtain is pulled back. The moment a participant realises their ‘therapist’ is a sophisticated algorithm rather than a person, the perceived value of the encounter evaporates.

The advice might be identical, but the attention is absent. In an organisational context, we ignore this at our peril. If a leader sends an avatar to a meeting, they aren’t just saving time; they are signalling that the people in that room do not require their humanity. It raises a question: Would Zuckerberg himself accept an AI avatar from a subordinate, or would he see it as the ultimate mark of disrespect?

There is a subtle scale of respect in how we delegate. At the bottom sits the What and the How – the mechanical instructions for a task. At the top sits the Why. This echoes Simon Sinek’s work, but it goes deeper into what I call sense-making . To explain the ‘why’ is to provide context, to acknowledge the other person’s agency, and to weave a narrative that makes the work meaningful. I am sceptical an AI avatar, no matter how high-resolution its rendering, can truly perform this kind of ‘human-level’ connection. An avatar can deliver a script; it cannot share a conviction.

The desire to send an avatar might stem from our obsession with being ‘busy’. A few years ago, a newly appointed CEO told me his greatest challenge wasn’t the workload but the sudden abundance of choice. ‘I had time in my diary’, he confessed, ‘and the choice not to be busy all the time.’

For many leaders, busyness is a comfort blanket. It provides the illusion of productivity, while shielding us from the harder, more ambiguous work of leadership. This CEO eventually realised his value lay in doing only what he, with his specific influence and perspective, could do.

In the Agile Leadership models I teach, we distinguish between two types of challenges:

· Simple Problems: These are ‘recipe’ problems. They are familiar, have high levels of agreement and can be solved by applying past knowledge. (An AI avatar would excel here).

· Wicked Problems: These are intractable and messy. They involve competing stakeholder interests, no clear cause-and-effect, and no ‘right’ answer. They cannot be solved; they can only be navigated.

Wicked problems are the unique province of the human leader. They require the ability to hold space for opposing viewpoints and to lead a conversation where the path is not yet visible. The danger of the AI avatar is that it tempts us to treat ‘wicked’ problems as ‘simple’ ones. It suggests that leadership is about the transmission of data rather than the navigation of nuance. A bot can solve a recipe but it cannot steer a ship through a storm of human emotion.

If we outsource our presence, we eventually outsource our influence. After all, if a leader’s presence isn’t required for the hard conversations, one has to wonder: what is the leader actually for?

The candle-maker

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 17:27:08 GMT

It’s just over 3 years since ChatGPT was released and LLMs were suddenly a dominant topic in organisational life and society more broadly. A tiny period of time, during which their capability has evolved at a fearsome rate and organisational culture has struggled, and largely failed, to keep up. Only this week I’ve noticed two large organisations I work with just reaching a point of issuing guidance about the use of AI chatbots in two particular aspects: one forbidding the entry of company information in employees’ personal AI chatbots and another banning the use of those AI chatbots that join online meetings to take notes (which I’ve always considered very sinister so I’m glad!).

As always, cultural change lags far behind the speed of technological change, throwing up many challenges and paradoxes. Another handy illustration from this week was a client of mine being simultaneously criticised by one cohort of their customers for using AI in their work, while another group of their customers was criticising them for not using AI enough. It’s the wild-west at the moment as we learn our way into the future. You need your wits about you, it’s a truly fascinating, complex time.

An analogy I have begun to use which helps me make sense of what I see happening in many places and to explore the topic with my clients is the following. Imagine a candle-making factory in the very early days of electricity becoming widely available. The owner of the factory employs six workers, one of whom has the role of holding up a candle so the other skilled craftsmen have enough light to perform their tasks. When the owner of the factory hears about electricity he concludes the biggest opportunity he has is to install electric lighting, thereby eliminating the need for one sixth of his workforce and reducing his costs accordingly. There are many bigger questions he doesn’t ask himself about the future of candles or the opportunity for wider change in his own process. And, from his somewhat remote ownership position he is not aware that most of his candle makers have secretly been bringing electric torches into the factory for a while as their way of helping themselves to do the job more easily. They have been engaged in ‘productivity secrecy’ for fear the owner would disapprove. They already have learned far more about what electricity can (and just as crucially can’t) do through their first-hand experience than the owner has gleaned through his own means.

I’m seeing this again and again. A scramble to set AI direction at the top of the organisation with many unconstrained (and sometimes dangerous) experiments going on at grass roots. I’m sure there is much else happening between these two positions, including the usual middle-management struggles of trying to bridge the gap and convey often non-sensical messages.

If you happen to read this blog and would be willing to share your own experiences or your own metaphors or you see ways of extending the candle-maker analogy I would love to hear from you: asher@seemoreconsulting.co.uk .

[This blog was entirely hand-crafted using the original AI (Asher Intelligence!) and there is nothing artificial about it. However, the picture was generated using Nano-Banana which yet again has astonished me with its speed and capability]

Uncovering difference

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 15:24:47 GMT

I’ve noticed an almost audible sigh of relief when teams feel able to talk openly about disagreements and misalignment. Unstated misalignment is both a nagging worry and an obstacle to trust. Perversely, openly exposed misalignment creates a stronger sense of shared hope and strangely … alignment. That feeling of not being alone, even if it’s not being alone with a sense of misalignment is a valuable way of feeling more connected.

Alignment is never a permanent state, and even in situations where there is a belief that alignment exists, the probability is that with deeper examination or a wider field of vision, there will be areas of undiscovered disagreement and misalignment.

There are two golden rules that I find helpful to remember and remind teams about. Firstly, that alignment is a process (i.e. a dynamic state) not a static destination. Secondly, the natural order of things is that whatever alignment exists it decays and this is accelerated in teams that work separately for much of the time, particularly when everyone is busy; you will probably recognise these as features of nearly all teams. The world isn’t static, things change and, therefore, alignment is always going to erode.

Accepting these rules is helpful because they reduce the disappointment teams often experience when they see misalignment as a sign of failure. It might feel unnatural to accept this, but it’s far easier to do the hard work of building alignment – involving as it does courage, vulnerability and commitment to ‘go there’ – without the additional mental burden of inadequacy. The need for this process of aligning will never disappear.

The struggle for alignment has many worthwhile pay-offs. Teams with higher degrees of alignment can work more quickly, recover from set-backs more readily and enjoy a more productive working environment. The skill is avoiding the false comfort of believing the Holy Grail of permanent alignment can ever be found.

Walking with AI

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 15:49:27 GMT

It’s long been my habit to begin the day with a walk whenever possible; it’s a gentle way to get mind and body moving (and yes, I know I’m privileged to have the space and time to do this). What’s changed recently is that sometimes—not always, because usually I want to hear birdsong —I take AI along as a companion. I hadn’t realised the power and ease of simply talking to it in voice mode. I suspect that when I look back in six months I’ll find it hard to imagine there was ever a time I didn’t know about this. Perhaps some readers will roll their eyes at my late-to-the-party discovery.

I now have conversations with ChatGPT as I walk, speaking into my AirPods, letting it help me develop my thinking. It’s supportive, creative and occasionally sycophantic (which has its charms). It doesn’t get bored. It helps me bounce around fragile ideas and unformed thoughts; I generate more value than I do when I think alone. And because the conversation is captured, I don’t have to worry about the practical side of note-taking or remembering everything.

What’s struck me most is how different a voice conversation feels compared to the written kind. It’s oddly difficult not to imagine the AI as sentient—the rhythms and reactions feel so familiar, so human.

This morning one thought landed with some force, which seems blindingly obvious now: just twelve months ago, I couldn’t have imagined working this way. That led me to new questions about the impact of AI on organisational strategy, culture and leadership:

If you were starting a business today, with AI already part of the world, what would you offer? How would you organise? How would you design your processes? What human roles would you need and what could AI do instead?
What’s the role of the human being in that business—and where can they add the most value?
What would it take to move from “business now” to “business + AI”?

It feels analogous to the arrival of electricity. To imagine running a business with electricity, while still living and working in a world built without it, was a vast leap; maybe impossible.

What fascinates me most—reinforced recently in work with a large tech company, ironically right in the heart of AI-land in Silicon Valley—is how rarely these fundamental questions are asked. The scramble to meet today’s demands leaves little space for reflection. Yet, as Margaret Wheatley put it: “Without reflection we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences.”

I’ve long believed that reflection is a profoundly human quality, one AI cannot emulate. And yet, perhaps that’s simply a limit of my imagination.

This brings me back to the electricity analogy. On a recent trip to Spain, I arrived in the middle of a nationwide power outage. Suddenly all the things I normally take for granted—making phone calls, going online, paying with a card, withdrawing cash—were gone. When society has been built around something, its absence reveals what we’ve forgotten, or perhaps never learned, to do. In my case, even writing down the address of my accommodation instead of assuming my phone would tell me.

That, I think, is the warning for us with AI. As we build our world around it, we will inevitably lose some abilities we now take for granted. The one capacity we must not surrender, though, is the most human of all: the ability to think for ourselves.

BIG questions (about AI)

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 09:32:56 GMT

At a webinar I participated in on organisational culture earlier this year, it occurred to me that a topic which was notable through its absence was AI. There were several hundred participants from organisations across the world of all shapes and sizes, but not a single question or comment about AI. This surprised me. I find it difficult to imagine that an event with broad representation on any other topic would not include a significant amount of coverage for AI; in fact, in many cases I think it would be the dominant theme.

Why was this? There could be many reasons but I suspect we still see human beings as the prime carriers of culture and are not thinking about the way in which AI is currently (and will be more so in the future) a carrier of culture whether we are aware of it or not.

In addition, I think we are typically talking about AI as a tool in organisations more than a transformational force which inevitably will have a huge impact on culture.

I’ve also noticed in my interaction with executive teams over recent months that the extent to which AI was being discussed appeared to be very small. It could, of course, have been taking place at times when I’m not present but my enquiry into this with the Global CEO of a large organisation I think was illustrative of another point. ‘Do you talk about it much?’ I asked. ‘The CIO raises at times but we change the subject quickly.’ was his reply. Not surprising really; in the same way as many large technological transformations from the past were, they are seen too easily as being the domain of the technologists and not something of much broader potential (and concern).

And this at a point in time when I would guess that at least 60% of the employees in most organisations are using AI daily, even if it’s on their phones (if they don’t have access on their computers), to help them handle their workloads, find out information, produce first drafts and so on.

So on the one hand, AI is in use everywhere and on the other, I don’t think we are consistently having the level of conversation we should be having about the implications for organisational life.

Those of you who know me, know my interest is the interaction of strategy, culture and leadership. Just to get things started, here are a few of the questions I think we should be asking to build our level of awareness and preparedness for the organisation of the future.

Strategy

What new capabilities, which have been prohibitively expensive or difficult for us in the past, can we acquire through AI?

What do we want our organisation to look like in terms of the balance between human workers and AI agents?

What do we do for our customers (which they value) which they can now do for themselves through AI?

Where is it essential for us to maintain or introduce the human touch?

Leadership

How do we lead mixed teams of human and AI workers?

What skills do we now need that weren’t necessary before in terms of AI knowledge and capabilities?

How do we create an environment of psychological safety when jobs are threatened (or already disappearing)?

What is my role as a leader in terms of protecting the organisation from AI, connecting the organisation to the possibilities of AI, promoting the necessity of us understanding and adopting AI (even though it might threaten our roles – see the previous point)?

Culture

How do we ensure our AI agents have consistent values with those of the organisation?

What are the skills and behaviours we most value now, how will this change and how do we help people adapt?

How do we teach our AI(s) the desired culture of the organisation?

Whose values are we unwittingly adopting through the use of the AI systems we choose?

What is threatened by AI in our existing culture that we want to maintain?

How do we evolve a culture which embraces (or accepts) AI fully?

Questions for everyone

Who do we trust & what is the truth?

What do we want work to look like?

How will organisational ‘nous’ be acquired when a high proportion of entry-level white-collar jobs have disappeared?

Not easy questions. But as with all transition points, it’s far better to face them now than to avoid them and discover in the future we have created organisations that fail to meet the standards we want.

Re-finding my voice

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 17:02:01 GMT

I am about 18 months into my personal use of AI tools and I’m beginning to notice some of the ways in which it is impacting on me.

Productivity for me has increased massively in some areas and diminished substantially in others. In particular, I have noticed a reluctance on my part to engage with writing and video (animation) production.

Firstly, on the productivity side, I have found AI fantastic at helping me get started on projects, acting as a form of second memory, improving my emails, generating images, suggesting ideas, creating copy, interpreting complex documents, advising on topics I know nothing about … all the things I imagine most users are doing with it. I’ve enjoyed experimenting (unsuccessfully) with vibe-coding and (also unsuccessfully) with creating AI agents to speed up my daily handling of emails.

But on the reduction in productivity side of the ledger, I notice that in some ways I have become lazier and disincentivised from doing things for myself because it’s so easy to reach for AI.

When I use AI to produce meeting notes for me (if for example I’m on a video call) it is extremely handy, it saves time and the quality is generally good. However, the cognitive experience is entirely different from me taking my own notes. When writing my own notes, I notice my engagement in the conversation is better (I would have thought it would be the opposite given that I could relax into the content but it just isn’t) and I have to mentally process differently which means I remember more of the conversation and have a deeper sense of connection with the content. Knowing I don’t have to rely on myself (because AI is working away in the background) is in many ways a blessing but in others an obstacle to overcome.

On the creativity front I really notice a big difference. What happens now (as opposed to before the point AI became part of my life) is that I think about what I want to create, I get excited about it, and then the thought enters my head that AI will do this better than I do and (perhaps more importantly) it will do it without me having to invest any effort in it at all. At which point, all my enthusiasm drains away and I don’t progress the idea at all. I would not have predicted this would happen.

(As an aside, there is also a slightly different version of this: where I start something but don’t finish it because I know that I can always use AI at some point in the future to tidy up the whole thing for me.)

It was fascinating when I met someone recently (a senior executive who is responsible for the introduction of AI in their organisation) who said she had been reading my blogs before our meeting. My first reaction was one of embarrassment because prior to this blog, I haven’t written anything for a couple of years. But I relaxed when she said she had enjoyed them because she had ‘heard your [my] voice’. I had always found AI to be extremely helpful in getting over ‘blank-page syndrome’; i.e. overcoming the intimidating hurdle (at least for me) of starting from scratch. She then went on to describe how she was using AI herself and in her process she always ‘went through the grind of producing the first draft’. She then used AI to coach her on how to improve it and to point out blind spots. I am really attracted to this alternative mode of deployment and will be experimenting with it over the coming weeks.

If there is anyone out there who reads this blog and is over the age of 40 and remembers Queen’s (a rock band) albums in the 1970s, they used to state on the cover that synthesisers were not used in the production of their music; i.e. it was produced on guitars, keyboards, human vocal, real drum-kits. They clearly felt that by doing this they were adding to the quality and perhaps authenticity of their musical production. This is analogous to the point I’ve reached with AI. I want to return to my original sound and rediscover my voice.

So here it is, ‘unsynthesised’, human-generated, free from AI of any sort … all my own words!

Welcome back.

No blueprint for the unpredictable

Thu, 07 Dec 2023 12:11:36 GMT

In 2009 I left corporate life with very little idea of what I wanted, or indeed would be able, to do next for a living. It was an uncertain and scary time for me, a core part of my previous identity – an executive in a large organisation – had been swept away and my new one was unknown to me. It was a liminal state; one which I did not enjoy. In theory it was a time of possibility and reinvention, of freedom, of the chance to try something new. All of which was well and good in theory but inner doubts – amplified every time well-meaning friends asked me ‘what are you going to do next?’ – provoked strong feelings of disquiet in practice.

The one thing I could latch on to was the ambition to run a business from a shed in the garden. It was an appealing prospect to me – years of commuting to be replaced by a stroll down the garden path. I wanted the business (whatever it was) to be really small (‘almost insignificant’ was the mantra I had in mind) and agile, and yet to work with much larger entities. I did not know what the business would actually do, just that it would be run from a garden shed. Luckily, I had a shed in the garden; unfortunately, the shed was somewhat dilapidated, lacked the basic office comforts of heating, insulation, light, a desk, a roof that didn’t leak and many other things. However, this provided the opportunity for me to get stuck in to a renovation project, a project that at least provided something tangible as a goal and provided a stop-gap answer to that ‘what next?’ question I had begun to dread.

The renovation began and much to my surprise, about 5 months later, it was completed. I was the proud owner (and builder) of a spruce, comfy shed-office with a floor, a roof, heating, lighting, insulation, a desk and (wonder of wonders at that time) WiFi! To anyone experienced in DIY or construction, I imagine the task would have seemed trivial; to me, every part of it felt daunting. I persisted, I sought advice, I made mistakes, I corrected mistakes. The project was complicated (for me) but I knew it was possible, evidenced by the fact that there was nothing unique about it and that if I got stuck I could ask someone with more expertise and I would find the answer I needed.

I contrast that with the building of the business which is now run from the shed. Once I had overcome the initial hurdle of not knowing what the business was going to do, there was no guaranteed playbook I could draw on for bringing it to fruition. There were a multitude of opinions, at times an overwhelming number of choices and decisions, but nowhere was there the formula for making the business I wanted to work at the particular time I was trying to do it. The path involved experimentation, adapting to changing circumstances, making decisions in the absence of meaningful data, all of which often felt like a high-stakes guessing game. It has been a learning journey, rather than a planned and deterministic one. Looking back from the present, it all makes perfect sense, but repeating the same steps again would not necessarily result in success; the context is different, nothing ever stays exactly the same.

The renovation of the shed and the building of the business have both required resilience, albeit in different forms; they both taxed me. But one fundamental difference between the two of them was that I knew if I persisted I would eventually complete the shed; there was no such certainty with the business venture. The weight of uncertainty was tiring at times, provoking anxiety and a yearning within me to ‘know’ it would be ok at a time when this just wasn’t possible.

Through my work as an executive coach (the business which emerged in the shed) I frequently observe the reluctance to engage with complexity in the organisations I work with, a reflex to reduce a situation to a state that feels more manageable and controllable; a situation in which existing knowledge can be re-applied. Often this simplification is more to do with an unconscious desire to escape the anxiety caused by uncertainty rather than a purposeful attempt to tackle the situation effectively. Some situations by their very nature are complex: they lack cause and effect, they are entangled, they are unpredictable. I love the words attributed to Albert Einstein: ‘Everything should be as simple as possible but no simpler’. When simplicity is a form of avoidance it does nothing except to reduce fear at the expense of understanding; the understanding which might make all the difference to the effectiveness of what gets done.

Renovating the shed showed me the power of a clear plan and steady progress. It also gave me the chance to reflect whilst at the same time feeling I was doing something productive. Building my business taught me the art of navigating through uncertainty. Both of these are necessary in the world of business, let alone life; perhaps the critical skill is choosing which approach should be applied to the situation being faced. As I sit in my shed-turned-office working with clients, it serves as a constant reminder of these distinct experiences, each valuable in its own right.

Mexican Waves of Change

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 18:19:37 GMT

Imagine the following seemingly impossible challenge: an organisation of 60,000 people, with no hierarchy, leadership, authority figures or plan, acting in a coordinated, synchronised manner, with large amounts of collaboration and adaptability, without any instructions in any form being issued at all. To make it worse, very few of the people involved know each other, many speak different languages, they come from diverse backgrounds and there is a very wide range of ages and physical abilities. Tough to imagine achieving it isn’t it? But while I was watching a sporting event last week (the St Louis Cardinals were playing the Chicago Cubs at baseball) this is exactly what happened in the form of a Mexican Wave which broke out at various points around the stadium and seemed to flow effortlessly around the crowd, transferring seamlessly between seating sections, moving in harmony between upper and lower tiers and hopping gangways with ease. It made me think about the way we might set about organising this task if we were asked to do so. I would instinctively want to create plans, a budget, a selection process, structure, briefing sessions, training etc. All the things I often associate with change and organisational life.

The Mexican Wave demonstrated to me that there is something innately possible in groups that we often suppress or obstruct through the very things we believe will allow effective action. The desire to control, rather than encourage or harness what might naturally happen, is strong! A different mindset and approach that comes from complexity science, a school of thought which reflects the world as it is rather than what we would like it to be, (I will write more about complexity science in a later blog) is a richer way of seeing things.

It is striking how often I hear people lament that their organisation is adept at coping in a crisis but how slow and rigid things are in ‘normal’ times. There is a longing for the mindsets and behaviours which are adopted naturally during a crisis – such as faster decision making, more direct conversations, a willingness to quickly adapt and learn, a tolerance for mistakes – to be harnessed all of the time. What is it about a crisis that allows this? Certainly there is often more focus around a single objective, the fog of competing priorities if often lifted and this alone has a significant impact. But I also think our mindsets about complexity, although not expressed in those terms, has an equally important part to play. There is a much greater level of acceptance for the need to self-organise (in the same way the crowd performing the Mexican Wave self-organised) and the bureaucracy of traditional hierarchical power is temporarily pushed aside – there often isn’t the time for it or the means to control things.

We know in a crisis we are treading novel ground and we trust an ability to improvise (or make it up as we go along); there are no obvious answers, only tough dilemmas. In a crisis it is less clear what ‘good’ looks like; it’s usually a matter of noticing whether an action makes things better or worse and adapting accordingly. In reality, we improvise our way through every situation, crises simply remove the pretence that life can ever be any different from this. We know we can never predict exactly what will happen, denying ourselves this or believing it can be avoided, simply causes us to act in ways that are not helpful.

In a crisis there is a tacit acknowledgement that ‘self-organising’ is essential and more latitude is given (usually quickly and informally) to enable this. Sometimes this is explicit, take for example the statement by the CEO of Walmart in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the storm which destroyed much of the infrastructure in huge swathes of New Orleans. He made it clear to all employees in the locality they were empowered to do what they felt it was right to do at the time and he would back them unreservedly with any action they took; acting in an unequivocal way to make the conditions for experimentation and improvisation safe. Walmart were able to assist the local community much more effectively than many of the government agencies, which were hidebound by process, control and quite possibly the fear of being criticised (which they received in any case because their response was so slow).

The capacity for self-organising was demonstrated in abundance during the pandemic. Traditional command-and-control structures and processes were rapidly diminished yet organisations adapted at great speed to the evolving demands of working from home and the many other challenges faced. There was no overall master plan yet organisations, by and large, managed to provide the services they had been providing prior to the pandemic through lots of adjustments to working patterns, relationships and processes agreed at a local level at speed and which amounted to something large and relatively stable, rather like the Mexican Wave.

It’s no surprise then that this seems to be the philosophy in the military where as much autonomy is given to local units and the role of the centre is to support what they need rather than tell them what to do. Relinquishing control to those closest to the day-to-day operations, who are in a much better position to assess the situation and make decisions, makes logical sense but challenges many traditional views of heroic leaders who think their role is to know what to do and issue commands to obedient followers.

During a crisis we are much more likely to reduce our attachment to ‘the way things should be’ and are much more willing to accept and adjust to ‘the way things are’. The pomp, circumstance and trappings of organisational life are a luxury which cannot be afforded during crises and when stripped bare it’s surprising how an entirely new capacity for change can emerge. It’s also noticeable how quickly we forget this when the opportunity for business-as-usual returns.

Deep listening, profound disruption

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 08:42:51 GMT

I worked for many years with someone who was the most powerful listener I have ever experienced. He possessed a rare combination of paying full attention to whatever you were saying and resisting the urge to add his own views and beliefs. He listened with the attention a cat gives when stalking its prey; in that moment nothing was more important, nothing was allowed to distract. The quality of his listening affected the quality of my speaking; my words felt important, each one treated as precious. It’s a small step to take from feeling your words are important to feeling you matter. Being made to feel you matter … what a wonderfully affirming act.

He made me feel heard in a way that felt rare to me. It had the impact of saying much more than I intended. I found myself disclosing information I didn’t think I would; sometimes the information I disclosed was new to me. I found myself saying things I hadn’t voiced before, in the process learning something about myself. This was often enormously helpful; his listening allowed me to understand my own thinking much better than when it was trapped silently in the echo-chamber of my thoughts.

Then when I thought I had said it all, when I didn’t think I had anything left to say, he would replay what he had heard or ask a simple question, validating my thinking, proving that he had listened, allowing me to change something (often important) in my views which had, until that point, felt so firm.

You might be rolling your eyes at this point, the importance of listening is obvious isn’t it? Wasn’t it covered comprehensively on the first management training course anyone ever attended? Yes and no. It is obvious, we know it’s important but that does not necessarily mean we do it well. Common practice is not the same as common sense. How accurately do we evaluate our own capability as a listener? How strong is our belief in the immense value it can bring? Most of the time we assume we do it well, rather like our belief that we possess a good sense of humour and are above-average drivers; we tick the mental box and move on.

There is a further step that can amplify the impact of listening in organisations – action. The evidence that our words are important to leaders is reinforced when we see something happen as a result. However, there is a twist best exemplified by a version of the following slogan I often see: ‘you said, we did’. In many ways this is powerful, an articulation of the importance of speaking up and being listened to. But the danger is that it reinforces the thing most modern organisational cultures want to escape – the parent-child relationship which is the antithesis of empowerment.

Once my colleague demonstrated he really understood my perspective, his great skill was to resist the urge to resolve things for me. At first, I found this deeply frustrating; he was more senior, he had more power to change things, why didn’t he step in and sort things out? I guess because he understood that by doing so he would be limiting my development, my growth and my ability to create change. Isn’t this what we want? To feel empowered. Think how powerful it could have been if all my colleagues had shared a similar experience and the whole organisation was populated by people who felt as I did after being listened to.

In the previous blog I wrote about the difficulty of bringing about cultural change in complex systems, i.e. organisations, and the value of disturbance as a catalyst for change. The form of listening I have described here is in itself a disturbance; it has the potential to be transformative individually and even more potential collectively. In many organisations, hierarchy, fear, our egos and general busyness are barriers to paying attention; the seemingly simple act of listening can take some doing. But who knows where it might lead? ‘Big doors swing on small hinges’.

Listening, a secret weapon

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 10:53:14 GMT

Experiences of working with different organisations on cultural change have underlined the intimidating scale of the task. I often hear comments from leaders such as: ‘It’s too large to seem possible’; ‘We need a big outcome, we don’t know where to start’; ‘We’ve made so many attempts in the past that we’ve lost belief in the approaches we use’.

One of the things which exacerbates the situation is that by regarding organisations as machines (a common metaphor), and regarding change as a mechanical, predictable process, we become despondent when we discover it just isn’t like that, ‘the map is not the territory’. It isn’t simply a matter of defining what is wanted in terms of culture, communicating it, issuing instructions and then watching it happen. It’s more helpful to accept organisations for the complex systems they are, given that getting anything done involves a multitude of small human interactions combining in ways which are unpredictable and uncontrollable. We live our lives in ‘the territory’, however different it is from the map we might have expected.

The characteristics of complex systems require a willingness to relinquish the belief you can control what happens AND at the same time hold on to the possibility that systems can reach a tipping point in terms of change; sometimes actions which are seemingly small can enable new patterns (i.e. culture) to emerge; what we don’t know is when or how this will happen. This is challenging to leaders who often believe, and are rewarded on, the ability to control. As a colleague of mine used to be say, ‘it’s tough to be in charge but not in control’.

Complex systems do not lend themselves to predictability, but on the other hand small actions can become amplified and disturb embedded patterns behaviour; the frustrating part is not knowing which of these might produce the desired effect, hence the need to try things and to notice with great attention what the impact is. If the impact moves things in the desired direction culturally then you know to do more of it. If on the other hand the impact does not, try something different.

An example of a cultural tipping point being reached was the introduction of the 2p charge in supermarkets for plastic carrier bags. It was an experiment, the brave step of trying something different, which has drastically reduced the number of plastic bags that are in circulation. Who would have thought such a massive impact, which has transcended geography, socio-economic class and age could have been achieved through such a seemingly insignificant change? You never know what the difference will be that will make the difference.

Much organisational change energy is devoted to the communication of change in the form of announcements, internal publicity campaigns and training. This is understandable given that it is something we can control, perhaps in this way making us feel more powerful as leaders. This might well be of value for explaining the wider context and vision. However, too often the effort of communication is mistaken for the actual impact that has been achieved. It’s easy to fool ourselves into believing the job is done because we have deployed a tool we have the competence to use.

This is where the act of listening becomes such a useful weapon. Deep listening is an underrated skill. The act of noticing what is happening, even when it might contradict what we might want to hear, is a way of understanding a system with less attachment to what is wanted and more capacity to accept what is actually going on. As Alan De Botton said:

‘Good listeners are no less rare or important than good communicators. An unusual degree of confidence is the key — a capacity not to be thrown off course by, or buckle under the weight of, information that may deeply challenge certain settled assumptions. Good listeners are unfussy about the chaos which others may for a time create in their minds.’ (Alan do Botton)

The fundamental difficulty in listening is to hear things which contradict our own view without immediately rejecting them. The ability to suspend judgement and tolerate information that challenges our own beliefs is rare. However, when we manage to achieve this our understanding deepens, we are equipped with information we might have lacked before, we are forced to confront our preconceptions and entertain the possibility we could be wrong. A difficult task for our egos, particularly if your job title implies that you are in charge.

When we work with what actually ‘is’ we become more effective, we have stepped into the messy but potentially transformational space of dealing with reality rather than an idealised fiction we might prefer. Which of these has the greatest likelihood of success in culture change? The answer isn’t hard, however, the apparently simple act of listening is. To be continued in the next blog.

Protector or connector?

Fri, 28 Oct 2022 16:22:38 GMT

A question I have frequently been asking leaders over recent months is to describe how they see their role. Specifically, do they see themselves as a protector or a connector?* The distinction being that a protector is concerned about shielding others from the world out there with all its itinerant uncertainties and mess, whilst a connector is concerned with exposing others to it and connecting them as widely and deeply as possible. The first assumes (tacitly) others are not capable of navigating it; the second, that unless they learn to navigate it the organisation will fail. When the pandemic barged its way into all our lives in 2020 it proved conclusively to me that our ability to cope is far greater than might have been inferred previously. People innovated, made local decisions, juggled priorities and generally responded in ways that could never have been imagined. So why do I frequently experience leaders who are stopped in their tracks by the question, pausing and then responding in a way that indicates a desire for post-pandemic ‘real-life’ to resume, which naturally invites them to fulfil the role of protectors.

It is interesting to ask at what level of seniority, pay or age do we assume others are just as capable of handling reality as we are?

A protector mindset might, for some, be founded in an ‘information-is-power’ mentality but in my experience it is much more frequently driven from a very positive motive of care or an assumption that ‘this is what leaders are paid to do’; keep it simple and orderly or people will become confused, or they might lose focus or perhaps worry too much or be downright paralysed by fear. But if you can cope why can’t they? What gave you the capability they lack? Possibly it was the simple act of exposure.

On the other hand, isn’t the position of connector irresponsible and lazy? Doesn’t it transgress the fundamental role of leaders in providing clarity and reassurance. Shouldn’t leaders have the answers? Yes, there is truth in this and yet we all know every time we see the news that the world is inherently unstable and complex, and pretending the organisations we work in are immune is optimistic thinking at best and a delusional at worst; a delusion that means we cling to practices that no longer serve us.

The middle ground is the interesting space, where beliefs and values get tested. What sort of information do we withhold and what do we share? What principles do we apply in making that decision? Who do we typically protect and who do we typically connect? Fruitful territory for understanding more about our opaque inner-worlds.

When you add up all these protector mindsets you get the very thing most organisations declare themselves as not wanting … a parent-child culture. Empowerment is recognised as a necessity in organisations that want to be agile and customer focused, but empowerment without transparency is like Ernie without Eric, it just doesn’t work. (I imagine this is a meaningless metaphor for anyone in gen y or z so here is a link which might explain it). We bemoan a lack of accountability, insufficient agility, lukewarm innovation, decisions forever being escalated.

So how do you see yourself, protector or connector?

____________________________________________________________________________

* My mental image of a protector is that they slam the office door behind them as they enter the room, breathe a sigh of relief and hope their words of calm authority distract us from those glimpses of the chaos out there.

Learning through teaching

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 15:11:31 GMT

I will start at the intended ending of this blog and dive straight into the final sentence... to the 50 or so people who have trusted me enough to participate in Agile Leadership I’m deeply grateful. You have taught me a lot and brought great fun into my life. Thank you!

Now back to the beginning. During the first lockdown in 2020 I decided to create a training course (which I later described as a reflective programme) to explore the questions which have fuelled much of my work over the last 15 years or so: how do strategy, culture and leadership fit together and why are they so often a bad fit with each other? And I wanted to do this in the context of complex, uncertain and ambiguous environments, otherwise known as reality. I had noticed the same issues and themes in much of my work and saw common pitfalls and helpful ways to address them, this is what I wanted to bring to a broader group of people. As the maxim says ‘we teach what we need to learn’ and I was keen to learn more.

In no particular order, here are five things which come readily to mind in terms of my learning:

1. The joy of Product development. I have never developed a product before, in fact at the beginning I didn’t realise this was what I was setting out to do. There were so many questions I couldn’t answer and so many things I had no experience of doing. I didn’t know whether what I was thinking about doing (which was very vague) would be of interest or value to anyone else. There were three things that helped me progress through this period of uncertainty. Firstly, trying to describe what I was intending to do to other people. As I talked about it my thinking developed, other people’s reactions honed my ideas both through encouragement and discouragement. Secondly, I was lucky to have the constraint of lockdown which meant that I knew the programme had to run virtually thereby removing a host of choices. This also brought an unanticipated benefit which I cover in the next section. Finally, there was nothing like my decision to run a pilot which forced me to convert broad ideas into tangible things which people could experience and I could learn from. I was neither fully ready or it or completely convinced it would be well received, but as Reid Hoffman (the founder of LinkedIn) said, ‘sometimes you have to throw yourself off a cliff and build the plane on the way down’.

2. Rich dialogues through working with diverse groups. A benefit of delivering the programme virtually was that it allowed people from different geographies to participate. This was enriching in itself, as was the fact that diverse enterprises were represented in terms of scale and sector (profit, not for profit and social enterprise where all represented). The mix of people who were thrown together created lively dialogue. There are few mirrors for ourselves that are as helpful as hearing other people’s experience. You can’t help but compare with your own which encourages a deeper look at yourself, revealing things which have become so familiar they are invisible or new things you would never have noticed.

3. A reminder of universal human truths. The diversity of the people on the programme alongside the commonality of challenges reinforced how many of the things which trouble, excite or perplex us in organisations are really about our own frailties and flaws as human beings. This is something we can’t escape although we often pretend to in the mistaken belief that we will be more successful by doing so. Certainty and confidence are over-valued attributes which are often used as a shield. We can’t escape our vulnerability and the more we expose it, the stronger we become.

4. The power of stories. We are our stories, our organisations are a collection of stories, we can’t help translating what we see and experience into a narrative so that it makes sense to us. We learn through stories, we teach through stories, we remember through stories. The participants on the programme have been generous in sharing their stories and an environment such as this one which invited doubt, allowed many stories of failure and mistakes to be aired; from these we learned so much more than we would have done from stories of success, the prevailing mood-music of many organisations.

5. The benefit of time spent watching, listening and reading. The act of giving myself permission to be lost in research and suspending the judge in me from pointing out ‘you should be working’ paid dividends in terms of the wonderful range of materials I was able to find. Is there anything quite as productive as allowing oneself to follow the trail from a starting point and enjoying the many side-routes which are encountered? Far more background material has been unearthed in this way than could possibly fit into a single programme, it’s a wonderful resource which I will draw on for years to come.

Having used up my last sentence in the opening paragraph I will close by saying to anyone interested in coming along to the programme in the future please do get in touch. I don’t think any of the participants so far have any regret about attending and I still have a hunger to learn.

Meaning making machines

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 14:36:51 GMT

One of the chapters in Thinking Fast and Slow is called ‘A machine for jumping to conclusions’. It describes the fact that we are simply unable to resist making meaning from the things we see and experience, even though they might be random or completely unconnected. It is an automatic process over which we have no control and is deeply embedded within all of us. Our desire for consistent narrative and coherence overrides doubts, missing information and uncertainty. We fill in the gaps, join the dots and make up anything we don’t know and then we get attached to the story we have created, looking for evidence that supports it and discarding anything which contradicts it. It really doesn’t matter to us whether the meaning we create is accurate, it’s just that it is clear.

I had an experience of this yesterday when engaged in a Neurographic drawing session, which quite apart from being a wonderfully relaxing, safe and rewarding experience, reinforced my understanding of how our minds work, a subject that continues to bring me great interest and surprise.

The session (facilitated expertly by Vanessa ) led us through a process to create an abstract artwork. I won’t say any more about it here but do encourage you to find out for yourself; as an incentive, I will reveal that it helped me (somewhat mysteriously) with the problem which had been occupying my mind for months and allowed me hours later to see it in a different way. It was an act of letting go, silencing the babble in my head (not through control but through distraction) and gave the space for my conscious actions to connect with unconscious thoughts. This, coupled with doing it in a social setting, was a delightful way to spend a morning.

It was only when I had completed my artwork that I immediately saw an image of ET, and one of the other people in the session pointed out they could see a running man. Just to repeat, these were not something I had actively created; they were merely random shapes and colours thrown together, something that our brains immediately wanted to make sense of and fit to something familiar in order I suppose to explain what it was and how to respond to it, perhaps thereby allowing us to ignore it because of its familiarity. Having seen ET and ‘running man’ it then became impossible for me to unsee them. The interpretation (mine and my colleagues) was etched into my suggestable brain and despite the logic of knowing these were a haphazard arrangement of lines and shading, my reading of them did not shift from the story I had created for myself about what they were.

Back to the book Thinking Fast and Slow; it offers practical advice which encourages us to make meaning for ourselves prior to becoming influenced (infected might be a better word) by anyone else’s interpretation:

‘The principle of independent judgments (and decorrelated errors) has immediate applications for the conduct of meetings, an activity in which executives in organisations spend a great deal of their working days. A simple rule can help: before an issue is discussed, all members of the committee should be asked to write a very brief summary of their position. This procedure makes good use of the value of the diversity of knowledge and opinion in the group. The standard practice of open discussion gives too much weight to the opinions of those who speak early and assertively, causing others to line up behind them.’

I can’t wait to try it out, nor to produce another Neurographic art work.

Thinking about thinking

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 07:55:11 GMT

When my good friend and colleague Nick introduced me to the ideas of Daniel Kahneman more than a decade ago the significance of his work completely eluded me. It seemed peripheral to the work I do; whereas now, with a deeper understanding and more thought from me (ironic I know!), I see Kahneman’s work and the work of Amy Edmondson (about which more later in this blog) as central to it.

Kahneman’s research (which was done largely in partnership with Amos Tversky) resulted in the best-selling book Thinking Fast and Slow and a Nobel Prize. Until Kahneman and Tversky examined the way we make judgements and decisions in uncertain situations, the prevailing scientific belief was that human beings were essentially logical and rational. Their revelations of our unconscious biases and ‘heuristics’ (the unconscious simplifying rules of thumb we apply in order to come to a decision) were controversial and unpopular amongst many psychologists and economists until the point was proven in so many different ways it could no longer be denied. Often the way we make judgements through heuristics is helpful, but equally they demonstrated that it can lead to systematic, predictable and significant errors.

As an aside, quite apart from the brilliance of their work, their collaboration and ways of working together (‘I did the best thinking of my life on leisurely walks with Amos’) is a fascinating story in itself, brilliantly told by Michael Lewis in The Undoing Project. Their characters were entirely different (Tversky believed his own ideas were always right; Kahneman believed his own ideas were always wrong) and the way they created new ideas beyond which neither could have produced individually, is an inspirational example of harnessing difference. Kahneman described the way they worked as ‘a conversation … a shared mind that was superior to our individual minds’.

One example of their work, which might well feel obvious now, was to test the impact the framing of statements and questions has on our decisions (something which nudge theory exploits). For example, surgeons who describe an operation as having a 90% survival rate have a far higher consent rate from prospective patients than if the operation is described as having a 10% fatality rate.

We jump to conclusions, make judgements and know the answer without noticing we’ve done this. This is often helpful; it keeps us safe and allows us to do things quickly. But it also limits us and stops us seeing things, like alternative approaches, fresh interpretations or a better understanding.

Kahneman described our thinking as having two different modes, System 1 and System 2. He points out that both of them are fallible and both are useful. System 1 is our fast-thinking automatic response; our thoughts appear without us going through the effort of thinking. System 2 is slower and takes more energy; we subconsciously conserve our use of it for just that reason. We don’t like to invoke System 2 unless it is necessary to do so, such as when we encounter danger.

There are many differences between these two modes, one of the most important being that System 1 fits what we experience into the simplest narrative we can find; in that mode we look for certainty and coherence. It is common for us to answer a question we know how to answer rather than the actual question we need to address; or to downgrade or dismiss information that contradicts our story. System 2 on the other hand can cope with nuance, and crucially can ask the question ‘what am I missing?’. System 2 doesn’t have to be right.

Our individual thinking is subject to distortion and influence that sit largely outside our awareness. Unless we actively guard against this (sometimes by involving other people in our thinking processes) we fall prey to it again and again.

So perhaps the answer is simply to work at problems together in groups? However, the social pressure and norms in groups make it unlikely our conversations will be as unfiltered and undistorted as we would like. This is where the work of Amy Edmondson

on psychological safety (which stemmed from looking at death rates in hospitals) is revealing in terms of the impact a lack of psychological safety can have, particularly in groups with a mix of hierarchy. She memorably talks about the ‘need to reduce the cost of speaking up and increase the cost of keeping quiet’ in groups which are working on complex problems. The movie mogul Sam Goldwyn expressed the difficulty brilliantly when he said, ‘I don’t want to be surrounded by yes men. I want everyone to speak up ... even if it costs them their job’. I argue that the most important task of leadership is to create psychologically safe environments, without which the flow of information and ideas is hampered.

There is however, a paradox to consider. Without sufficient cognitive strain, it’s likely that System 1 will prevail; there is no need to wake-up lazy System 2 in situations that do not merit it. We are naturally drawn towards cognitive ease and are biologically programmed not to waste our energy exerting System 2 when System 1 can handle the situation perfectly well. It follows therefore that it’s possible for situations to feel too safe and easy; if there is no grit in the oyster, the risk becomes one of ‘System 1 group think’. Psychologically safe environments have to include sufficient challenge to invoke our System 2.

Our cognitive load is influenced by many factors including the way information is presented, the familiarity of the topic, our mood and the social setting. Cognitive ease allows our System 1 thinking to prevail without any need for the intervention of System 2. When we are in a state of cognitive ease our intuition and creativity are more readily expressed but we run the risk of failing to spot our own errors and biases. Conversely, when we experience cognitive strain which invokes System 2, we benefit from applying more diligence to our thinking and are more likely to question our assumptions and beliefs. However, the cost of this can be a loss of ‘flow’, something which is often the hallmark of a great conversation.

When we combine our individual thinking errors with the additional implications of working in a group, then it isn’t surprising that working on really difficult (by which I mean uncertain and complex) problems like strategy is so tough and (in my experience) so frequently disappointing in terms of outcome.

Too often strategy is treated as a technical problem which can ignore the communal and individual thinking processes involved. Unless we pay more attention to our own thinking and the social conditions in which the work is taking place, we are likely to fall a long way short of what might be possible; if we paid active attention to both these factors and established approaches to compensate for them, we could produce far better results. For important decisions, it’s imperative we design processes which contain discipline and rigour to counteract the flaws in our intuitive thought and establish environments which feel safe enough for uninhibited dialogue, but not so cosy that System 2 thinking is avoided. Strategy is challenging enough without us tripping ourselves up and in Kahneman’s words ‘being blind to our own blindness’.

Busy business

Tue, 26 Oct 2021 11:08:01 GMT

In the last 18 months I have noticed busy-ness in organisations reaching epidemic proportions. I see the cost of excess busy-ness everywhere. From poor quality work, to enormous amounts of re-work, to diminished levels of engagement (how long can one stay motivated when your 1:1 is re-scheduled for the 5 ^th time?). And at times there is the extreme cost of burnout and stress when the body and mind down tools and declare ‘enough!’

As an outside observer I am caught between empathy and amazement as I see work being attempted in a way that is frenzied and unproductive; actually, at times it is downright counter-productive. ‘Thinking time’ has been squeezed out of the diary at the expense of ‘doing time’ which is more readily justified. Busy-ness has become a badge of honour and despite all evidence to the contrary, is mistakenly viewed as a temporary state which will end once the current transformation is completed or new strategy is implemented or a supply-chain crisis is resolved (take your pick or substitute a convenient reason of your own). To some extent it’s easy to pin organisational ‘over-busy-ness’ on an absence of effective strategy; an inability to make choices and say ‘no’ is understandable in a desire not to cut off any possibilities just in case they prove valuable. Or maybe it’s an attempt to fool ourselves we have the capacity to undertake far more than is really possible. A lack of strategy certainly exacerbates the propensity for busy-ness and justifies our behaviour although I believe the roots of it are more connected with our individual insecurities rather than any organisational failing.

Oliver Burkeman’s brilliant book 4000 weeks (so called because that is the frighteningly short average human life span) suggests that busy-ness can be a way of us avoiding bigger questions about our lives and our priorities. He suggests that productivity advice is based on the false premise that we should be able to fit it all in and not have to miss out on any of it, thus we don’t necessarily make the choices we need to; primarily because they are difficult.

I have been experimenting over the past few months with making myself less busy. I acknowledge the position of luxury I’m in that allows me this choice but far from it being the enjoyable experience I expected, I have found it surprisingly uncomfortable and ironically, at times, stressful. This doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do; there have been many benefits but it does indicate how habituated I have become to busy-ness and how awkward it is to break free. I’m deeply conditioned to expect to be busy and am surrounded by people whose reply to ‘how are you?’ is some version of ‘extremely busy’, thereby, inadvertently emphasising the need to be busy if I want to comply with the norm. At some point in my life I conflated busy-ness and self-worth and it is difficult to untangle them again in a world which reinforces the association in so many ways.

Manic busy-ness is a self-inflicted threat to productivity and yet it is completely accepted. Dealing with it would force us to take responsibility and admit that at least in part we are architects of our own busy-ness and we are doing this to ourselves. If we want to change the situation it will take courage to step out of the status quo and experience the unfamiliar discomfort of saying ‘life’s great, I’ve created a lot of gaps in my diary’. It is challenging to actively do less when the world around you is encouraging you to do more but it is only then that we can contribute our best.

Refuelling

Tue, 29 Jun 2021 14:33:06 GMT

Reeking of wood smoke, I returned home on Saturday night feeling replenished by the evening I had had with my old friends Robert and Tim, sitting around a campfire, talking through the story of our lives in the 10 or so years since we had seen each other last. Our conversation was driven by a basic desire to know more and share more, to hear each of us describe our interior worlds and our interpretation of the wider world. We made sense of things together, from Brexit, Covid and parenting to personal dreams and failures. We covered a lot of ground; through nothing more than chatting, we re-established bonds and (in my case at least) felt nourished by the experience.

Would this type of conversation be of value or even possible in corporate life? A version of it certainly would be although of course a social setting is very different from the workplace in many ways, including our expectations of each other and the norms of behaviour. It’s also challenging during the pandemic to have this free-wheeling interaction virtually rather than in person; although I suspect many of us have been surprised by our ability to talk on a video call in ways we had thought unthinkable. It is challenging but certainly not impossible.

The process of collective sense-making is a critical and easily overlooked component of the health of any team. Even more so with the pandemic, which has heightened the propensity for teams to become fragmentated and their members isolated. I hasten to add this isn’t universal, some teams have become more cohesive, inclusive and connected during this period as they have recognised and invested in the importance of this; however, in my experience they have very much been the exception.

What do I mean by collective sense-making? For me, it’s the time and space to pause, share stories, hear each other’s views, reflect and break away from ‘task time’. It could be described as just hanging out with each other, no set agenda, no purposeful intent, no action points at the end of it.

Collective sense-making is a readily available way of building resilience (one of the most sought-after capabilities in organisational life at the moment, judging by the number of requests I have been dealing with on this topic).

When time is money, ‘stopping the clock’ – for long enough to hear from each other, listen deeply (beyond the words themselves to the meaning and the feelings), to express doubts, fears and uncertainties, to show vulnerability, to reserve judgement, to not need to discover who is accountable or what went wrong – is a difficult feat which takes a surprising amount of faith, courage and commitment. As an external coach, I sometimes see my role as simply giving permission to a group to engage in this activity without them feeling guilty or rushed, something they find difficult to grant themselves. I provide a semi-colon in the flow of their days.

Collective sense-making allows:

Connection: experiencing the human being and not only the role.
Reflection: the single most important capability needed in order to learn at the speed required in our changing, unpredictable and emergent world.
Perspective: through hearing the views of others, we are able to get less entangled in the ‘correctness’ of our own thoughts and see there are other possibilities.

Collective sense-making also allows us to understand our values; not through a direct description of them, but something more effective – the stories we tell which demonstrate the choices we make and the priorities we have. When we understand our values and those of others, we have the roots to help us withstand difficulties.

As someone said at the end of a recent sense-making session:

‘ I’ve come to realise that we have all been on something of a roller-coaster for the past year. It’s really important that we had this quality time together. We needed the chance to pause, reflect and find out where we were and where we were going to go next. We have learned so much about what we know and what we don’t know; it has helped us to see things that were hidden in plain sight. At times the conversation has been fascinating, stimulating and at times very moving and even uncomfortable … but I feel much more aligned with everyone else now. The good news is it’s been inspiring and I feel energised and reassured when in reality I came into the conversation feeling exhausted and worried and in no state to lead my team .’

Agile Leadership

Mon, 22 Feb 2021 17:09:41 GMT

In some ways The Agile Leadership Programme has been brewing in my head for the entirety of my working life – ever since I noticed the gap between the way things were supposed to work in organisations and my own experience of what happened in reality. At first, when I began working in a tiny furniture-making business, I thought the things I saw were unique but throughout my subsequent career working in and with organisations of all sizes and stages, I realised that much of the theory of organisations and the reality of organisations exist in entirely separate orbits.

Some of the things I see are: important conversations that never quite take place; innovation that is suffocated; change programmes that don’t change anything fundamental; people (including myself) who don’t behave in a way that was expected or wanted. One way of dealing with this is to turn a blind eye to the gap and pretend it doesn’t exist, but my interest has always been in learning how to address both it and the things it challenges within me. Hence The Agile Leadership Programme, my attempt to encapsulate and share my thinking. I don’t profess to provide the answers but I do have a wide range of questions to allow you to find your own.

So what do I mean by Agile Leadership? It is leadership with the willingness to actively relinquish control, knowing that control stifles innovation, reduces speed and is a fallacy in any but the simplest situation. Agile Leadership acknowledges the reality that we can’t predict the future, we can’t control the present and we are much better off adapting quickly.

The heart of Agile Leadership is the ability to learn, not so much through theory when it’s convenient, rather through our own experience all the time in everything that is going on. Learning not only about the external environment but more importantly learning about our internal worlds, our habits, routines, assumptions, moods, beliefs; the things that help us feel safe ... but also limit us.

Agile Leadership involves letting go of a need to be right, to believe that we have all the answers, that hierarchy confers wisdom or that leadership is an individual endeavour. Some of these concepts might profoundly challenge our identity as leaders but paradoxically also they allow us, and those we lead, to flourish in ways we might never imagine.

The content of the Agile Leadership programme is drawn from a wide variety of sources in the fields of change, psychology, organisational development, complexity, philosophy, neuroscience and others. It’s packaged in a way that is digestible, thought provoking and most importantly pertinent to you as an individual. Case studies range from Netflix to Dominos, taking in real-life stories from a multitude of other organisations along the way. You will leave with a broader range of ideas to draw on and a deeper understanding of yourself and your organisation.

The style is conversational and exploratory, allowing space for new ideas to emerge in the process. The content is reinforced through questions to encourage self-reflection, arguably the most critical skill for anyone who is serious about developing themselves as an Agile Leader.

Dates are here ; if you are interested in joining please do get in touch .

Worlds collide

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 11:45:54 GMT

I had a very enjoyable collision of three things this week: reading No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer – the story of Netflix’s culture (thank you Leo for the gift); a poem by Wendy Cope (thank you Liz for the gift); and a conversation with a leadership team.

The latter concerned the transformation of their organisation. They were wrestling with the thorny problem of how much information to share with people, particularly about structure, when at this point nothing was certain. The dilemma being whether it was fair to share ideas and potentially worry people about situations which might not arise, or whether to wait until everything was decided, at which point it would come as a surprise (not necessarily a pleasant one) to those affected.

There was an equal amount of uncertainty concerning the individuals participating in the discussion; this made me wonder whether there is an assumption that people above a certain pay grade (those people in the room with me) can cope with uncertainty and ambiguity, and those below can’t. Some members of the leadership team took pride in their role as insulators, protecting those lower down the hierarchy from the bad news for as long as possible.

Contrast this with Netflix, whose response to uncertainty and ambiguity seems to be: hire great people, be completely transparent with what is going on (even to the point of sharing highly sensitive commercial information) and trust them to be able to handle it. That’s not to say it necessarily makes it easier; there are many pages of the book examining the experiences of various employees going through a reorganisation and the impact it had on them; in some cases this resulted in periods of stress about situations which never arose.

And then there is the poem, Differences of Opinion by Wendy Cope:

He tells her that the earth is flat –

He knows the facts and that is that.

In altercations fierce and long

She tries her best to prove him wrong.

But he has learned to argue well.

He calls her arguments unsound

And often asks her not to yell.

She cannot win. He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

What a wonderful last line! The planet goes on being round.

If there is one thing the pandemic has emphasised over and over again it’s that we can’t control life, it just happens to us. This is perhaps the fourth collision, where the world of organisational make-believe meets the reality of life. We have all learned to cope (to varying degrees) with the reality of living through a pandemic with its twists, turns, surprises and uncertainty. Knowing that, surely the days of leadership as a layer of insulation are numbered; the myth of believing our work will be predictable, organised and stable has been dismantled; and the invitation to behave in a way which creates organisational cultures that are Adult–Adult, rather than Parent–Child, is irresistible.

A latent superpower

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 10:42:45 GMT

A latent superpower

I’ve been lucky enough over the past few months to participate in a number of excellent webinars by the Purpose Collective ; a group of people interested in the power of purpose, spear-headed by Sarah Rozenthuller who has recently published a book on the topic.

In addition to the delight of participating in lively conversations with people I didn’t know before, it has reinforced the idea of purpose being important, something I strongly believe in. But I now realise the value of purpose only manifests itself when the connection to an individual is so direct, obvious and visceral that it provokes committed action.

The pandemic has accelerated and amplified many things and one of them in a lot of organisations I work with is purpose. Purpose statements – like missions, visions and the paraphernalia of organisational life – often go unnoticed and are largely harmless, developed with good intent but left to gather dust or occupy space in corporate reception areas and on boardroom walls.

For some, Covid-19 has changed that, acting as a lens which has crystallised their raison d’étre. Dry and distant words on a page were imbued with meaning and what had previously been ‘the job’ transformed into something which made a real societal difference. Bankers discovered they really do play an absolutely critical role in supporting individuals and businesses under huge financial stress. Transport workers could see the lynchpin they are in helping key workers getting to their destinations. Communication companies were alive to the burning necessity of connecting people when the physical means of communicating have been so restricted.

There are two major learning points from this. Firstly, purpose really comes alive (actually it becomes an unstoppable galvanising force) when it is relevant (or ideally essential) to the needs of society and crucially, individuals in those organisations can relate to it and act on it. It then becomes meaningful and important all the time rather than when they are reminded of it. That horny old question of ‘why do I do what I do?’ has such a blindingly obvious answer in these circumstances that no mental gymnastics are necessary to connect what matters ‘in here’ to what matters ‘out there’.

Secondly, when this state is reached, individual and organisational capability is unleashed without any need for force or mandate. The latent potential in the organisation translates into action and impact. In recent months, I’ve seen internal functions – which for years have had fractious relationships – magically discover how to collaborate and see each other’s value; I’ve heard countless stories of employees going far beyond the bounds of what they are contracted to do because they knew they could make a difference by doing so; and I’ve witnessed leaders relinquish control and trust their teams to do what was needed rather than stick to what had been allowed.

Purpose is important but not as a distant dream of what might be possible one day. It really lands when it can be enacted all the time by everyone and they know, without having to be told by anyone else, the significance of it to them personally. Purpose can truly be an organisational superpower; it would be a great shame if it required another pandemic in order for us to remember this.

Sense-making

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 12:01:29 GMT

My search for interesting and enjoyable blogs and newsletters led me here . The author, Scott Galloway, manages to stretch my thinking and bring a smile to my face whenever I read him. One of the things about him I enjoy are his attempts to create simple formulae to represent complex social issues. In this case the value of going to college (he is American) post Covid-19.

This made me think about how to represent the need I’m seeing to make sense (together) of the Caronavirus crisis. Without a common perspective ( context ) we act from a different understanding and that means that we fail to address things in a consistent way; perhaps a fatal mistake when it comes to pandemics or indeed climate change or inequality. We close off the possibility of being wrong and dig in deeper to entrench ourselves in our beliefs. I do wonder whether there was a point in the Coronavirus crisis when we (in the UK and elsewhere) had time to act and prepare but were hampered by a prejudice that this was a virus that could only be caught be Chinese people and perhaps Italians? If this is the case I wonder what would have shaken us out of our error.

An antidote to the echo-chamber of our own opinions is the concept of Dialogue, first developed by David Bohm (a theoretical physicist and therefore a person I immediately like (yes, I know this is another prejudice)). He makes the distinction between ‘discussion’, in which arguments are broken down into smaller elements and ‘dialogue,’ which he defines as the flow and creation of meaning.

Dialogue sounds simple but is really hard. Dialogue sounds impotent but is really powerful. It is hard because we are mostly so attached to being right i.e. our own views, that the mere threat of listening to different views is often enough to shut us down and cause us to wait until there is an opportunity to repeat our own views again. Bohm talked about the need to ‘suspend judgement’. It is powerful because shared meaning can lead to shared action which can lead to bigger results (for example, the removal of plastic carrier bags from our shops).

A willingness to listen has to be accompanied by a willingness to speak up; to speak up even in circumstances when you feel you are in the minority (or alone) or where we doubt our own legitimacy or where the difference in power between ourselves and others is large.

In organisational life the notion of Psychological Safety entails a belief that speaking up is not only desirable it is absolutely essential if we are to tackle the complexity which we are surrounded by. Without a multitude of different voices we lack the collective intelligence, the alternative perspectives, the diversity of thinking which might just be ‘the difference that makes the difference’ ( Bateson ). The concept, which originated from research in hospitals, showed that medical mistakes were reduced considerably by ensuring it was OK for anyone on the medical team to say ‘this is not OK’.

My formula for collective sense-making therefore contains these two elements of Dialogue and Psychological Safety. There is a third element which undermines the ability to do any of this effectively. An element that encourages us to stick with our own truths, to ignore the perspectives of others, to become dogmatic in the furtherance of our own beliefs. I believe this distortional element to be incentives. I mean incentives in the broadest sense, they need not be financial; they are the things that encourage us to adopt a particular position and pursue it resolutely. Some examples are the incentives of social belonging, identity, religion, the incentive of not disagreeing with the boss and in the case of politicians the incentive of votes at the next election.

So here it is, my equation for sense-making, a critical skill when we are trying to navigate the unknown in so much of our professional and personal lives:

SENSE-MAKING = (DIALOGUE + PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY) / INCENTIVES

Women's work

asher@seemoreconsulting.co.uk — Tue, 26 May 2020 15:38:45 GMT

There are many reasons I appreciate The Great British Sewing Bee on TV; it has long been a favourite programme of mine. The clothes created are brilliant and the contestants’ technical skills are, at times, breathtaking, particularly considering their ability to produce garments under the pressure of cameras and in unfamiliar surroundings. I also love the act of changing a two-dimensional piece of fabric into a three-dimensional, functional garment. It’s the same reason I like woodwork; these are truly acts of transformation. More than anything I love the atmosphere the show portrays – happy and absorbed but best of all, although the participants are in competition, they also co-operate and help each other, seemingly building very strong relationships along the way.

Watching the show inspired me to rekindle my sewing skills (legitimised by seeing other men doing this as participants in The Sewing Bee) and it wasn’t long before I was reconnecting with that ‘flow’ feeling this sort of activity engenders in me.

Part of the way through my lockdown shirt project, I became aware of a number of groups creating protective clothing for the NHS and care workers. My sister set up a network of sewers and I decided to put aside my shirt project in order to make scrubs. In case anyone reading this (unlikely!) thinks this is an unimportant activity, it is worth noting that one of these sewing networks around the corner from my house just received a request for 400 scrubs from part of the NHS. There is a shockingly significant demand; it is essential work in helping to reduce infection and keeping key workers safe. But the work is definitely not glamorous! Locating materials (from old bed sheets to curtain lining), testing its appropriateness (it must be able to withstand being washed at 60°C), spending hours cutting, stitching, correcting etc. There is no-one to say “thank you” at the end of it. It’s a matter of get-on-with-it-and-believe-it-has-a-value-to-all-of-us.

It is no surprise to me at all that these sewing networks are largely being organised and staffed by women. Similarly, it is unsurprising that the WhatsApp group (which has become absolutely invaluable) in our road was established by women, who also do most of the posting (from sharing items to posting information on how long the queue is at the local supermarket). And so I am not surprised that the collection of food for our local foodbank is also largely undertaken by women. These activities are not glamorous; there is no glory; it is simply work that needs doing to benefit society.

The power of this co-operation is largely unseen and unappreciated. It doesn’t make the front page (or indeed any page) of the Financial Times. The big question for me is whether it will force us over time to re-appraise the way power is distributed between genders. As a friend put it recently “will there be a completely alternative way of looking at power from the way it is typically seen and which has largely been created and modelled by men?” Another friend has just sent me an article from The New York Times – “Why are women-led nations doing better with Covid-19?”. It will be interesting to see what answers come from it. I would be amazed if it doesn’t draw attention to women’s ability to co-operate in contrast to men’s desire to compete.

Anxiety

Thu, 07 May 2020 14:13:00 GMT

During lockdown, I have been appreciating the blogs I regularly read even more than usual; possibly because I am less rushed and have more time to concentrate on them. One of them written by the excellent Naomi Stanford says:

“What I’m not seeing much of in my day-to-day work is organisational leaders consciously and reflectively discussing and debating these larger questions (about what the future could look like). What I’m seeing is a bias to action to get things ‘back on track’, in much the same way as they were pre-Covid-19.”

For my part, what I’ve noticed in my day-to-day work is the lack of conversation about the anxiety we are feeling and I connect this with the bias to action. I don’t believe there is anyone who is not in an increased state of anxiety for some reason at the moment; it’s a separate question as to whether we recognise it in ourselves and each other. This is a peculiar lesson I have learned for myself about anxiety through adopting the process of morning pages ; anxiety is not necessarily easy to spot nor are the ways in which we try (often subconsciously) to free ourselves from the inner discomfort it brings.

I’m not criticising the need for action, there are some very big and demanding tasks which need be done. You might well ask, with such daunting tasks to face, why does an awareness of anxiety matter? Surely at the moment the task is everything? It matters now for the same reason it always mattered, and that is because without healthy relationships and minds everything we are setting out to do becomes more challenging. Our behaviour can be distorted by our unconscious need to rid ourselves of anxiety. We might achieve less at the very time, as a society, we need to achieve more.

Unexpressed anxiety often reveals itself in ways that are not obvious, such as the desire for control or perhaps blaming others or asking questions which are impossible to answer. I see these quests for certainty as a search for the antidote to the huge uncertainty which hangs over us all. Our capability to deal with uncertainty is more valuable now than ever; we had better take the opportunity to learn more about how to develop it.

It isn’t surprising overt conversations about anxiety are missing in organisations, it’s only natural. After all, wouldn’t most of us prefer to wrestle with those things outside ourselves which may be hard but are in some ways tangible, that we might stand a chance of ticking off on our to-do list, rather than attempt to address the tangled mess of semi-formed thoughts and complicated feelings that constitute our anxiety?

On top of that difficulty, a conversation about anxiety takes a huge amount of courage born from a display of vulnerability; at its heart it is admitting publicly we are frightened. This is impossible to manage in any environment that doesn’t feel exceptionally safe from a psychological perspective. It becomes even less attractive as a course of action when we are attempting these topics on a video-call, with the inherent risk of the screen freezing at a crucial moment or the dog bounding in to demand feeding.

The thing we most want – reassurance – cannot be provided. The next best thing we could do is talk about our fears. What I’m not seeing very much are the real conversations needed because the task (the bias to action) provides such an apparently reasonable reason for avoiding doing so.

Boot On The Other Foot

Mon, 09 Mar 2020 12:31:25 GMT

Towards the end of last year, I asked myself what I needed to do to progress my personal development as a coach. After discussing this with my supervisor, we reached the conclusion that working with a more diverse group of clients might provide me with learning and growth. Almost all (actually all) my clients are working in the private sector, have senior roles, are affluent, intelligent and educated. I enjoy working with all of them; however, I also recognise there is a risk of being over-familiar with their context, making all sorts of assumptions about them and becoming over-reliant on the same sorts of questions and approaches. The danger is that my toolkit is used so often that I forget to consider what else might be possible.

A previous attempt to diversify my client base some years ago resulted in me coaching young people as part of an experiment by a local youth charity who, until that point, had offered counselling but not coaching. It didn’t work well. It taught me that not everyone is in the mental state to be coached and the experience, repeated weekly, of sitting with a client who was simply unable to speak was deeply frustrating (or perhaps overly challenging) for me. Interestingly, the client concerned did come along every week and I can only assume was getting some sort of benefit from the encounter. It was wearing and I stopped.

Most recently, I applied to a not-for-profit organisation coaching executives in NGOs in Africa. My application was rejected. I felt that might be the case when I applied, given the questions they asked about similar experiences I had had. Unfortunately, my experience of NGOs in Africa amounts to zero, hence my desire for involvement.

My story-telling mind has swung into action and the narrative in my head at the moment is that my attempts to work with ‘diversity’ has met with ‘diversity’ not wanting to work with me. Am I too different to be considered acceptable? Of course, it might be that the rejection has nothing to do with my ethnicity and age and is due to completely different reasons – my professional experience maybe; or simply that other applicants fitted the bill much better.

The rejection email goes on to describe another coaching opportunity for a women’s group and offers me the chance to apply. I have a strong feeling that this will also be met with rejection, given the questions about similar experience on that application form. I can’t imagine a group for the advancement of women wanting male coaches somehow.

It makes me wonder how we can break this cycle. If neither I nor the community who are very different from me experience each other then we are doomed to stick within the confines of what we already know; a depressing thought if you believe, as I do, that society is the better for diversity. On the other hand, from a learning perspective, which was my original intention for applying, it is no bad thing to experience how it feels for ‘male, stale and pale’ to deal with rejection.

Freedom To Fail

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 16:45:32 GMT

I love a good question – they are so much more interesting than good answers – and this one, which emerged during a conversation with a leadership team last week, was an absolute beauty as far as I’m concerned: ‘what else can we try that we think will never work?’

The team were discussing something (limiting all meetings to one hour), which they had agreed to try out a couple of months earlier. The success of this simple action had very profound results on their time, their people’s time, their effectiveness and their energy; all of which had improved dramatically.

The initial discussion began in a depressed and helpless state; they could see the amount of time they spent in meetings, which were there for the sake of form rather than value, but felt completely unable to change. As the conversation progressed, their frustration with the status quo grew, along with their desire to break a very unhelpful pattern of behaviour; until eventually they reached a tipping point which can best be described as ‘this will probably never work but what if we experimented with...’ – a moment of empowerment that they translated immediately into a public commitment by courageously emailing the rest of the organisation with their intent.

As a CFO in another organisation said the following day in a completely unrelated conversation, ‘if we want profit we have to take risk, and all our risk decisions are taken in very uncertain circumstances; we don’t know whether they’re right or wrong.’ It’s a charter for experimentation isn’t it? You can’t possibly know the outcome of your actions; the world is much too complicated for that. All you can do is have the courage and commitment to give it a go; to dare, to engage, to act on that wonderful question.

Imagine this contrast: an environment in which mistakes get punished or one where they are celebrated as the natural consequence of pushing boundaries, stepping out of the comfort zone and trying something new. Leaders are disproportionately influential in creating either one of them: by providing the gift of a place in which it’s safe to fail, where they are willing to shoulder the criticism and actively protect those they are responsible for; or allowing an environment in which the instinct is to locate where to apportion blame. As a senior leader I encountered used to phrase it: “I want heads on stakes”. It doesn’t take a lot to imagine the power of that sentiment and the crushing impact it had on accountability and innovation – just two of the attributes this organisation wanted to engender in its culture.

There can never be the inducement to try unless it is accompanied by the freedom to fail.

Going back to the beginning of this blog, another simple and challenging question, which the author Spencer Johnson poses, is a wonderful one to reflect on: ‘What would you do if you weren’t afraid?’

Kindness

Fri, 17 Jan 2020 17:01:52 GMT

Many years ago when my children were at primary school, there was an award given every year for the kindest child in the school. They were really on to something important, something we could do with much more in every aspect of our lives.

The gap between this value and what typically gets valued in organisations is huge. It was expressed very clearly to me by a friend who had recently stepped down from his senior executive post to follow different goals, including spending much more time with his children. Now he found himself part of a very different community, where collaboration was everything and ‘kindness and support’ were really valued, indeed they were absolutely essential. He talked about the many occasions when he had to find solutions to difficult problems (like children being stranded at the school gates) and depended on his network of other parents to pitch in and help out. He contrasted the lens of results and performance, which he used to assess his colleagues with the kindness and support with which he now assessed his network. He said ‘I’ve been blind to it for all my corporate life, unaware of the benefits it brings and the absolute need for it to be present.’

To take a simple example from my own experience, I was sitting on the tube recently and witnessed someone give up her seat to another passenger who looked like they needed it more. The impact on me was immediate, seeing this action made me reflect on my own mindset of ‘I’ve got this seat come what may’ and encouraged me on subsequent journeys to give up my seat to others more readily. Somewhere along the line I had become more selfish and lost this simple act of kindness; to be reminded by witnessing someone else’s action was a powerful wake-up call. Kindness catalyses action, it is viral; arguably it does so far more effectively than change programmes, value statements or the other paraphernalia we have created to transform our organisations.

I have two friends who are the most fulfilled people I know. They appear to have learned the secret of life a long time ago; the more kindness they show others, the happier they are themselves. They seem devoid of the need for power; they act without expecting reciprocation; their egos do not distort their actions. They appear to be driven by a simple motive of trying to make things better and spotting opportunities to help. Quiet and un-assuming, you notice their presence through their kind actions rather than any need for attention or recognition.

What would it take for us to embrace a more enlightened view within our organisations of the values we know are critical outside of them? And if we did this, how transformational could that be?

Cover

Fri, 09 Aug 2019 14:36:29 GMT

This quote from Jeff Bezos gets to the heart of the matter:

“It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.”

I don’t believe there is a single organisation that wouldn’t benefit from more creativity and innovation. Without experiments, we atrophy and get stuck, repeating what we have already done while the world moves on; Blockbuster was a great business until Netflix came along.

But here is the rub, what is our tolerance for failure? How do we respond when the experiment doesn’t work? What willingness do we have to see our ideas founder and feel exposed and vulnerable with our reputation at stake?

In a world where the shaky foundations of experiments soon become forecasts, and forecasts soon become budgets, and budgets soon become promises, it isn’t any wonder that we would prefer not to take the risk of being wrong. After all, none of us like to break promises, do we?

The courage to fail cannot flourish in cultures that demand predictability and ‘no surprises’. The moment culture becomes an important factor, it indicates there is an important role for leadership, the ultimate influencer of cultural tone. Are these leaders able to protect and encourage fragile ideas? Are they truly committed to learning, whatever the outcome? If not, the inevitable outcome is that innovation is crushed beneath the desire for certainty. The ‘air cover’ to try, and fail, is an essential component of any culture where new ideas flourish.

The last words comes from the late great Isaac Stern:

“It is only through failure and through experiment that we learn and grow.”

Credit

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 18:15:34 GMT

It is a very simple truth of everybody I have ever encountered that they want to feel valued and appreciated for their efforts. I see this as a fundamental responsibility of the leadership in every organisation; they owe it to those they lead, not only in terms of financial rewards but also in the multitude of other possibilities which ensure people (rather than the roles they fulfil) feel ‘seen’. Time after time, I notice the reluctance to thank people for progress and effort, and instead the propensity to wait and be certain of the outcomes. When I question this, the answer often involves a fear of encouraging a complacent attitude. But is this really a risk when we compare it to the benefit of discretionary effort which is released when what we are doing is properly acknowledged?

Waiting for the results to be known before appreciation is offered, is a low-risk leadership strategy; there is no danger of being criticised for being soft or un-ambitious or indeed, just being wrong. Unfortunately, it is also a position which fails to galvanise the energy that comes from simply feeling good, which can itself create a virtuous circle leading to better results.

Strangely, the place I see this manifest itself most repetitively is within the executive team. The relentless focus on deficit, the attention and time devoted to the gap between performance and ambition is so strong that all sight is lost of the progress made or the effort involved. Appreciation costs nothing and irrespective of where you sit in the corporate hierarchy, its value is huge. And yet, within the executive team, even a relatively short voyage into appreciation is often greeted with an awkward response. For those who find it difficult, I offer the suggestion that it is equally remiss to be blind to what has ‘gone right’ as it is to be blind to what has ‘gone wrong’.

Fan or commentator?

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 14:35:22 GMT

I was watching the football team I support play in their most important match ever. It wasn’t going well, they were losing 2-0, with very little time left. The atmosphere was tense, the opposing supporters were buoyant and noisy. Those around me were becoming fractious with each other; each of us was anticipating failure and the dreaded sense of disappointment which accompanies it. Nearby in the stadium were a couple of fellow fans who had brought along some drums. Miraculously – despite the score, the gloom and the lack of hope – they somehow managed to summon the energy to keep the beat going and rouse those around them. I found it difficult to cheer, shout and sing when the situation seemed so hopeless. My natural inclination was to criticise, stay silent and plan an early exit. One of the players on the pitch came over to the crowd and encouraged us to be noisier and show our support; he needed it, the other players needed it. We roused ourselves at his behest but it felt very unnatural.

How often do we see this situation mirrored in corporate life? The outcome of an important initiative is in doubt, those trying their best to deliver the result desperately need encouragement and energy and those ‘in the stands’ watch and wait to see what happens.

Back to the match ... my team scored, the atmosphere changed completely in the stadium and suddenly there was much more possibility. In fact, the shift in momentum was such that from nowhere with no chance, my team came back to win the match. At that point it was very easy to cheer and be enthusiastic about the players; to release all those positive emotions that naturally are evoked by success.

Encouragement comes at no cost, it is completely unlimited and yet we have a tendency to reserve it for those times when we are safe in the knowledge of the result. This might be better described as recognition, it is after the event and easy. I regard this as ‘commentating’: you haven’t acted to change what happens, you have been an observer and reported the result. How different is this from being an active supporter: offering appreciation at the most difficult of times when things aren’t going well and failure looms large. Which is the riskier position to occupy?   To me there is no question, fans take risk, commentators play safe; if we really want to change a situation we don’t need more commentary from the stands, we need more people providing unconditional support, who can find the energy and courage to change the outcome through encouragement and not merely describe it post-hoc.

Context

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 18:52:22 GMT

I often wonder whether the communication of context is the most overlooked tool in the leadership toolkit. When behavioural or cultural change is needed in an organisation there is a tendency to assume this can be achieved directly through instruction and control alone. Instruction includes things like telling people to behave differently and then perhaps telling them again (but this time more loudly). Control might include things like setting different targets, measures and assessments.

Both of these elements are helpful as reinforcement; however, ultimately we need to accept the power of individual free-will and the powerlessness we have in making anyone else change. There is a lot of truth in the old joke:

‘ How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change .’

I read the following paragraph somewhere years ago and it stayed with me. Unfortunately I don’t know the source; however, I would not be surprised if the work of Simon Sinek was at its heart:

The best question to answer is, ‘why?’ It is the one question people want answered the most. People hate being told ‘how’ to do something. They don't like having the ability to choose taken from them, in terms of how they do their job. It makes them feel that you think they are incompetent. To important people we insist on explaining ‘why.’ To unimportant people we simply tell ‘how.’ People can tell how we feel about them by the way we talk to them.

That is the reason context (the ‘why?’) becomes such a powerful way of promoting behavioural change; it provides people with the information for them to decide whether and how to change. It is a respectful approach to change; it honours the adult state within each of us, rather than attempting to dominate the inner child.

Context often takes time and effort to communicate, it usually involves a process of creating shared meaning, which necessitates conversation rather than instruction. It might feel slow, cumbersome, repetitive and unnecessary. Yet if we really want change to be sustainable, we are fooling ourselves if we don’t see it as absolutely essential.

Three 'C's

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 16:44:26 GMT

There are three gifts that leaders are in a uniquely powerful position to provide for their organisations: context, cover and credit. I’ll write more about each of these in subsequent blogs but here’s a quick definition for now:

‘ Context ’ is the ability to create meaning for others, even in situations which are complex or paradoxical. It is the ‘mood music’ or ‘smell’ of the organisation.
‘ Cover ’, as in ‘providing cover’, allows people to be more courageous in their actions, free from the fear of failure, safe in the knowledge that the first reaction in the event of problems will be to learn rather than attribute blame.
‘ Credit ’ is the often over-looked and under-used act of appreciation. Saying ‘thank you’ (I know it sounds old-fashioned) so that people’s efforts are seen.

These are not the exclusive preserve of leaders, nor are they restricted to the higher echelons of the hierarchy; however, given that all leaders’ words and actions are amplified, i.e. they inevitably receive more attention than anyone else’s in an organisation, they have the biggest opportunity to make a significant impact.

Leaders who understand the importance of these elements can help the organisation enormously simply by being conscious of their impact and giving these gifts generously; the wonderful thing is that all of them are free and abundant; a precious resource that need not be rationed in any way.

Flirting with disintegration

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 12:25:24 GMT

The road to alignment can feel hazardous and risky. When we expose more of our underlying beliefs and values, there is always the risk we will uncover gaps between us that are more difficult to paper over when we see their depth. However, there is also the possibility that our assumptions of each other, based on what we interpret through observing each other’s behaviour, is also misleading. We might discover, below the surface, there is much more that unites us than divides us; the stakes are high and the benefits substantial.

This process of sharing is rather like the water-line dropping on an iceberg. The hidden bulk is progressively revealed and there is usually so much more there compared to the things already visible above the surface; an over-used metaphor perhaps but a useful one nevertheless.

When working on alignment with groups, I often notice a point in the process where the individuals discover differences between them that they have not been aware of before. This is a critical moment; will the group avoid the difficulty of working through the differences? Will it decide the difference is irreconcilable and abandon the process? Or will it settle for a superficial surface level alignment? This latter option, a rush to a broad understanding that allows everyone to go away without disagreement, is a lowest-common-denominator approach; face has been saved but sustained benefit is questionable.

Those groups and teams that invest in the hard work of uncovering difference and exploring the difficulty for long enough to allow alignment to be found, thrive. They teeter on the edge of disintegration but the tight-rope walk has a substantial prize.

And if alignment can’t be found, so what? At least the individuals in the group know more about each other than they did before. Hidden differences are more difficult to work with than those that are known, understood and above the surface.

New questions for new thinking

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 15:52:10 GMT

Here are some questions you might not usually ask about your strategy or plans which have the potential to jolt you into helpful new perspectives. They are particularly pertinent to product-oriented start-ups but they can be tweaked for other contexts. They were taken from an article by Robert Franks which you can find here ; it provides a fuller explanation and is a great read. I really like the last question!

What major trend is your business getting ahead of?
What do you know about this trend that isn’t widely understood?
Which niche does your product occupy & why does it matter?
What alternative product hypotheses have you objectively customer-tested?
What do non-customers think of your business?
Why do customers need yet another business in this category?
What is your ambition and how will you scale your business to deliver it?
How worried would your competitors be if they found a copy of you business plan or strategy?
Who would want to be led by someone like you?

Alignment

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 08:56:46 GMT

Increasingly, I have realised just what a precious resource a sense of alignment is in any team; not only precious but rare. It takes a while to develop in the first place, then frustratingly decays unless it receives attention. Turn your back on it for too long and you discover it’s like many of the avocados I purchase - they look great on the outside but once you get beneath the skin the story is entirely different.

The cost of misalignment is high; everything is so much harder, collaboration is so much rarer and crucially, when executive teams are not aligned even by a relatively small amount it is felt throughout the rest of the organisation. Small gaps can soon become mighty chasms.

For me, alignment is not just about goals and strategy, although aligning around this is challenging enough. It is also about underlying beliefs, values, trust; it is a feeling of a profound sharing of the same world view. The conversation to create alignment (and it can only happen through conversation) is often a disturbing one. Sometimes it is tempting to stop or avoid because of the fear of discovering difference. Paradoxically, unless we are willing to work with difference, we have no chance at all of discovering much deeper levels of connection.

Prisoner or pioneer?

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 15:41:57 GMT

It was with the usual mix of fear and excitement that I read an email from Nick (my very wonderful web designer) to inform me my site was being moved to a new platform; a platform which provided much more flexibility for me to do things like create a blog. New functionality is fine I thought to myself but what if it doesn't work? I was perfectaly happy with my old web platform. My overriding reaction was to say to myself I haven't blogged for the past couple of years so I'm not going to start now. By coincidence earlier in the same week I had been given a lovely book of quotations . A quote I read in the book encouraged me to break out of my rut, embrace the opportunity of the new website and begin a blog. So this it it! My new blog, and the quote that inspired me is right here in the hope you might find it helpful as well:

' Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future ' (Deepak Chopra)

PS The new web platform is great!