Category: Team effectiveness

In cased you missed it, here are the first five questions.
 
Dear CEO,

6) We are not going to refer to this as “the soft stuff” anymore. Devaluing the human dimension compared to the technical dimension of business is not helping us adapt more quickly. We will learn to measure and understand the direct business benefits of our transformation efforts across all three dimensions of success: i) the task, ii) the team, iii) the self. We will overdeliver on all three dimensions.

Regardless of the outside help we get, we can’t “outsource” this work. We have to do this ourselves. We have to become transformation exemplars, and that will require us to integrate the human and technical dimensions of business. We will work on designing and capturing tangible ROI from the beginning. The experts I am bringing in will teach us how to do that in a practical way that matters to us. At the same time, we can also illustrate tangible value by comparing the culture/leadership investment to the cost of NOT shifting (e.g., employee turnover, inability to attract star employees, stalled customer focus improvements, stalled innovation, slower implementation times, lack of agility).
 

7) Expect a significant transition during year 2 and year 3. Companies like ours that are successful shifting culture do not usually say, “we got it” during year 1. This is not an HR project; this is a business prototype, which will give us a chance to “really learn by doing.”

The experts I’m bringing in will take us through a series of 90-day sprints that will help us “learn by doing.” These prototypes will help us learn what helps us deliver better results in the context of working on the business, not in theory. They have seen and lived through all kinds of scenarios facing other peer executives in situations like ours. They heard me admit and ask the same textbook questions while giving me the objective, outside, cold-water-wake-up-call answers that we need to hear…

  • We’re stuck. How do we break free from the inertia of learned helplessness and tyranny of low expectations to get to the next level? Clarify the culture standards (and learning gaps) that we have between our current level and our desired level, then clarify how committed we are to get to the next level (and why). What’s at stake for you? me? our team? the organization?
  • How do we avoid the early-on potential for unskilled false starts (e.g., too big or too fluffy) or snapping back to homeostasis/current level? We won’t get tricked into shortcuts and we won’t “bolt this on.” Connect the development work directly to high priority business imperatives — that’s the best reason to train. We won’t treat this like a communication project; it’s a business prototype.
  • How do we accelerate the process? We will stop delaying it, and we will go deeper faster. We will let the leaders and teams also “learn by doing” with high-impact, real-world, 90-day sprints where we can experiment to see what works here (what we’re ready for).
  • How do we extend and keep the flame going? Let’s stop asking that “cascading” question right now. We’re not sure that we’re willing to do what’s necessary to even “pack the snowball tight” with the senior executives and focused experiments. Let’s focus on that first. If that sticks, then we’ll start building peer learning communities as well as formal/informal communities of practice where we all will learn while doing — we train together while delivering business imperatives.

 

8) Expect to pay attention to things you haven’t paid attention to before.

  • We are going to be doing something that most leaders have not been invited to do before…to courageously observe our own leadership style/techniques, the impact it’s having on delaying the organizational performance/shifts, and then optimize them according to what we say matters most to us.
  • We are going to start with the initiation phase of a vertical learning adult development program, where we will become more objectively aware of our current level and next level gaps…and we will see more clearly than ever before.We will be even more committed than ever to the possibilities that come with our next level goals. We all deserve to get to the next level!
  • It will take deliberate, focused practice to shift these specific organizational capabilities from unconsciously incompetent to consciously competent, and to deliver consistently on the high-performance attributes we have chosen. Some individuals will go faster than others, and some microcultures will influence others faster. Meanwhile, our brain’s biases, our history and our system inertia are working against us more than working with us to support the change. However, once we build our transformation muscles, we will have more wind at our back…exponential business benefits and odds of success for 202X and beyond.

9) I need you to ask for more help.

Not because you are weak but because you are strong — because you have all the power. When it comes to preparing yourself to be an exemplar transformation mentor/leader, you need to ask for more help so everyone will see that being a learner, “asking for help,” and being transformed ourselves is something we value at the highest levels of the organization. Saying “I don’t know how to do this” and asking for help is not a sign of weakness around here anymore. From now on, we win by learning.

You (we) should be asking for more feedback and more guidance on how other companies make this shift — on how to best mentor the executive team through this beyond stepping up as a public player in workshops. The majority of adult development/learning doesn’t happen in the workshop; it will happen in the learning experiences we share with each other during the course of running the business. And it will come from the social influence that we contribute in every meeting, every agenda and every interaction that we have within the leadership team.
 

10) We are going to lead the way.

 
 
 
 


Based on several true stories inside of multinational organizations:
When the chief human resources officer (CHRO) or any C-suite executive finally refuses to be a complicit bystander and commits to leading the business (like a real business leader)…here are 5 ways to start the conversation:
Dear CEO,

1) We have a serious problem …a culture problem.


We are witnessing a historic shift in what’s expected of us when it comes to understanding and evolving our company’s culture. We can’t deny or minimize the negative impact that our executive leadership is having on our culture any longer. The crisis of unconscious leaders is all around us, AND it is clearly a disadvantage for our business performance. This is a new era with new rules. We need to let go of some of the old success formulas…not all of them…just some. We are up to this challenge. We are going to shift the culture and expand the future-focused capabilities that we need (e.g., alignment, collaboration, curiosity, innovation, agility) so that we can not only stay relevant and competitive in the future but so that we can win. I (CHRO) am going to help you lead the way through this. I will need you to trust me. We will do this together.
 

2) Our industry, our history and our future are at odds.

It’s time for us to reactivate some of our originating startup/adaptive DNA and take our enterprise transformation seriously if we expect to win in the future.
Yes, we’re already rich, we have plenty of reserves, and we’ll probably stay afloat beyond your retirement…but we’re just floating right now. We’re not moving forward. We’re stuck. That’s not the kind of legacy we want to leave here after all this time, after all our hard work. The business case for change is undeniable, and yet we keep putting our head back in the sand, hiding in our offices, telling our employees and each other, “we got this.” But we’re just floating — and floating is insufficient. Just “getting by” is creating a long-term disadvantage for us, and it’s creating a ridiculous amount of unnecessary suffering right now.
“Just floating” is not going to be your legacy. And it’s not going to be mine either.This is not going to be fixed by having a two-day workshop or retreat. There is no shortcut. We need to shift some of our default thinking patterns/habits and close the gap on some key organizational attributes/behaviors that can make us more agile, collaborative and innovative. To be a legitimate competitor, we need to perform these attributes consistently at a professional, world-class level. This is not amateur hour or a time for dabbling/hacking away at this like it was a hobby to pick up over a weekend seminar. We have to evolve rapidly. We have to transform. We’ve been talking about this for years. If it were easy for us, we would have already been doing it. We’re stuck. We clearly all have a lot to learn. We need to adjust the way we think, relate, make decisions and take action. It’s never too early (and hopefully not too late) to ready our teams and ourselves for the future.

3) Our employees are losing faith…

So we have to act decisively. You saw what they wrote in the annual engagement survey. The research firm quantified just how much they are losing faith. You read the verbatims. You were upset by the quantity and toxicity of verbatims. You asked me:

“Who does that? Who writes that kind of terrible stuff, knowing that their bosses are going to be reading it?” Seriously, who does that? The “un-led” do that. (JL)
We can lead better. The people in our organization are telling us that we have a problem, and they want us to create a more constructive work environment.

  • They basically called BS on our leadership team’s ability to deliver on a majority of our company core values (e.g., teamwork, innovation, courage, respect, trust, creativity, integrity). They notice the incongruence. THAT IS A STRONG SIGNAL FOR US.
  • They said they have 20 percent less confidence in our business potential over the next two to three years compared to their confidence a year ago. THAT IS A STRONG SIGNAL FOR US.
  • They said they are 25 percent less engaged than a year ago across all business units. THAT IS A STRONG SIGNAL FOR US.

None of this will fix itself. We MUST ready ourselves to respond more effectively by leading a sustainable, strategic culture shift.
 

4) Our leadership team is not yet equipped to respond/lead a transformation like this alone. We don’t know how to do this effectively yet (and pretending to know is only making things worse). 

By our own words, we are at an inflection point that our default thinking patterns, behaviors and leadership muscles are NOT prepared for and need to change in order to achieve our three- to five-year plan success/goals — LET ALONE THIS YEAR’S STRETCH GOALS. We can do this, and I am going to lead this. We’re not transformation experts yet, so I’m going to get you and our entire leadership team the expert support, learning and development we all need to feel strong leading the way.
We will focus on consistency over intensity. We’re going to play the long game — no culture “change theater” or quick fixes. We will lead the way, with humility and empathy — not by knowing but by BECOMING LEARNING EXEMPLARS, showing that we value learning more than saving face. We are not yet personally connected to the kind of transformation that we are asking of our people, but we will be. This journey will be one of the greatest achievements of our career. We can do this.
 

5) To ready the organization for change  we should expect to invest in both expanding leadership capabilities and building internal capacity. 

We need to work on our inner game (transforming our mindsets) and our outer game (the way we execute the business). Our internal team of leaders will be fully involved and take on this initiative in a way that integrates with all of our existing work. Our leaders will be doing the majority of the training and development of middle manager cohorts — once we get a couple of cycles under our belt and I am confident that we can skillfully marry executive mentors and the extended leader/team cohorts into effective, sustainable programs that simultaneously support specific business priorities. For the transformation and readiness part, we will need to partner with an expert firm for the high-leverage areas that require their expertise, and we will need to be focused on the C-suite leadership development and culture change readiness (mentoring and coaching) work as well as ensuring high quality, internal capacity building.





To successfully achieve next level results/culture shift that we say we want, to maintain momentum and to build internal capacity to sustain it, I would expect us to work with expert resources/interventionists over the next three-year time frame while we build internal competency. It will more likely be front-loaded than equally spread out across those three years. It doesn’t have to be incremental learning and development dollars; we can reallocate some of our other important learning and development budget for this essential work.
Here are five more questions to engage the CEO.
 

To me, the most intriguing paradox of conscious business — and the hardest to explain — is the interdependence of openness and resolve. How is it possible (even necessary) to be curious, open, humble, and yet at the same time, decisive and action-oriented?
This question is not just academic. If it weren’t possible to be both decisive and open, the whole set of mindsets and skills that we call “conscious business” would be of very little use. Why would anyone with leadership responsibilities want to practice being curious, flexible and open if it meant being ambivalent, indecisive and fickle as a chameleon?
I believe that skillful leaders get a “feel” for how to be “decisive learners.” They don’t just get it cognitively. An experiential component leads them to “get it” in the same way that you first found your balance on a bicycle or learned to look up while dribbling a ball.
By the same token, there is a risk of overexplaining such things. How long would you want me to explain how to ride a bicycle? (For that matter, how long would you want me to evoke the paradox of the decisive learner before asking you what you already knew about it?)
I’m going to offer two stories: one from the martial arts and one from business. Then it will be over to you!
As you may know, Tai Chi is one of the “soft” martial arts, like Aikido. The joke about Tai Chi is: “How can you expect to defend yourself when you are moving in slow motion?” Yet meticulous practice of these slow movements (the “form”), as well as “holding” postures, are a critical part of training for the dynamic and interactive part of Tai Chi “Push Hands.” And Push Hands can be lightening fast (and rock hard).
Traditionally, Push Hands is not taught to novices. I had been learning the “form” and related exercises for almost a year before I was allowed to join a Push Hands class in 1989. That is when I got my first taste of “open/flexible/receptive and tough/decisive/resolute.” My assignment was to try to “push” my Tai Chi teacher, Lenzie Williams (i.e., make him lose his balance or even just move his feet). The difficulty began when I couldn’t even find anything to push on. No matter where I thrust my arms, he seemed to just disappear. (He was “yielding.”) And yet when he pushed me, I went flying across the room. It was a major “aha.” I felt, quite tangibly, how it was possible to be totally receptive, open and relaxed, and at the same time grounded, decisive and powerful. Lenzie demonstrated these qualities without a shadow of a doubt. The only problem was that I had no idea how to do it! I had taken the most important step in my learning journey. I was now “consciously (rather than just unwittingly) incompetent.”
With practice, I became “consciously competent,” which meant that if I really paid attention, I could evade my more experienced classmates, and sometimes even push them out. The thing I paid attention to was staying relaxed and receptive as I yielded and also as I pushed. Lenzie always emphasized (and demonstrated) that the greatest strength came from the greatest “yielding.” It was by practicing softness that we developed our “rooting” — the ability to stand firm like a tree and push people in a way that was powerful and irresistible.
So that is the martial arts story. I also want to share with you the story of a CEO who transformed his leadership style from directive and controlling to receptive and encouraging, without losing any of his action orientation. In fact, he became more resolute, not less.
What happened is this: Bob wanted to engage his staff more. He recognized that there were unintended consequences when he “cut to the chase” and went into director mode. His staff would become remarkably passive, waiting for him to tell them what to do. This was frustrating to Bob. What he really wanted was for them to be energized and take more initiative, yet he seemed to be influencing them to do the opposite.
Following an Immunity to Change approach, Bob wrote down his improvement goal: He wanted to be more receptive and encouraging to his staff, particularly when they were tackling a problem that he had a strong opinion about. Next, he listed the things he did (unwittingly) that undermined this goal: interrupting, taking over, correcting, focusing on flaws, failing to inquire. He asked himself what did he worry would happen if he did the opposite of those things? The worry that first occurred to him was that they would steer the company into an impasse, and the results would reflect badly on him as a leader.
In other words, Bob came to see that he was ambivalent. He was committed to energizing and empowering his staff, but he was equally committed to never letting them get off track. Each of these competing commitments triggered the other. When he got carried away “correcting” his staff, he resolved anew to empower them, but when he trusted them to take charge, he felt an equally compelling need to reassert control. He was oscillating in a state of “unresolve,” never fulfilling either commitment to his satisfaction.
Bob did not resolve his ambivalence by “trying harder”; the problem was not willpower. Rather, he began to question the assumption that was holding it in place — that if he let others take the initiative, he would end up being neglectful (because they needed him to course correct) or worse, obsolete (because they didn’t). So long as this assumption remained “true” for him, he was bound to buck and bridle when he felt the initiative passing into others’ hands and out of his control.
Instead of remaining subject to this assumption, however, Bob conducted a set of deliberate challenges to it, in each case comparing what the assumption would have predicted to what actually happened. First he tried a new behavior. He listened; he left the initiative to his subordinates; he made himself notice, appreciate and acknowledge their progress. Then he asked himself, “Well, did they go off track? Am I being irresponsible or neglectful? Do I feel superfluous? Are they wondering what value I’m adding?”
To his astonishment (and relief), when subjected to such direct scrutiny, his “big assumption” crumbled; its predictions just did not hold up. And just beyond the movie that had been projected by this limiting belief lay a much bigger landscape of possibilities: His staff could seize the reigns enthusiastically, and he could feel good about it. They could suggest things he had never thought of, and he could be intrigued. He felt much more connected to his staff, more “on task” as he delegated, and more fulfilled as he discovered his role as a coach and mentor. Now his way of adding value wasn’t just to “keep the business on track.” It was also, in a more complex view of the world, to “grow leaders.”
Through this learning journey, Bob did a lot of letting go. He became less controlling and more curious, open, receptive, engaging, encouraging and patient. As he put it, he learned to avoid the “impatience trap.” His staff noticed the changes, and they were responsive and relieved. As Bob had hoped, they became more energized and took more initiative. He willingly relinquished the initiative. Most of all, he let go of a way of thinking about himself — a self-image as “company savior,” as the one who could discern the risks that others missed and save the day. He also let go of the corresponding self-doubt — his fear that he would have no other way of adding value.
But here is the paradox: In letting go in these ways, Bob did not become ambivalent or indecisive. On the contrary. He became resolute. He stopped oscillating between competing commitments and became more consistent in his mindset and behaviors. Rather than getting caught on the horns of a false dilemma (“if I empower my flock, they will stray”), he was now integrating the poles of a paradox. He could offer challenge and support, leadership and development.
Bob’s story is not unique. It describes a pattern of human development that Psychologist Robert Kegan has described as the movement from subject to object[1]. An assumption or belief that we were subject to — that functioned as a premise for our behavior without our being aware of it — becomes an object of reflection, and it can thus be modified to adapt to the realities we are dealing with.
My aim in evoking Bob’s story was to provoke recognition of this pattern. Have you observed it in someone at work? In your family? In yourself? Can you recognize how this form of human development follows a paradoxical pattern? On the one hand, you let go of a limiting belief or assumption — of an attachment to seeing things a certain way; you become more flexible, open, receptive to possibilities; you learn. On the other hand, you become more resolute — less ambivalent, more aware, congruent, clear and decisive.
If so, then you may also be able to see the connection between Bob’s story and the martial arts story mentioned previously. Each illustrates not only the possibility but also the necessity of being both receptive and resolute, decisive and open.
[1] Robert Kegan, The Evolving Self (Harvard University Press, 1982)

How to master the art of high performance in a VUCA world.
What does it take to develop a high-performance team in the face of industry disruption and market volatility? In today’s world, businesses are required to reinvent who they are and why they exist to remain relevant. To do this, leaders and their teams need to develop their capacity to lead confidently and make decisions quickly in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty.
Many teams struggle to deliver consistently and collaborate effectively under this pressure when tensions run high. In order to cope with the stress, people check out or blame others, avoid hard conversations or erupt to find relief and then relationships suffer. Other people struggle with burnout, anxiety or overwhelm, which impacts productivity, creativity and well-being. To make things even more challenging, these types of environments require high trust between team members at a time when individualized development and culture conversations often get deprioritized.
As an executive coach and culture consultant, I dedicate a significant amount of my energy to developing conscious leaders and teams in organizations. Teams are the performance lever of an organization. Most organizations acknowledge the link between team performance and business results but are unclear about what it takes to develop high performance in a VUCA world. Here are a few of the ways conscious leaders develop their teams:
 
Shift from individual awareness to team consciousness.
The most successful teams operate from full spectrum consciousness. They understand they are part of a system and are aware of and tend to the needs (physical/emotional) and motivations (meaning/making a difference/service to all stakeholders) of the group, maintaining awareness of interdependences and interconnectedness and skillfully managing these tensions. Research in the last decade has proven the advantage of group decision-making over that of even the smartest individual in the group. But the exception to this is when the group lacks harmony or the ability to cooperate. Then decision-making quality and speed suffer.
The important difference between effective teams and ineffective ones lies in the emotional and social intelligence of the group (team consciousness).Teams have an emotional intelligence of their own. It is comprised of the emotional intelligence of individual members plus a collective competency of the group. Emotional intelligence enables individual team members to deal with their own internal responses, moods and states of mind. Social intelligence informs how we understand and interact with others. Leaders with high emotional mastery are effective because they act in ways that leave people around them feeling more capable.They are able to manage themselves effectively under stress and ambiguous circumstances (presence under pressure).
If a team member begins to break down under pressure, other team members can help the person recover by maintaining a positive mental state (learner and player mindset) and treating the mistake or error as a learning opportunity versus lashing out in frustration with blame and criticism. This could also include creating an awareness for the team member by sharing constructive observations about the person’s impact on the group and business results. If the team joins the person in a furthering negative spiral, you will intensify the judgment and emotional state that advances the breakdown in collective performance.
 
Have a clear mission that generates a powerful, shared purpose and meaningful contribution.
When clarity of mission and a higher purpose are lacking, teams lose focus and flounder in the face of business and market challenges. Knowing what you aspire to and take responsibility for and why it matters is key to sustainable execution and finding deeper meaning in the challenge. This requires asking questions like: Why do we exist? What is our shared purpose? What do we really want to achieve?
We define shared purpose as a unique way of being in service in the world. It defines why you exist as a group and then expressing this with clarity, consistency and constancy as part of your team culture. This includes understanding what makes work meaningful for each person on your team and being a catalyst who inspires and empowers team members to fully express their gifts and talents in service of the mission.
 
Focus on both “hard” (structure) and “soft” (behavior and culture) for sustainable success.
Most simply, this means the team has clear processes, roles and structures for accountability to achieve its mission “hard” (structure) and a solid emphasis on the human dimension of business “soft” (behavior and culture). We teach a mental model called Three Dimensions of Success that helps keep this focus in balance. Exceptional, sustainable results come from integrating three critical dimensions:

Times have changed. The last 20 years have brought as much change as the previous 50 years combined. This increasingly rapid change has created new challenges for today’s modern enterprise. Do you feel it? This new context or “new normal” is characterized by something experts have come to call, “Living in a VUCA world.”
LIVING IN A VUCA WORLD
This new VUCA world is characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Add to this the increasing forces of “velocity” that drive the need for speed, and “transparency” that drives a need for more effective communications, and we begin to see how the environment wherein project management occurs has changed drastically from what it was just a few decades ago. This new normal impacts how project managers make decisions, plan, manage risks, manage change and solve problems. When was the last time someone told you, “Take your time” or “Don’t worry, someone else will figure it out”? Exactly!
In today’s VUCA world, project managers need to move beyond receiving information to the leading activity—from organizing spreadsheets to managing people and their multiple positions of interest, and from tracking activities to being business partners who understand the subject matter of their clients, help to foresee risk, propose solutions and challenge their client’s approach so as to maximize effectiveness. In the end, what clients want can be summed up by Larry the Cable Guy, “Git ’er done.”

SEVEN CONSCIOUS PROJECT MANAGEMENT CAPABILITIES
What follows are seven conscious project management capabilities for today’s VUCA world. Do you have them all? If not, it’s time to start working on them.

  1. LEADERSHIP

Today’s project managers need to lead and manage teams, set a clear vision, get buy-in, motivate teams, coach them, inspire them and resolve conflict effectively. Without good leadership skills, people and teams can become demotivated and burn out, thus impacting the quality and timing of a project. To avoid this, today’s project management requires developed leadership skills that help project managers lead both strategically and operationally.
From a strategic perspective, project managers need to understand the business value proposition of the project and then be able to communicate it effectively to work streams and teams. They need to be able to clearly explain the work stream’s role and contribution to the project in the context of the desired value proposition to the business.
As projects move faster and include greater complexity, it’s important to be able to get people and team’s buy-in on both high-level strategic positions as well as commitment to more tactical tasks. This requires sensitivity, empathy and clarity—all essential to self-awareness, emotional intelligence and the development of leadership skills. This means sensitivity to the needs of the business to assure alignment; empathy for the work streams, their requirements and task load so as to continually load balance teams effectively; and clarity of direction, risks, milestones and mitigation plans so as to maximize time and resources. Together, sensitivity, empathy and clarity create buy-in.
Once buy-in has occurred, the project manager needs to leverage leadership skills to motivate, coach and inspire people and teams through the ups and downs, successes and setbacks of project implementation. Along the way, conflict will arise. Project managers with strong leadership capabilities are adept at managing conflict and resolving it with respect and honesty that leaves all parties further committed to the task and the team.
Leadership is a core competency of today’s project managers. By leveraging leadership skills, self-awareness and emotional intelligence, project managers galvanize participant buy-in while deepening trust and resolving conflict between multiple actors.

  1. COMMUNICATIONS

Perhaps more than any other skill, communications can make or break a project. It can be the source of strong alignment and synchronization between moving parts of a complex project, or it can be the source of ambiguity, confusion, misdirection and assumptions run amuck.
The communication skills of today’s project managers should allow them to build strong rapport with work streams and teams and to be interpersonal and engaging throughout interactions. Deeper rapport and engagement allows project managers to build deeper trust with work streams, which in turn makes challenging their thinking and holding them accountable for commitments more effective.
Additionally, project managers need to be clear and concise in their ability to communicate why, what, how and when things need to occur. They know how to use data and fact-based information to communicate risks and challenge work streams in a clear, contextualized message. Great communicators know how to get to the point effectively while building engagement at the same time. But communicating is only half of the communication skill required for today’s project management. Active listening is the other half.
Active listening skills include knowing how to listen to the words being spoken. It also includes a deeper skill for reading body language, tone and implied meaning. It requires checking one’s assumptions and inferences as discussions in advance so as to make sure that all parties involved understand the same thing at the same time.
Communication and listening are as vital project management skills in today’s complex work environment as any traditional project management capability. Knowing how to listen actively and communicate clearly and concisely helps to advance project goals while building rapport with key stakeholders.

  1. NEGOTIATIONS

Similar to communications, negotiation skills require understanding relationships and stakeholders’ interests. However, more than communications, it requires specific skills and techniques to help people move from surface level positions to positions of interest where common ground can be found.
Additionally, project managers require political savvy to manage communications and interactions between multiple work streams and actors in order to implement solutions. This in turn requires tactful compromise and the skills to bring people together to settle the ongoing reallocation of resources, changes in work stream activities, and managing the limits placed on a project by moving timelines.
All projects will require consensus building and compromise. Negotiation skills are core to achieving both. Negotiation skills provide lubricant to the scheduling of activities, allocation of resources and the movement of timelines.

  1. RISK MANAGEMENT

The best skill for effective risk management is experience. Project managers need to know what could go wrong and have the humility to ask others. Oftentimes, project managers get caught up in the act of reporting and requiring, without the flexibility required to engage others and seek their input on potential risks early on. In fact, risks can often be seen as important but not urgent and can lead project managers to a false sense of comfort.
Risk can occur at the macro and micro level of a project. Risks can be associated with people, lack of knowledge in required areas, contractors, sequencing, timing and resources to name a few. But risks can also exist at the work stream activity level due to the same variables mentioned and their being part of a smaller activity within a work stream. The risk can more easily be overlooked, coming back to create larger problems down the road.
Risk assessment is only of value if plans to mitigate risk are also considered and developed. No one likes surprises, and it is the project manager’s role to minimize surprises by foreseeing risk, communicating its potential impact, and providing stakeholders with plans to mitigate negative impact.
Today’s project managers are only as successful as their ability to manage risk. Successful risk management requires experience and knowledge. Great project managers are always seeking both for themselves and from others.

  1. SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE

Today’s project management is increasingly complex. It requires that project managers delve deeply into the business they are serving as well as the work streams they are managing. Project managers don’t need to be experts in all things, but the more they immerse themselves in the subject matter of each work stream and the business the project is serving, the more they can foresee potential risk, challenge the effectiveness of work stream activities, and understand where focus needs to be given.

  1. CRITICAL THINKING

Project managers need to take in information and weigh the pros and cons while assessing people’s ability to respond. The speed and complexity of today’s projects require a keener ability to think critically than ever before, as the issues and implications to be considered often span multiple groups and occur within matrixed work environments.
Strong critical thinkers have the ability to identify individual and integrated work stream challenges and propose solutions. They are able to manage project work streams in the context of the value proposition being delivered by the overall project/initiative and propose solutions that support the project’s business goals.

  1. MEETING MANAGEMENT

Meetings are the activity that most bring together project managers with their stakeholders. Due to their frequency, poor meeting management can lead to distrust in project managers and even avoidance of their involvement by work stream leads. Although a seemingly obvious skill, many project managers tend to “wing it” in meetings without leveraging them to build confidence and address the most important issues impacting the project at any given time.
Today’s project managers need to know how to run effective meetings with clear purpose, desired outcomes and agendas. Project managers need to know how to manage the three different types of meeting modes—inform, discuss/debate and decide—so as to adapt their approach to the required meeting mode.
By conducting productive meetings with clear purpose, desired outcomes, agendas and closings, project managers garner greater respect and confidence from their stakeholders.
 
CONCLUSION
Today’s complex work environment creates a “new normal” wherein traditional project management is not enough to successfully deliver desired outcomes.
The bottom line is that project managers are increasingly called upon to anticipate the issues that impact the project’s progress; understand the consequences of issues and actions; appreciate the interdependencies between multiple work streams and other variables; prepare for alternative realities and challenges; and to foresee, interpret and address relevant opportunities for effectiveness along the way.
In short, today’s project managers require a higher awareness of self, others and situations and should be ready to act decisively. Project managers need to be leaders as well as managers, strategists as well as tacticians, and business partners as well as business servants.
 
SOURCES
Kofman, Fred. Conscious Business. Sounds True, Reprint edition, 2006.
Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Mango, 2016.
Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline. Crown Business; Revised and Updated edition, 2010.
Lonoff Schiff, Jennifer. “7 Must-Have Project Management Skills.” CIO from IDG 30 Aug. 2017.
Aston, Ben, “7 Essential Project Management Skills for 2018.” The Digital Project Manager 1 Aug. 2017.
Harrin, Elizabeth. “15 Top Skills Project Managers Need.” Strategy Execution 8 Jan. 2015.
Udo, Nathalie and Koppensteiner, Sonja. “What Are The Core Competencies of a Successful Project Manager?” Project Management Institute Jan. 2004.
 


Speed matters in business.
Many executives today are leading high-growth companies and startups. Velocity-driven organizations and type A executives work hard at delivering new standards of performance and handling increased levels of change and creative tension without sacrificing trust or momentum. That is no accident though. These high-velocity and high-trust organizations are consistently working on their team dynamics and culture.
Most of us are only aware of our culture and its impact on our team’s performance when we have to adapt to something. Culture matters when there’s a problem (e.g., explosive change) – otherwise it’s just there. (paraphrased from E.Schein)
Sometimes, though, (even for business juggernauts) the continued pressure to make history and deliver on deadlines and commitments may lead to breakdowns. Despite the consistent good intentions and impressive accomplishments of the individuals on the team, team members may understandably get caught up in a “swirl” of counterproductive, cognitive conflict (causing drag forces) and affective conflict (causing drama/gravitational forces).
In physics, velocity, efficiency and momentum are negatively affected by drag. The faster you go, the more drag you create. Even tiny changes in drag can create large differences in performance.
At best, the “drama, drag and swirl” may be:

  • Distracting and diverting the team’s energy away from more value-added activities.
  • Decelerating the potential for additional momentum (i.e., maximum velocity).

At worst, the “drama, drag and swirl” may be:

  • Undermining the team’s effectiveness and ultimate success of their business objective.

Approximately $350 billion U.S in lost productivity occurs annually in organizations, due to negative behavior (e.g. swirl, toxicity) according to Gallup research. As much as 40 percent of manager’s time is spent dealing with conflict, drama and unhealthy tension another research indicates. (Source: http://powerofted.com/the-costs-of-drama/)
Everyday (default/reactive) methods for responding to this kind of tension/drag may not help regain collaborative momentum or help your organization recover quickly enough. In these cases, gravity becomes the overpowering force compelling your organization to a complete stop.
Instead of default methods of diffusing conflict, high-velocity teams and cultures practice staying above the drama, drag and swirl more effectively, with a shared set of drag-reducing mechanisms (e.g., tools, skills, mindsets). To maintain speed, they practice with these tools (see chart below) consistently — especially at critical moments when it doesn’t seem like there is time to stop and practice.

What is creating drama, drag and swirl inside of your organization?

Strategy planning is all about setting targets and key performance indicators, right? If your planning process is primarily a financial exercise, you may be missing the greatest leverage to be derived from planning — that is, building a culture of team effectiveness.
Today, much of strategy planning is about conversations and choices that will guide the firm’s focus for the next one to three years. It may result in spreadsheets with target performance indicators or objectives for divisions, teams and individuals. These are all important items for driving clarity about business direction and focus, but they will not deliver results by themselves.
Equally important, the planning process can be used to drive the right mindsets and behaviors that support real-world business objectives and outcomes. The right targets and performance indicators alone do not ensure that people will collaborate effectively to achieve them. When planning strategy, collaboration takes the form of various discussions.
Strategy planning is about conversations — or a series of conversations — and viewing the business through different lenses to define areas of opportunity for growth. Discussions, debates and choices need to occur along the way. How do we analyze the current business situation? What are the implications of today’s market for our business? Additionally, talks are needed to define risks and to assign responsibilities and timing of tasks.
Conversations shed light on how people work together. As such, the process of strategy planning can be a great way to work on behaviors that can improve the effectiveness of individuals and teams. In a word, planning strategy is a reflection of an organization’s culture.
As an example, we recently worked with the senior leadership team of a global retail product manufacturer. We observed that their meetings consisted of each individual speaking their opinion about a topic but with no questions being asked of one another. It was as though each person put forth their belief as fact and spoke at each other rather than with each another. We shared this observation about their heavy attachment to their points of view and the obstacle it was creating in their ability to move forward, craft a direction and make choices concerning future strategy. We introduced the idea of asking more questions of one another rather than only speaking one’s opinion. With this approach, they immediately started to see possibilities that did not exist previously. The result was improved collaboration and creativity as they built on one another’s ideas. They arrived at answers in minutes that the previous six months of conversations were not able to provide.
Culture can simply be defined as how one perceives the need to act in order to be accepted and successful within the organization, division and/or team. It’s about how people come to share common modes of behavior and perspectives in the workplace.
Teams share organizational culture norms and tend to develop additional characteristics as a team, often driven by the leader’s beliefs and behaviors. Oftentimes, the culture is not something consciously developed; therefore, bad habits can go unchecked, lessening the impact of individuals, teams and the organization.
For example, as new ideas were introduced during a meeting with a worldwide consulting firm, the common response was that these ideas were not the way they usually did things. This exhibited a mindset that they were heavily biased to the ways of their past, even when those ways were no longer producing results.

 
Three pitfalls to planning strategy
Here are three common behaviors that become pitfalls to planning strategy. They often go unchecked, as teams focus only on the culture or the content of their conversations and not on how they have them.
1. Focus on assigning blame to what’s not working.
Strategy planning requires confronting issues that may hold risk for the business. When confronting risk, people often revert to explaining situations using factors outside of their control. This allows people to be innocent when facing the consequences of risk but also leaves them powerless to address it.
When people perceive a risky outcome, they will look to the economy, the infrastructure of their company, decisions made by others, the wrong product at the wrong time, poor execution, etc., to explain their situation. All may be issues easily understood, as they may indeed exist. However, if blaming any of the aforementioned issues becomes the lens through which a team plans strategy, then in order for them to be successful, the team requires that these same issues do not exist. As such, the team becomes a victim of circumstances beyond their control and is limited in their ability to respond.
While working with a global software company, the leadership team became focused on how they were unable to overcome disrupting forces in the marketplace that were threatening their ability to grow. This dialogue went on for some time without any investigation as to what was really holding them back from responding more successfully to the issue. We made the leaders aware that their mindset was focused on external factors beyond their control versus any consideration of what they may need to learn as a team to address disruption. As soon as the discussion shifted to focusing on their ability to respond, possibilities began to flood the conversation. They prioritized them based on time and resources, and they crafted a new strategy based on becoming a stronger learning organization. The result was proactive approaches to identifying what they most needed to learn and to then deploy new tactics based on these learnings.
The alternative to this victim mindset is to instead focus on how the team will respond in relation to the challenges they are facing, even when the challenges are outside of their control. This requires recognizing what individuals, teams and the organization may need to learn in order to confront their challenges. Through this empowered lens, teams will become aware of opportunities that could not be seen from within their victimhood.
For instance, team members may discuss their situation and determine that they do not have the necessary resources or budget to achieve their desired goals. An alternative is to face the truth that the team may not know how to do it given the resources and budget they have. With this latter mindset, teams avail themselves to what is within their control. They can then focus their time and attention on seeking out the information and learning required to achieve their goals instead of the impotence that remains when only focusing on what’s outside of their control.
 
2. Conversations that spiral and go nowhere.
Teams often place their emphasis and energy on the content of their discussions without considering the efficacy of how they are having them. A common result is that teams begin conversations without a plan for how to effectively have them and consequently have deliberations that go on and on without resolve.
We recently worked with the leadership team of a Fortune 100 company that needed to restructure its business to focus on the key areas that would create growth. In doing so, they needed to choose which parts of the business to divest. Many long-standing parts of the business had provided growth in the past but weren’t any longer. Instead, the company was using valuable resources and capital that could have been spread to new areas.
The back-and-forth between them was endless. People would defend one business area over another, share the reasons why each unit should be preserved, or why another new area of business should be pursued more heavily with investment. The team was unable to stop the exchange and move on to making important choices about where to invest and divest moving forward.
These never-ending conversations led to frustration among team members. They felt their input was not getting them anywhere. People stated their beliefs about an issue but did not know how or when to stop debating so they could move into decision-making mode.
All conversations in strategy planning can fall into one of the following three categories:

  • Inform — The purpose is to inform people about something. No decision, discussion or debate is required. It’s about making sure people understand the topic being presented and are aligned with their understanding.
  • Discuss and debate — The purpose is to gather input and perspectives from participants to enrich understanding and potential responses.
  • Decide — Once a topic has been presented and discussed, options become clear and a decision can be made regarding which option is best for the situation.

If a team can define the type of conversation they are about to have, they can more easily respond accordingly (i.e., check understanding, gather input, debate solutions and ultimately decide between two or more options).
Without this clarity, a number of participants can be in different conversation modes at the same time. While one person believes the purpose is to receive information, another believes a debate is supposed to occur, while yet another believes a decision needs to be made. This creates confusion and frustration, which impacts the effectiveness of how teams plan strategy.
It may indeed be the case that all three modes need to occur, but all three should never occur at the same time. Awareness of their sequence and conscious participation in line with the appropriate mode can make planning conversations more effective and easier to manage.
 
3. Difficulty making decisions.
Just as teams can get stuck in conversations that seem to have no end, they can also become paralyzed with the need to make decisions. This most often occurs when teams have not thought about how they will make a decision.
Returning to the example of the company that needed to restructure its business to focus on the key areas that would create growth, we intervened with a meeting discussion and decision-making model that allowed the team a structured way to share opinions and then to create clear options between which decisions could be made. Because there was now a clear method for making a decision, the team was able to decide and commit to a direction that had eluded them for the past two years. Their choices led to investments in new areas while preserving income from more mature areas of the business. The result has been a return to growth that matches their competitors and has even put them in the leadership position in their key area of focus.
Decision-making requires a clear and agreed upon method or roadmap. All decisions are a choice between two or more options. However, if decision-making rights are not made explicit from the beginning, then teams may struggle to make important decisions because no one is clear on who has decision-making rights and how they will be deployed.
For example, decision-making can occur through different ways. It may be as simple as the team leader making the final decision. Or perhaps the leader wants the team to discuss and the leader will then decide. Or maybe the team discusses and the team decides, which then requires the use of consensus-building techniques or other modes of group decision-making, such as voting. Still further, a leader may decide that the team is to discuss the issue, but a single member of the team is to decide, as the issue pertains to their area of expertise. And finally, the leader may simply ask another team member to decide.
Any of these methods bring clarity to how decisions will be made, and if one of these is chosen at the beginning of the conversation, then decision-making can occur more rapidly, preventing the team from becoming crippled by the process.
How teams respond to their situation, where they choose to focus, and how they have conversations and make decisions are all a reflection of cultural norms within a team and/or organization.
By bringing awareness to these areas, teams can consciously participate in the planning process and yield more effective outcomes. As such, the planning process becomes the perfect opportunity to reflect on the “how” we do things as much as the “what” we are trying to achieve. By proactively focusing on the “how,” teams and organizations can build more effective cultures of collaboration.

by Fred Kofman

The unilateral control model

The world of American business operates under a set of mental models. Chris Argyris and Don Schön call it “Model I”; Diana Smith and Robert Putnam refer to it as the “unilateral control model.” This model has been the guiding philosophy that has shaped the code of acceptable behavior for American businesses. This model helped American businesses evolve to the level of sophistication and success it has reached in this century. But as we shall see, the unilateral control model may prevent American businesses from succeeding in the next century. The unilateral control model is fraught with inherent contradictions and weaknesses that hinder effectiveness, adaptability, innovation, competitiveness and profitability.
The unilateral control model is a theoretical construct, a story that allows us to explain behaviors. It is a convenient tool to summarize many observations of managers in action. Its value does not come from mirroring some “reality” in the outside world (or rather, in the inside of people’s heads) but from enabling us to understand and transform behaviors that do not help us accomplish our goals.
The unilateral control model is a way of maintaining control when dealing with issues that can be embarrassing or threatening. It is like a program that operates according to certain assumptions, strategic goals and tactical actions which result in certain consequences. Argyris and Schön identify several assumptions at the foundation of this model:

  1. I am rational; I see things as they are. I have a logical perspective that takes all factors into account.
  2. I am influenceable. I am open to change my opinions as long as someone can make a rational argument.
  3. Others are irrational and uninfluenceable. Unfortunately, most people are not rational like me, but
    are closed‐minded and stuck in their (mistaken) ideas.
  4. Constraints are unalterable. People are the way they are and will not change.
  5. Errors are crimes to be punished or sins to be covered. If people do the right thing, bad things should not happen. Consequently, whenever something goes wrong, someone must have done something wrong.

These assumptions affect thoughts, feelings, actions and interactions. If I believe that rationality is paramount, I will measure every conversation, every action, every plan in relation to that premise. I will also feel awkward when someone displays emotion or relies on intuition. If I believe that others are uninfluenceable, I will not even try to convince them; or if I try and they still disagree, I will consider them hopelessly stubborn and try to bypass or outmaneuver them. These assumptions are so fundamental that they become invisible; if they are made visible, they are almost always undiscussable; and if they do become discussable, they will almost certainly remain unassailable.
After studying the behavior of thousands of managers, Argyris and Schön defined the following set of strategic goals at the core of the unilateral control model:

  1. Define goals and try to achieve them unilaterally. Do not waste time and energy trying to develop a mutual definition of purpose with others; do not allow them to influence or alter your perception of the task.
  2. Maximize winning (face‐saving) and minimize losing. Once you commit to your goals and strategies, assume that changing them would be a sign of weakness.
  3. Share information selectively to support your perspective. Assume that the only relevant information is that which helps you convince others you are right.
  4. Provide external incentives to ensure compliance. Distribute rewards and punishments to encourage individuals to do what you decide is best.
  5. Minimize generating or expressing negative feelings. Be rational, objective and intellectual. Suppress your feelings and do not become emotional.

These strategic goals give rise to several tactical actions characteristic of the unilateral control model:

  1. Design and manage the task and the process unilaterally. Own and control the task and the process by yourself.
  2. Unilaterally protect yourself and others by being abstract and withholding feelings. To protect others you should withhold information (especially negative assessments of their performance), tell white lies, suppress negative feelings and offer false sympathy.
  3. Assert your own views, taking your own reasoning for granted. State your conclusions as facts and withhold information on the data, reasoning and concerns that led you to such conclusions.
  4. Minimize inquiring into others’ views. If you must ask, ask leading questions that support your own position.
  5. Adopt the role of the victim, placing 100% responsibility for the problem on others. When a problem arises, assume that it is someone else’s fault. If your employees fail to take responsibility assume that it is their fault and “force” them into empowerment.
  6. Make dilemmas undiscussable, and make the undiscussability of dilemmas undiscussable. Resolve impasses and dilemmas unilaterally behind closed doors.
  7. Encourage face‐saving. Ignore or suppress conflict. Use abstractions and ambiguity to pretend that there is agreement when there is not. Assume that people would be hurt by confrontation and avoid it.

The way in which we have described the features of the unilateral control model makes them seem reprehensible, but they are not overtly so; in fact, they are often disguised as social virtues. In his book Overcoming Organizational Defenses, Argyris lists the following interpretation of the unilateral control model’s alleged social virtues:

  1. Help and support. Give approval and praise to others. Tell others what you believe will make them feel good about themselves.
  2. Respect for others. Defer to other people and do not confront their reasoning or actions. Assume that confrontation is always aggressive, disrespectful and unproductive.
  3. Strength. Advocate your position in order to win. Hold your position in the face of counter‐advocacy.
  4. Honesty. Tell other people white lies, or choose what truths to express. Express these truths “politely” so nobody feels upset. Alternatively, tell others all you think and feel in raw, unprocessed form.
  5. Integrity. Stick to your principles, values and beliefs. Hold on tightly to your “strong personal convictions.”

Because the unilateral control model incorporates face‐saving tactics, it does not appear to be as negative as it actually is. But when we look beyond its surface “politeness” we can discover its ugly undercurrents of game‐playing, one‐ upmanship and lack of consideration and respect for others. Argyris and Schön predict several major consequences of unilateral control behavior:
Because the unilateral control model incorporates face-saving tactics, it does not appear to be as negative as it actually is.

  1. People will behave in defensive, inconsistent, controlling and manipulative ways. They will be incongruent and fearful of being vulnerable. They will withhold many of their most important thoughts and feelings or “dump” them unproductively.
  2. Interpersonal and group relationships will become more defensive than facilitative. Group dynamics will become rigid and the focus will be more on winning and losing than on collaborating. There will be antagonism, mistrust, miscommunication, risk aversion, conformity, and compliance to external norms—as opposed to internally driven commitment.
  3. People will experience primarily fear, stress and anger. There will be a prevailing mood of cynicism, resignation and resentment. People will feel disempowered by their inability to control their destiny and respond with rebelliousness or apathy.
  4. There will be little freedom to explore and search for new information and new alternatives. Conformism, anomie and cynicism will ensue. Errors will escalate and people will withhold solutions that could challenge established beliefs and norms.
  5. There will be many constraints against exploring and defining goals in partnerships, exploring new paths to these goals and to setting realistic but challenging levels of aspiration. These constraints will lead to low commitment, group‐think, conservatism and risk‐ aversion.
  6. Theories will be tested primarily in private, with supporting data and arguments hidden, rather than displayed in public view. The secretiveness and vagueness of people’s models will lead to misunderstanding, miscommunication and escalation of errors.
  7. There will be a tendency to default to “within‐the‐box” thinking rather than to step beyond the commonly accepted assumptions.

Ultimately, the business consequences of the unilateral control model are simple and devastating: ineffectiveness, inflexibility, lack of innovation, low quality, high cost, uncompetitiveness, obsolescence, low (or negative) profitability and extinction.

The mutual learning model

We do not have to work and live in the ways we have described so far. As widespread as the unilateral control model is, there are other options. There is another mental model available to individuals, organizations, even whole cultures. This model not only increases effectiveness in the performance of the task; it also enhances the quality of relationships while raising individuals’ self‐esteem, satisfaction and happiness.
The mutual learning model (called “Model II” by Argyris and Schön) is based on very different assumptions and strategic goals than the unilateral control model. It generates different tactical actions and results in different consequences. The assumptions of this model are:

  1. I am a human being bound by my mental models. My logical inferences depend on my concerns, emotions, assumptions, generalizations and interpretations. My mental model filters my perceptions and conditions my emotions.
  2. Others’ thinking has an internal logic, although my mental models might make it hard for me to see it. Whatever position they hold, they have reasons for holding that position.
  3. We (others and I) are influencable. If we engage in a dialogue we can understand each other and learn together.
  4. Constraints are interpretations. From some points of view, constraints do not look as unalterable as from others. There is a wide space of negotiation within a context of personal disclosure and dialogue.
  5. Errors are puzzles to be explored. Breakdowns are opportunities to examine the process that generated them and learn to work together more effectively.

These assumptions, and this model, operate in an emotional space quite dissimilar to those of the unilateral control model. When people work within the mutual learning model, the prevailing emotions are peace, wonder and curiosity. In such a mood, it becomes possible to assume shared responsibility for a particular concern, to accept that others’ views can be as valid as my own and can help to solve the problem, and to believe that every problem or error— although upsetting and painful—is at the same time an opportunity to learn.
Based on these assumptions and emotions, these strategic goals guide actions in the mutual learning model:

  1. Develop a mutual definition of goals and pursue them collectively. Open the space of group negotiation to include both strategies and objectives.
  2. Maximize learning through the exchange of valid information. Provide others with directly observable data and grounded assessments so they can make valid interpretations on their own.
  3. Maximize free and informed choice. A choice is informed if it is based on relevant information. The more an individual is aware of the variables relevant to his decision, the more likely he is to make an informed choice.
  4. Maximize internal commitment. Encourage individuals to feel responsible for their choices. The individual is committed to an action because it is intrinsically satisfying—not, as in the case of the unilateral control model, because someone is rewarding or penalizing him.
  5. Accept all feelings as valid expressions of self. Invite discussion of emotionally charged issues in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect.

These strategic goals change the whole communication and decision‐making process from unilateral control to mutual learning. If I act after my voice has been included in the conversation, and because the course of action appears to me to be the best choice, my behavior will be very different than if my primary motivation is to protect myself, avoid your wrath, keep you or me from being embarrassed or pursue any of the strategic goals of the unilateral control model.
The strategic goals of the mutual learning model lead to the following tactical actions:

  1. Make the design and management of the task and the process a collective endeavor. Share control so that all participants experience free choice and internal commitment. Let participants participate in the definition of the goals and the design of the paths to the goals.
  2. Create a low‐protection, high‐learning environment. Advocate your own views and encourage others’ reactions. Actively solicit comments and challenges to your argument. Invite others to advocate their own views and inquire into them.
  3. Make the thinking behind your views explicit and publicly discussable. Expose your reasoning and your assumptions, your observations and your assessments. Assume that your point of view is not the only possible one and that others can understand your perspective and still disagree with you.
  4. Inquire into others’ views. Assume that others have valuable insights to offer and that only good can come from discussion.
  5. Take 100% ownership and responsibility for the problems. Assume that whenever there is a problem you are part of it (and its solution), that your behavior might
    be affecting others and contributing to the ineffectiveness of the group.
  6. Make dilemmas discussable. When you reach an impasse or a dilemma, be willing to go beyond the surface—to discuss the context of the conversation as well as the content.
  7. Discourage face‐saving. When conflicts arise or emotions such as embarrassment and fear block effective decision‐ making, do not ignore them. Instead, make the emotions and conflicts explicit in the spirit of mutual learning: “What can we all learn from this to improve our task and relationships?”

The mutual learning model arises from a new understanding of traditional social virtues and has enormous consequences for both behavior and learning. When an organization operates in a mutual learning mode:

  1. People do not need to behave defensively or manipulatively. They act with congruence and without fear.
  2. Interpersonal and group relationships become less defensive and more facilitative. Group dynamics become flexible, shifting the focus from winning and losing to collaborating.
  3. People feel free to explore and search for new information and new alternatives. The team exhibits a drive to excel, high energy and excitement.
  4. People define goals and explore constraints in a partnership mode. They set what they consider realistic but challenging levels of aspiration through open communication.
  5. By encouraging public rather than private testing of theories, people detect and correct errors more easily and painlessly. Through enhanced communication people act in coordination and create high‐quality relationships based on integrity, commitment and dignity.
  6. People think creatively and explore solutions that step beyond commonly accepted ways of dealing with the problem.

Overall, the mutual learning model leads to effectiveness, flexibility, innovation, high quality, low cost, renewal, competitiveness, high profitability and growth.
The transition from unilateral control to mutual learning cannot happen through changes in formal policies and procedures. Changing mental models is a personal endeavor that demands the full participation of each individual. Creating a culture of openness and continuous improvement requires personal transformation. This transformation is the deepest level of learning.
Transforming mental models. Single, double, and triple‐loop learning
Given our assessment of a situation, we determine a range of possible actions. We then evaluate the expected results of these actions with our goals and choose an action that has the highest likelihood of attaining our desired outcome. This action creates consequences and produces results. In summary, as a result of our mental model, we articulate a story of “what is going on,” “what do I want,” and “what can I do,” this story conditions how we act, and how we act creates certain results.
If the results match our desires, we are satisfied and don’t experience the need to learn. But if the outcome disagrees with our wants or expectations, we have the opportunity to learn. The gap between our intention and the results fuels the learning process. Depending on the difficulty of closing the gap, learning will demand that we reconsider our actions, thoughts and feelings at different levels of depth.
Single‐loop learning is a process through which the learner becomes capable of acting effectively through detecting and correcting errors (mismatches between results and goals) by changing a specific response within a given set of alternatives. For example, a thermostat would activate a furnace when the temperature drops below a certain value. Single‐loop learning takes the situation as given. It solves the problem at hand by choosing an action within pre‐established bounds that attains a pre‐established goal. But single‐loop learning does not address a more basic question: why did this problem exist in the first place?
For example, suppose that a company implements a suggestion program as a way to reduce waste. Employees contribute ideas and soon waste decreases dramatically. From a single‐loop perspective this was a success. But some key questions remain unasked. These are the questions that nobody wants to ask for fear of spoiling the celebration. Why did the company need a suggestion program to implement the waste‐reduction initiatives? Why did workers and managers knowingly continue to do things that led to waste? What stopped those suggesting ideas through the program from presenting them before?
These are the difficult questions that rarely get asked when an initiative such as total quality management or business process re‐engineering succeed. The point is not to deny the improvements brought about by these programs: the point is to understand why the organization needed a special program to tap the creative potential of its employees. Double‐loop learning asks precisely these uncomfortable questions.
Double‐loop learning is a change in the process of single‐loop learning. Double‐loop learning is a process through which the learner becomes capable of accomplishing a goal, but this time his accomplishment does not come from a change in strategies within a given set of alternatives which are aimed to accomplish a given goal within a given environment. In double‐loop learning, the learner’s increased effectiveness comes from a change in the set of alternatives from which he selects his actions, from a change in the goals he is trying to accomplish or from a change in the way he interprets his environment. This change in frame or re‐contextualization opens new possibilities for action outside the range of single‐ loop learning.
When the company with the successful waste‐reduction program investigates the underlying structures that prevented improvements before, they might discover that those having ideas were afraid of contributing them because they would expose current inefficiencies. That exposure would be embarrassing for those in charge and that embarrassment might lead to retaliation. This is typical unilateral‐control thinking. If the current unilateral control model is not transformed, after the suggestion‐program party is over, inefficiencies will start accumulating again. Only through double‐loop learning will the company ensure efficiency in a dynamic environment.
In most circumstances, double‐loop learning will suffice to close the learning gap. But if it doesn’t, there is another step upstream that we can take. From the particular interpretation that we adopted, we can move to the mental model that conditions the interpretations we are able to construct.
Triple‐loop learning is a change in the process of double‐loop learning, or learning how to double‐loop learn. Triple‐loop learning is a change in the way the learner changes mental models. It is a release from the grip of any particular mental model within which we operate at any particular time.
Consequently, triple‐loop learning is a transformation that affects our notions of what is real and of who we are.
When we move into triple‐loop learning we begin to examine how these factors of biology, language, culture and personal history create a predisposition to interpret the world in particular ways. Instead of falling into a rut, I can challenge myself to change my behavior with mindfulness. The problem doesn’t go away, but I can frame the breakdown within a larger perspective.
Changing mental models is possible, but not easy. Mental models are not like eyeglasses that can be taken off and replaced easily. They are more like the cornea itself, whose shape conditions what shows up in focus and what does not. We find it difficult to change mental models because they are so “obvious” to us that they disappear, because they serve us well and because we so often identify ourselves with them. Some blocks to changing mental models include:

  • Our reasoning and acting is highly skilled, so our mental models operate invisibly. We are not even aware that a particular mental model conditions our actions or thought processes.
  • Our mental models filter out of our awareness those experiences that are incongruent with it. So we suppress experiences that can challenge our mental models without even knowing at a conscious level that we are doing it.
  • We don’t want to risk losing face or being wrong since
    that threatens our self‐image and produces embarrassment. So we cling to our established patterns even when they don’t work.
  • We do not want to risk upsetting or embarrassing others. So we don’t reveal our mental models because we fear that they may represent a challenge to their mental models. Conversely, we expect others to hide their mental models when they could pose a risk to ours.

Once we see how powerful mental models are in shaping our reality and how subtly they prevent contradictions from surfacing to our consciousness, the critical question arises: if our structures and prior assumptions about reality determine what we can experience, how can we ever experience something that will challenge our structures and prior assumptions about reality? How can we ever learn to transcend some of the basic ideas that can block our progress when these are the very ideas that condition what we are able to think?
The answer is triple‐loop learning. We can escape the gravitational pull of our mental models through a leap to a different level of knowing, feeling, sensing and being.
An example of triple‐loop learning is what happens when we experience a “magical” event. An event is magical when it is both impossible and undeniable. Of course, “impossible” is an assessment that depends on our mental models. When confronted with undeniable evidence that the impossible is actually occurring, we need to change our definition of what is possible—and with it, our mental models. This is exactly what Kuhn describes as an “anomaly” in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. When enough anomalies accumulate, the scientific community is forced to revise its collective mental model—what Kuhn calls “paradigm”.
Many of the tools we have introduced elsewhere, such as the ladder of inference, the distinction between private and public conversations, advocacy and inquiry, and observations and assessments are meant to respond to “anomalies.” When the world does not yield the results we desire, we can use them to shine a light of awareness on our mental models, go upstream in the interpretative process and change our paradigms to enable more effective actions.

Conclusion

Competitiveness has proven to be one of the most effective motivators to propel economic growth, but when applied inside of the organization through mental models like the unilateral control model, it can destroy the spirit and productivity of those involved.
The mutual learning model is based on cooperation: I may have some answers, but they are not the only ones. I want to know what you think because I respect your point of view and believe that we can get a better outcome if we work together and learn from each another.
Unfortunately, the shift to a mutual learning model is not easy. Most of us are experts in the unilateral control model because we grew up in a culture that reinforces and values that model. The mutual learning model, by contrast, is in a state of comparative nascence in our culture and most of us are beginners at using it. It will take much practice and perseverance to institutionalize this model, but this effort is worthwhile when compared with the inefficiency and suffering we are sure to experience if we continue to manage according to the unilateral control model.