Coaching

Wolf Magic

In a recent blog post I thanked @davenicolette for drawing my attention to an article by Eric Barker, and more specifically to the concept of the Omega Wolf. Setting aside the question of whether the behaviour in wolves is natural or forced, I share Dave’s view that the notion of Omega Wolf makes for a fine metaphor for a particular role in our organisations.

“A really successful team needs at least one person who is not a team player. Someone who’s willing to stand up to authority, to rock the boat. To not make everybody happy. To not pat everybody on the back.”
~ Eric Barker

“Every wolf pack has an omega who bears the brunt of pack members’ frustrations. This individual functions as a sort of social glue for the pack, defusing conflict and aggression before it harms the group’s cohesion…”
~ Dave Nicolette

When I read this, I instantly recognised myself and my roles in various organisations over the years. I also saw the way in which the Omega Wolf complements the Chaos Monkey so well.

And as with Chaos Monkeys, folks in the role of Omega Wolf can easily be misunderstood – as troublemakers, lamers, losers, doormats, clowns or maybe even worse, idealist.

“Looking at the big picture and the long view, the lowest ranking wolf—the omega wolf—may actually be the ‘cornerstone wolf’ — keeping the pack together and peaceful.”
~ Robert Lindsay

Looking at human organisations – and particularly the dysfunctional ones (there are other kinds?) – I’d suggest that the people in the Omega Wolf roles are the great unsung – and often unappreciated – heroes of highly effective – and joyful – teams.

My Omega Wolf Credo

I aspire to help people by defusing stressful situations and bringing people together in increasingly authentic fellowship and harmony.
I aspire to care for the young cubs, the new hires, and the other folks who may be feeling disoriented and wondering how to become more part of “the team”.
I aspire to help people by being playful and encouraging others to “play” more, too.
I aspire to help organisations and the folks therein by championing the value of joy and humane relationships in work.
I aspire to improve the quality of individual and collective relationships by illustrating the value of nonviolence.
I aspire to improve the cohesion of the team(s) and the organisation more widely.
I aspire to raise awareness of the value of authentic harmony, the role of the Omega Wolf in contributing to that, and to make Omega Wolf behaviours not only acceptable but highly sought-after.

Who are the Omega Wolves in your company? How much do they contribute to the well-being of the organisational “community”? And how well-understood are they – and the value they add – in this role?

– Bob

The Antimatter Principle

October 12, 2013

Agile, Antimatter principle, Coaching, Management, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Product development, Psychology, Rightshifting, Software development

50 Comments

The Antimatter Principle

Antimatter is by far the most valuable substance, by weight, known to Man (around $25 billion per gram). It’s incredibly rare, amazingly expensive and difficult to produce, and yet is by far the most powerful energy source we presently know of. It’s also the very epitome of alienness.

Seems like a good metaphor for the Antimatter Principle – the only principle we need for becoming wildly effective at collaborative knowledge work.

The Antimatter Principle

Inspired by Jim Benson’s Personal Kanban, which has just two simple “rules” – “make work visible, and limit wip” – I’ve been seeking to simplify software and product development – or, in fact, any kind of knowledge work – and reduce it to just one rule:

“Attend to folks’ needs.”

The power of this simplification may not be immediately apparent, so please allow me to explain…

Attend To

Meaning, “pay attention to”. In a complicated or complex group endeavour such as developing a major piece of software, or tech product, we have the opportunity to pay attention to many things. What we pay attention to determines what gets done. Traditionally, these kinds of endeavour might pay attention to value, flow, cost, quality, customers or profits – to name just a few. But if we accept that people are central to this kind of work, then all these typical foci pale into insignificance alongside folks and their needs.

Folks’

Meaning, everyone involved. Software and product development endeavours typically involve lots of people. Not just the “doers”, but the “sponsors”, the “buyers”, and a whole host of other groups and individuals. Some folks will obviously be in the frame from the get-go, many other folks will only come into view as the endeavour unfolds. I have for many year used the term “covalence” to describe this perspective.

Needs

This reminds us that we’re working for and with people, and all people have needs, many of these tragically unmet. Needs are the universal lingua franca of the human race. Sadly, much too often overlooked or down-played. Here’s a list of needs as an example of the kind of thing I have in mind.

Expecting folks to gaily subjugate their personal needs for the Man’s coin is not only naive, but flies in the face of decades of research.

The Antimatter Principle asks us to remember to listen to our own deeper needs – and to those of others – and to identify and clearly articulate what “is alive in us”. Through its implicit emphasis on deep listening – to ourselves as well as others – the Antimatter Principle fosters respect, attentiveness and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart. This is oh so simple, yet powerfully transformative.

Wrap

Does the Antimatter Principle, and this explanation of it, meet *your* needs?

– Bob

Can’t Be Bothered

October 10, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Dialogue, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

Can’t Be Bothered

When folks appear disinterested, apathetic, bored with their work – and their involvement in it, or just happy to “settle”, what do you do?

Shrug indifferently? Sigh in despair? Tear your hair out? Shout at them? Quit?

Or do you bother looking a little deeper? Asking yourself “Why?”?
(Or even Five Whys)?

I’ve worked with many groups that, superficially, appeared indifferent, unwilling or unable to summon much – or any – enthusiasm for what they were doing. Excepting maybe feigning just enough enthusiasm to deflect the unwanted attentions of their higher-ups.

On those occasions when I’ve had the opportunity to delve deeper, I’ve always found not disinterested and bored people, but folks excruciatingly frustrated at not being able to do a good job. Demotivated by faceless corporatism, disinterested or downright obstructionist managers, demeaning policies, pointless make-work and, in general, so put-upon that I wondered why they ever stayed in post.

“If you want someone to do a good job, give them a good job to do.”
~ Fredrick Herzberg

What is a Good Job?

Many organisations, managers and teams never even get to first base (cf Herzberg) on this question. Fewer yet ever tackle the question of “good”.

Personally, I define a “good job” as one which meets the present, actual needs of the person doing the job. And it seems unlikely that other people will know what those needs are without listening to the people in question, and showing some interest in their personal needs, as human beings.

How often do we see organisations and managers seek out the needs of the people doing the work? How often do we encounter the prevailing assumption that “the needs of the work, the needs of the manager or of the organisation, trump the needs of the individual”?

Of course, if you rush headlong at the work, like a bull in a china shop, then there will be breakages. Including damage to folks’ morale and motivation. Maybe a little more obliquity might pay handsome dividends?

Hardly surprising, then, that many folks “can’t be bothered”.

Some Advice

Would you be willing to consider some advice, drawn from long experience in this area?

If so, read on.

If you are actually bothered about folks being bothered (not a given, by a long chalk), then do you believe in extrinsic motivation, or in intrinsic motivation?

If the former, then the way is relatively clear: Choose some carrots and sticks and apply them enthusiastically. Good luck with that.

If the latter, however, things become much less straightforward. How can we make people feel (and not just act) less bored, more keen? Well, of course, we can’t make people feel anything. So we’re obliged to consider how to bring about a situation where folks can find and grow their own enthusiasms.

How would you go about that?

– Bob

Caution! Attempting to treat people as if they matter without winning the understanding and active support of your higher-ups and your peers may cause alienation, organisational cognitive dissonance, damage to your credibility, and to your career.

Caution! Attempting to treat people as if they matter, without first winning their trust and understanding may cause suspicion, resentment, gossip, and unforeseen consequences.

Health Warning

October 9, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Ethics, Management, Organisational Therapy

3 Comments

Health Warning

Observations

I regularly read posts and articles informing managers and the like of this or that new technique for them to apply in their work. Here’s just one example amongst many.

Many of these techniques come from Agile folks, attempting – it seems – to encourage managers to move towards a more Agile stance in their methods, and in their relationships with the people they manage.

Feelings

I always feel a little anxious and peeved when seeing this kind of advice promoted without a health warning. I have in mind something like:

“Caution! Attempting to follow this advice without winning the active support of your higher-ups and your peers may cause alienation, organisational cognitive dissonance, damage to your credibility, and to your career.”

The question of safety is just beginning to gain a wider profile in the Agile community. Is safety of managers as much of an issue as safety of developers and testers when it comes to trying things out – such as adopting certain new, Agile-ish behaviours?

Needs

Such posts fail to meet my needs for “avoiding possible negative consequences (on behalf of readers)” and for “doing no harm”. I feel that encouraging managers (or other folks) to put themselves in harm’s way fails to meet principles 1. and 2. of my Nine Principles.

Requests

If you’re someone who publishes such advices to managers, would you be willing to include a health warning of some kind in your posts?

And if you’re someone who reads such posts or articles, would you be wiling to signal the absence of such warnings to their authors – and to other readers?

– Bob

Warning

Caution! Including a health warning in a blog post or article may cause some folks to think twice about following your advice.

From Here to Eternity

September 25, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy

From Here to Eternity

What Do You Want?

“Finding deficiencies and getting rid of them is not a way of improving the performance of the system. An improvement program must be directed at what you want, not at what you don’t want. And, determining what you do want requires redesigning the system, not for the future, but for right now, and asking yourself what would you do right now if you could do whatever you wanted to. If you don’t know what you would do if you could do what you wanted to do how could you ever know what you would do under constraints?”
~ Russell L. Ackoff

I work a lot with new folks. That is, teams and organisations that I have not worked with before, or for long.

One regular question I put to these folks is something like “where are you going?” As in, where would they like to be, what kind of future do they have in mind.

I have ceased to be surprised by the lack of coherent answers which ensue.

Most folks have no ides of what a “better future state” might look like, either in general, or specifically for them and their fellows.

I have found several reasons for this, including:

Too busy on delivery stuff to think ahead
Lack of motivation – no personal stake in the future
Absence of support and encouragement from the wider organisation
Lack of awareness of the possibilities inherent in a “better future”
A disconnect between folks’ needs and their assumptions about possible futures

Does your troupe discuss your common future? Do you have any kind of picture – fuzzy or coherent – about the kind of development shop you’d like your shop to become? How broad is your picture? Does it stretch beyond your own personal future to encompass your team, your shop, your whole organisation? And how far ahead do you look – today, a month, a year, eternity?

– Bob

The Management Violence Inherent In The Golden Rule

September 20, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Dialogue, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

5 Comments

The Management Violence Inherent In The Golden Rule

I’ve never had much time for compassion. For me, the concept seems too violent, too manipulative to embrace it. I’m all for “connecting with others in meaningful ways”, and for generosity, and kindness, (although, niceness, not so much). And for a life of meaning and purpose, too.

com·pas·sion
noun
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

I just don’t find it useful to lump all these ideas together under the banner of “compassion”.

Of course, compassion, especially compassion in the workplace, is going to be better than a lack of compassion. I just feel we can, if we but think about it for a moment, do so much better.

The Golden Rule is a great example of what I’m talking about.

It’s the sheer, brazen unilateralism of the Golden Rule that bugs me. At least, as it is most often, simplistically, perceived. Oh, and the violence inherent in the very notion of “rules”, too.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

George Bernard Shaw spotted the flaw:

“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may be different.”
~ G. B. Shaw

So To The Platinum Question

And thus the Platinum Rule (or here, the Platinum Question) comes into sight:

“How about treating others the way they want to be treated?”

Of course, this means finding out how others might actually want to be treated. Which opens a whole new can of worms regarding dialogue, enquiry, empathy and, yes, humane relationships.

So how about we eschew compassion in favour of empathy and non-violence? How about we consider other folks’ tastes in relating to us, and others? How about we embrace not the Golden Rule, but the Platinum Question?

Would you be willing to give this a go in your workplace, with your colleagues, peers and (God forbid you have any) higher-ups?

– Bob

Coaching and Deming

September 12, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Psychology, Software development

12 Comments

Coaching and Deming

I regularly lament the relative obscurity of Bill Deming and his work. I’m not the only one. God only knows why he’s not better known. Just about everyone who knows of him – and in particular his System of Profound Knowledge – is a fan. How could it be otherwise?

Even just one aspect of his work – his so-called 95/5 rule – has so many implications for businesses everywhere.

I’m not going to get into that today, nor into all his many insights and contributions. Except for the seeming contradiction the 95/5 rule raises in the whole field of personal and team coaching (and, incidentally, training, as well as my immediate specialism these days, therapy).

Aside: By ‘personal coaching’ I’m thinking of things like agile coaching, life coaching, executive coaching and so on.

Here’s the thing: if we accept Deming’s observation that the system – the way the work works – is responsible for 95% of an individual’s (or team’s) performance (in a job or task), why “work on the five percent” (the individuals)? Is that not rather… incongruous?

Granted, folks sometimes hire their own e.g. life or fitness coaches for their own personal reasons. Let’s set aside these cases and focus on those rather more common cases where organisations hire the coaches for one or more people in the organisation. Agile Coaching seems a common example of this.

The aim of such coaching appointments is often to get the individuals being coached to “perform better”. And most often, the implicit assumption is that it’s the performance of said individuals (or, more rarely, teams) that should be the focus of the coaching efforts.

How many folks who seek coaches for their people and teams actually consider the 95/5 rule? How many coaches see their role as more like working on the system than working on the individuals concerned?

“If you want people to do a good job, give them a good job to do.”
~ Frederick Herzberg

I can personally attest to the endless frustrations arising from coaching situations where it’s been the system that needed to change, not the fine folks already doing their best in badly designed, badly organised jobs.

– Bob

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

August 30, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Dialogue, Organisational effectiveness, Psychology

5 Comments

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

[TL;DR: How most folks stick to their comfort zones, and what that means for the businesses they work in.]

“No matter how comfortable we are, we always have to take the next step.”
~ Steve Jobs, re: the creation and naming of NeXT and NeXTStep

I like getting outside my comfort zone. Well, not like, exactly. It’s more that I feel compelled to do so, and quite often. I seem to have some voice inside my head saying “This is not good enough. Break out of your comfort zone – and push the envelope, again.” I guess I like the feeling that psychologists call “eustress“.

“Everyone needs a little bit of [positive] stress in their life in order to continue to be happy, motivated, challenged and productive. It is when this stress is no longer tolerable and/or manageable that distress comes in.”

A Mentor Can Help

In “Great Boss, Dead Boss” the author Ray Immelman expresses his view that a leader has to have the psychological courage to take each next step on the company’s journey. To have the urge to transcend their own emotional discomfort, and make leaps into the unknown, nevertheless. He also talks about the value of leaders having mentors with the psychological strength to help them grow even further.

Business Partnerships

In my working partnerships, over the years, I have often felt a sense of frustration with said partners and their reluctance to step outside their own comfort zones. We have lost opportunities, and compromised progress towards the (shared, common) purpose of the business because of the mismatch between our different levels of tolerance for discomfort.

Aside: By “opportunities”, I mean opportunities for personal growth, joy, success, enlightenment, fellowships, etc., and not so much just commercial opportunities.

And when talking with potential clients, etc., I regularly see the same kind of dynamic; folks who are “settling”, comfy in their warm, cozy and safe comfort zones. History tells me these are folks I cannot work with for long – or at all.

I’ve often found myself introspecting:

“What’s more important? Harmonious relationships, loyalty, friendship, etc. – or progress, taking the next step?”

Somehow, finding an acceptable balance over the longer term has eluded me. Maybe this, too, has something to do with needing to take the next step, make progress, move on.

Consequences

Working in e.g. an organisation, team or partnership where there’s a mismatch in folks’ tolerance levels for discomfort; where some folks want to take the next step and others are comfortable in their comfort zones, can lead to:

Frustration.
Distress.
Demotivation – for the comfort-seeking and the discomfort-seeking folks, both.
Distraction.
Anxiety.
Withdrawal.
Maladaptive and depressive behaviours.
Dysfunctional social interactions.
Impaired cognitive function.

I see a tolerance for discomfort, an impulse to step outside one’s comfort zone, as closely correlated to organisational effectiveness (a.k.a. Rightshifting Index). And another reason to seek to match folks with similar tolerance levels.

Solutions?

I’m not sure even now, having experienced many instances of seeing folks stuck in their comfort zones, and the doldrums that result, that I have any answers or advice on how to deal with this, except perhaps Immelman’s:

“Strong tribal leaders have capable mentors whose psychological limits exceed their own.”
~ Ray Immelman

Oh, and talking about the topic. Maybe this post can serve your team or company as an entry point into that kind of discussion?

How about you? Are you inured to your comfort zone? Have you a story about some time when you stepped beyond that zone and found something wondrous?

– Bob

Hyper-joyful

June 13, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Management, Organisational Therapy, Product development, Psychology, Software development

7 Comments

Hyper-joyful

Seligman refers to it as “flourishing”. Ackoff as “fun and meaningfulness”. Deming (originally) as “pride”. And Rosenberg builds the whole of Nonviolent Communication on the cornerstone of “joy”.

“Management’s job is to create an environment where everybody may take joy in his work.”
~ WE Deming

“If there isn’t joy in in work, you won’t get productivity, and you won’t get quality.”
~ Russell L. Ackoff

I don’t see joy being the explicit focus of much attention in the world of software and product development (or in many other theatres of work either, for that matter). This in itself makes me feel sad, for I have a need to see folks living a full and flourishing life. And I see work – for good or ill – as a major part of life in today’s world.

“I believe that the most joyful and intrinsic motivation human beings have for taking any action is the desire to meet our needs and the needs of others.”
~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

I feel even more sad when so many of the folks I ask seem to think that joy at work is not part of the equation or of the implicit “contract” of working for an employer. Although many folks do seem to have an interest in the subject, once it’s brought to their attention.

Even Dan Pink (Drive) has little to say about joy, directly.

I believe, as did Deming, that joy in work “unleashes the power of human resource contained in intrinsic motivation”, and that doing “quality” work is the source of much of that joy.

And as a practising Organisational Therapist with an keen interest in Positive Psychology, I’d rather devote my efforts to spreading joy than to e.g. correcting deficiencies and dealing with the inevitable consequences of a lack of joy.

I’ve given this post the title “hyper-joyful” in reaction to the concept of “hyper-productivity” which I’ve seen bandied-about more and more often recently. I can’t help but feel scornful and dismissive – and yes, sad, too – every time I hear or see the term “hyper-productive”. It’s not like Agile often lives up to that aspiration, in any case. Who, in fact, can get a feel-good feeling about hyper-productivity?

“The 14 Points all have one aim: to make it possible for people to work with joy.”
~ WE Deming

Personally, I’d feel much happier if more folks talked a bit more about hyper-joyfulness – and a bit less about hyper-productivity.

How about you? Would you be willing to raise the topic of joy and joyfulness in your workplace, and with your peers?

Semper mirabilis!

– Bob

Learning to Let Go

May 1, 2013

Coaching, Dialogue, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Product development, Rightshifting, Software development

6 Comments

Learning to Let Go

I’ve just come back from six weeks in Delhi, working there with around eighty people engaged in software development – mainly coding and testing – as members of a number of different product teams located in various other geographies around the world.

This post is by way of thanks to the Delhi folks for their hospitality, generous spirit, and humanity – and for helping me (re)learn a valuable lesson.

The Lesson Relearnt

The lesson in question is: people do not learn from hearing things.

I see my present role – of which my time in Delhi was but one example – as fundamentally about inviting folks’ curiosity and interest. No more, no less. In essence I am asking the question:

“Would you be willing to examine with me – or amongst yourselves – your current views and assumptions regarding the field of software and product development?”

Whether they choose to accede to the request or not matters to me – not because I have any agenda for them, but because my needs include making meaningful connections with people, and helping folks’ life become more wonderful. Given the amount of time folks spend at work, I can think of few better opportunities to pursue my needs. If people choose not to engage with my request, I respect that choice, even though I personally see it as a lost opportunity for all concerned.

Letting Go

So, of what am I “letting go”? I’m letting go of the need to be an expert. Of the need to have answers to their problems (I don’t even know their problems, really). And of the need to tell them all about how highly-effective software and product development works. As someone who has been examining my own views and assumptions of software and product development for the best part of forty years, I’m letting go of the idea that I can help people learn and grow by simply telling them things from my own experiences. Unless they ask. And they may not know that asking me is an option.

“We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.”
~ Galileo Galilei

Some years ago, recognising the dysfunctions inherent in telling folks things, I used to withhold information unilaterally – until I thought folks were ‘ready’ to hear it, piece by piece. Having learned from e.g. Argyris, Noonan, Kline and Rosenberg, nowadays I try to make it clear that, to the extent that I have any knowledge or information that might be useful to someone, the timing and manner of its sharing can be something on which we can decide together.

I suspect this notion of self-paced ‘pulling’ of information or knowhow is pretty novel to many people. And so I suspect that many may not connect with the notion straight away. At least, not in a way that they might immediately benefit from.

Summary

In summary then, in attempting to help folks have a more wonderful life at work, I believe that if I have any part to play it’s in simply being there, with them, giving of my full attention:

“The quality of our attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking. Attention, driven by deep respect and genuine interest, and without interruption, is the key to a Thinking Environment.”
~ Nancy Kline, More Time To Think

– Bob

Intervention on People Issues is a Red Herring

February 21, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Organisational effectiveness

11 Comments

Intervention on People Issues is a Red Herring

Photo Credit: StuartWebster

In his typically assertive (cough) style, John Seddon in this video clip hits a particular nail on the head.

“Intervention on people issues is a red herring; but a popular red herring amongst Western management thinkers.”
~ John Seddon

It’s not that people don’t matter, it’s that there’s a paradox here: change the system and behaviour change comes for free. Also known as “don’t work on the 5%“.

Managers As Coaches

I’m writing this post because the implication for the trendy “managers as coaches” idea seems clear. If a manager is trying to coach a member of their staff, they’re not only “working on the 5%”, they’re also likely distracting themselves from their real job by spending less time working on the system.

“The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.”
~ Peter F. Drucker

How likely is it that coaching, whoever is doing it, is merely helping people cope better with the dysfunctions of the systems they find themselves working within? Not that an improved ability to cope with feelings of e.g. frustration, disempowerment and disengagement is without merit. But maybe that’s not what folks are looking to coaching to deliver?

Only when there’s a possibility of changing the system will coaching – specifically, coaching in how to change the system – provide any real value and meaningful change.

How often do coaches have any influence on – or recognised part to play in – such systemic change?

– Bob

Nonviolent Change

January 10, 2013

Agile, Coaching, Ethics, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Product development, Psychology, Rightshifting, Software development

11 Comments

Nonviolent Change

Change initiatives, and their generally bigger cousins “change programmes”, almost always involve fear, obligation, guilt and shame. And start from a position of coercive violence.

Here’s a typical posture I’ve seen time and again in the context of organisational change both large and small:

“The company needs to make some changes to become more profitable. We judge you, you and you to be of the right stuff for this assignment. You will work on this change effort. Here’s a list of the changes we want to see. And here’s how we insist you should go about these changes. Do things our way and you’ll be ‘right’. Anything else and you’ll be ‘wrong’. If things go well you can hope for some minor level of gratitude and/or recognition. But woe betide things going badly (veiled threats or implicit allusions to the effect that you could be punished or fired in such circumstances). Actually, however things turn out, we’ll classify you all into various shades of right or wrong. Oh, and we also insist that you feel obliged to look happy and motivated whilst doing this.”

Do you see the violence inherent in this system? Walter Wink would describe this as a “Domination System”. Marshall Rosenberg might call it a “Jackal culture”:

“In Jackal culture, feelings and wants are severely punished. People are expected to be docile, subservient to authority; slave-like in their reactions, and alienated from their feelings and needs.
“In Jackal, we expect other people to prove their loyalty to us by doing what we want.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

What’s Wrong With this Picture?

This posture inevitably provokes defensiveness, resistance, and counterattack. We often call this a “passive aggressive” response. Although outright aggression is possible, too. This posture impacts the morale and (initial) goodwill of the people chosen. It robs involvement and motivation, and induces a state of fear, insecurity and learned helplessness. Ultimately, it’s a key contributing factor to increasing the poor health of the organisation.

Yet it’s so much the norm that it’s beyond most folks’ imagination to even notice that there could be an alternative. Let’s take a look at just one viable alternative:

The Nonviolent Posture

“I guess you share some of our concerns about the future of the company. We have noticed X and Y and Z as signs that the company needs to make some changes to become more profitable. How do you feel about this? We feel concerned enough that we’d like to see a group come together to work on this. Who shares our view on this need (to become more profitable)? What need (purpose) would best align with your needs? What would you each need (request) to sign up to this group? If things go well we can all hope for things to be mutually more wonderful. If things don’t go so well, we’ll all see what we can do about it, at the appropriate time. Actually, however things turn out, are you willing to share in our choice to believe that everyone was doing their best?”

“How could this possibly work?”
“Isn’t this lunatic optimism run riot?”

These are questions which often follow as a common response to nonviolence in general, yet time and again nonviolent means have wrought unlikely (positive and beneficial) outcomes.

Aside: Note the general NVC framework in this posture: Empathy, observations, feelings, needs, requests.

In such a scenario as here described, a genuine posture of nonviolence offers the opportunity for everyone to have their needs met. And when folks have their needs met, they’re likely to feel engaged, hopeful, confident, excited and inspired, to name but a few of the positive emotions.

Of course, it’s a matter of personal belief as to whether such emotions are appropriate, and beneficial, in e.g. a business setting.

What do you believe? Which posture do you see as have more benefit? As having more chance of success? As more humane?

And under which posture would you flourish more? Which would best meet your needs?

Afterword

I chose to characterise both of the above postures in the context of an Analytic-minded organisation. This was both to make the idea more accessible to folks with that worldview, and to illustrate that even in such organisations, it doesn’t require a wholesale shift in the organisational mindset to begin using Nonviolent Communication in e.g. change initiatives.

Just for the record though, here’s the second posture recast in the context of a Synergistic-minded organisation:

“I guess we all share some concerns about the future of our company. Some folks have mentioned X and Y and Z as signs that we need to make some changes. Changes that might incidentally also help improve e.g. profitability. How do we all feel about this? I feel concerned enough to ask whether we’d like to see a group come together specifically to work on this. Who shares our view on this need (to do something, now)? What need (purpose) would best align with each of our own needs at the moment? What would folks each need (request) to sign up to this group? If things go well we can all hope for things to be mutually more wonderful. If things don’t go so well, we’ll all see what we can do about it, at the appropriate time. Maybe it’s not necessary to remind ourselves that actually, however things turn out, we choose to believe that everyone was doing their best?”

And, in a Chaordic-minded organisation, it’s highly unlikely that this conversation would ever even be necessary, as the need for change, the enrolment of people, and the whole nine yards, would be an integral part of daily business-as-usual.

– Bob

Beware Eumemics

December 31, 2012

Agile, Coaching, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

7 Comments

Beware Eumemics

Have you ever wished folks would see things more like the way you do? Of course you have. I know I have. Rosenberg might say this wish is a tragic expression of an unmet need.

In my case, most often it’s related to my need for meaningful connection. I find it that much more difficult to have meaningful connections when I’m not “on the same page” as someone else. And sometimes it’s related to my need for social justice, and seeing people realising more of their innate potential (both of which, most likely, signify deeper unmet needs).

Maybe other folks, when they experience people seeing things differently, also feel some kind of discomfort. Discomfort related to their own particular unmet needs.

I see this discomfort manifest often in the world of Agile adoptions. Where folks who “get” Agile, (or think they do) express their frustration with others who don’t “get it”. The most common form of such expression being something like:

“I wish they could just see things the way I do. We could all be so much more productive / happy / etc. if that were so.”

The Standard Response

We typically try to help others “get onto our page”, through e.g. discussion, argument, persuasion, influencing, “thought leadership” and what have you. Organisations – and society generally – seems tolerant even of coercion and compulsion as means to this end.

“Be reasonable… see things my way.”
~ Anonymous

But whence our arrogance to believe that our way of seeing the world it the “right” way? Or that there is ever even one “right way” of seeing?

“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

We could just attribute this need – to have other folks see things our way – to human nature, and move on. Or we could take a closer look, and explore some of the implications.

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”
~ George Eliot

I’m not, in this post, going to look at all the implications of influencing, cajoling or coercing others to see things our way. I’m interested today in the question of eumemics.

“Our society tends to regard as a sickness any mode of thought or behaviour that is inconvenient for the system – and this is plausible because when an individual doesn’t fit into the system it causes pain to the individual as well as problems for the system. Thus the manipulation of an individual to adjust him to the system is seen as a cure for a sickness and therefore as good.”
~ Theodore Kaczynski

What’s “eumemics”? The word derives from “eugenics” and “meme“.

Eugenics: the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.

Eumemics: the science(?) of improving a population by controlled alteration of prevailing memes to increase the occurrence of desirable behaviours, assumptions and other such belief-oriented characteristics.

Both of which definitions beg the question: desirable to whom?

We see every day folks who wish that others would see the world their way.

I’m not questioning these folks’ good intentions. Before the 1940s, few questioned the good intentions of the eugenicists. But eugenics now has few supporters.

And I certainly believe that Mankind could benefit from thinking differently.

No, I’m bothered by the implication of the seemingly widespread attitude we might label as “eumemics”.

“The 20th century suffered TWO ideologies that led to genocides. [One was Nazism.] The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn’t believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it’s not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It’s the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics [or eumemics] or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.”
~ Steven Pinker

You might like to read the article “Memetic mesmerism and Eumemics” for some more context, and food for thought.

Respect for People

Eumemics seems, to me, fundamentally at odds with the idea of respect for people. Client-centered Therapy, for example, holds that people have all they need within themselves (including, by implication, their own way of seeing things) to find their own answers.

Hence the title of this post. Expanded, this could read:

“Would you like to be on the look out for the tendency to try to direct others towards your own way of seeing things? How do you feel about being alert to the consequences – potentially both negative and positive – of such a tendency?”

I’d be delighted to hear your responses to these questions.

Afterword

It struck me while working on the idea for this post that maybe some folks might interpret the title of this blog – “Think Different” – as some kind of exhortation or attempt to influence. Personally, I see it as rather more of an invitation: “Would you like to consider the implications of thinking differently?”.

– Bob

Damning with Fulsome Praise

December 10, 2012

Coaching, Dialogue, Ethics, Leadership, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

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Damning with Fulsome Praise

Many folks write about how Positive Reinforcement is a Good Thing. Some folks use the grander (yet, smellier?) term “Appreciative Performance Remediation“.

Yet Rosenberg said

“In Nonviolent Communication, we consider praise and compliments a violent form of communication.“

I’m so much with Rosenberg on this one. Here’s a longer extract, with Rosenberg explaining the issue, from the Nonviolent Communication perspective, in some more depth:

“In NVC, we consider praise and compliments a violent form of communication. Because they are part of the language of domination, it is one passing judgment on another. What makes it more complex is that people are trained to use praise as reward, as a manipulation to get people to do what they want. For example, parents I work with, teachers, managers in industry have been trained in courses and by other people to use praise and compliments as rewards. In a family, we are taught that if you praise and compliment children daily, they are more likely to do what you want. Teachers do the same in school to get children to work more. And managers in industry are trained to do this, showing them how to use praise and compliments as rewards. To me, this is a violent form of communication because it is using language as a manipulation that destroys the beauty of sincere gratitude. So in NVC we show people to make sure that before you open your mouth to get clear that the purpose is not to manipulate a person by rewarding them. Your only purpose is to celebrate. To celebrate the life that has been enriched by what the other person has contributed to you. Then, once conscious to make clear three things in this celebration; first, what the person did that enriched your life, not a generality, like ‘your so kind, beautiful, or wonderful’ but what concretely did they do for you. Second, how do you feel inside about their action? And third, what need of yours was fulfilled inside you by their contribution?

“I had just finished saying this to a group of teachers, telling them about the dangers of using praise and complements as rewards. I showed them how to do it this other way and I must not have done a good job of explaining this because afterward, a woman came up and said, ‘You were brilliant.’ I said, ‘That is no help. I have been called a lot of names in my life some positive and some far from positive and I could never recall learning anything of value from someone telling me what I am. I don’t think anybody does but I can see by the look in your eyes you want to express gratitude.’ She said, ‘yes’ and I said, ‘I want to receive it [the gratitude] but telling me what I am doesn’t help.’ She said, ‘What do you want to hear?’ ‘What did I say in the workshop that made life more wonderful for you?’ She said, ‘You are so intelligent.’ I said, ‘That doesn’t help.’ She thought for a moment and then opened her notebook and said, ‘Here these two things that you said really made a difference.’ I said, ‘How do you feel?’ She said, ‘Hopeful and relieved.’ I said, ‘It would help me if I knew what needs of your were met.’ She said, ‘I have this 18 year old son and when we fight, it is horrible. It can go on for days. I have been needing some concrete direction and these two things have made such a difference for me.’

“When I give this example, people can see the difference between praise and gratitude and how different in value both are. In the case of celebration, you can trust it is being done with no manipulation so that you will keep doing it or say something nice about them. Instead, it is really coming from the heart. It is a sincere celebration of the exchange between two people.”

Application to Organisations

This same perspective – that praise and compliments are a violent form of communication – applies at least as much to groups as it does to individuals. And, ultimately, to organisations in toto.

Are you motivated to praise or compliment your teams? Where did you learn that? Do you have any evidence for its efficacy? How likely is it that praise is actually causing more harm than good? How would you know?

Oh yes, praise or compliments may be better than harsh words, criticism, and punishment. But how likely is it that there might be a better way?

Personally, I can imagine some folks subconsciously resenting the attempt at manipulation implicit in receiving praise or compliments.

Might it not be more likely to see folks’ needs met by taking the path of Nonviolent Communication?:

Say what you saw, or heard (a simple evaluation-free statement)
Say what you felt (it can help, initially, to pick from a list)
“I feel…”
Say what you need (again here’s a handy list)
“…because I need/value…”
Make a request (the concrete actions you would like)
“Would you be willing to…?”

The Ties that Bind

December 9, 2012

Agile, Coaching, Ethics, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

4 Comments

The Ties that Bind

Recently, I’ve been studying and practicing Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, along with the ideas of his mentor, Carl Rogers – the founder of the client-centered therapy movement. At the heart of both methods (and many other modern humanistic psychotherapies besides) is Rogers’ idea of Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR).

The idea seems simple, but I find the practise of it extremely challenging – even though the idea is quite congruent with my long-standing Theory Y disposition towards people.

This post explores the concept of UPR, and its relationship with a particular bind I have, and which I see many other folks, especially coaches, struggling with too.

The Bind

The “bind” (for many, a double bind) in question revolves around wanting to change things. In particular, the wish to change things that depend on people (other people) changing e.g. their behaviours, attitudes, assumptions or mindset.

Let’s use an example to help illustrate this general nature of this bind – animal cruelty.

When I see reports of animals, such as cats, dogs or horses, suffering through neglect, starvation, isolation, and other such travails, it makes me sad. It contradicts my need for seeing compassionate treatment for all living things. I realise this as an attachment to a moral or sentimental position, and as the Buddha said:

“Attachment leads to suffering.”
~ Siddhārtha Gautama

So in this example I feel I have at least two options:

Change myself – become more equanimous – so that I might be feel less troubled by, in this case, the actions of others as they affect “innocent” animals.
Change others – i.e. feckless owners – so that fewer animals might suffer from uncaring or otherwise intentionally or unintentionally harsh treatment.

My bind arises because I don’t much like either option. I’m not averse to changing myself, in principle, but abandoning poor defenceless animals forevermore to the whimsy of brutes seems unappealing. Yet the thought of approaching others from a position of wanting them to change, even maybe coercing them to change, however much kindness and Unconditional Positive Regard I might feign, seems at least as unappealing.

UPR – A Definition

Carl Rogers describes Unconditional Positive Regard as “a quality of a therapist’s experience towards their client”.

Unconditional
Someone experiencing UPR holds ‘no conditions of acceptance… It is at the opposite pole from a selective, evaluating attitude.’
Positive
One offers ‘warm acceptance . . . a “prizing” of the person, as Dewey has used that term…It means a caring for the client…’
Regard
One regards ‘each aspect of the client’s experience as being part of that client… It means a caring for the client, but not in a possessive way or in such a way as simply to satisfy the therapist’s own needs. It means caring for the client as a separate person, with permission to have their own feelings, their own experiences.’

Rogers noted that far from being a black-and-while, all-or-nothing experience for the therapist, UPR probably occurs sometimes (‘at many moments’) and not at other times, and to varying degrees.

Rogers theorised that the therapist’s modelling of UPR allows the client to build-up or restore their own positive self-regard.

The Bind in Mind

Moving on then from a general example of the kind of bind I have in mind, we come to my specific case, in the world of organisations. Organisations are of course made up of people. And some of those people sometimes, for their own reasons, can do things which make other folks’ lives less rich and less worth the living.

So, as in the more general example, I see “change agents”, myself included, as having at least two options:

Change myself – become more equanimous – so that I might be feel less troubled by, in this case, the actions of others as they affect their employees and co-workers. After all, I have in some sense chosen to care about this issue.
Change others – i.e. feckless managers, etc. – so that fewer folks might suffer from uncaring or otherwise intentionally or unintentionally harsh treatment.

I find option one highly unpalatable, yet I find option two reeking of judgementalism and contrary to the idea of Unconditional Positive Regard.

I’m sure I’m not the only one struggling with this question. I’m not sure even the Buddha had a good answer. Excepting perhaps:

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”
~ The Buddha

And although I have no clear answer as to the better (less worse) option, I have at least made peace with myself – and the question. The idea of Unconditional Positive Regard has helped me greatly in finding a nonviolent way forward.

So, I have chosen the path of the humanistic therapist, making myself available to those who have some wish to change themselves, but maybe feel that they need some help in tackling that, someone to walk with them on their journey.

Or more accurately, I have chosen the path of the humanistic organisational therapist, making myself available to those organisations who have some wish to change themselves, but maybe feel that they need some help in tackling that, some companion to walk with them, for a while, on their journey of improving self-regard and well-being.

in other words, and to paraphrase Gandhi:

“We can choose to model the changes we need to see in the world.”

How about you?

Do you struggle with the question of which is the best option?

Do you just let folks get on with their lives? Keep you head down and turn a blind eye to their potential sufferings? Choose to let them – or fate – sort things out?

Or do you try to help, try to get involved when e.g. injustice, ignorance, egregious self-interest or other circumstances cause folks worry, suffering and pain?

And where, if anywhere, does Unconditional Positive Regard come into that, for you?

– Bob

The Organisation’s Therapy Experience

November 9, 2012

Coaching, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

3 Comments

The Organisation’s Therapy Experience

Paired with my previous post, this post reframes Carl Rogers‘ look at the client’s experience of therapy, from the perspective of the organisation-as-client.

Note: I find it more natural to use the pronouns “we/us/ourself” to indicate the organisation – its collective consciousness – here, rather than e.g. “I/me/myself”. Even though I do not intend “we/us/ourself”, in this context, to indicate the individuals inside the organisation.

The Client

The client (i.e. the organisation as a whole), for its part, goes through far more complex sequences – which we can only make suggestions about. Perhaps the organisation’s “feelings” change over time in some of these ways:

“We’re afraid of the therapist. We want help, but we don’t know whether to trust him. He might see things which we don’t know in ourself – frightening and bad things. He says he’s not judging us, but we’re convinced he is. We can’t tell him what really concerns us – but we can tell him about some past experiences which are related to our concerns. He seems to understand those, so we can reveal a bit more of ourself.

“But now that we’ve shared with him some of this bad side of us, he despises us. We are convinced of it, but it’s strange we can find little evidence of it. Do you suppose that what we’ve told him isn’t so bad? Is it possible that we need not be ashamed of it as a part of ourself? We no longer feel that he despises us. It makes us feel that we want to go further, exploring ourself, perhaps expressing more of ourself. We find him a sort of companion as we do this – he seems really to understand.

“But now we’re getting frightened again, and this time deeply frightened. We didn’t realise that exploring the unknown recesses of ourself would make us feel feelings we’ve never experienced before. It’s very strange because in one way these aren’t new feelings. We sense that they’ve always been there. But they seem so bad and disturbing we’ve never dared to let them flow in us consciously. And now as we live these feelings in the hours with him, we feel terribly shaky, as though our world is falling apart. It used to be sure and firm. Now it is loose, permeable and vulnerable. It isn’t pleasant to feel things we’ve always been frightened to face before. It’s his fault. Yet curiously we’re eager to see him and we feel more safe when we’re working with him.

“We don’t know who we are any more, but sometimes when we feel things, we seem solid and real for a moment. We’re troubled by the contradictions we find in ourself – we act one way and feel another – we think one thing and feel another. Some of us are not on the same page, contrary to how we thought we all were. It is very disconcerting. It’s also sometimes adventurous and exhilarating to be trying to discover who we are, together. Sometimes we catch ourself feeling that perhaps the organism we are is worth being a part of, and worth being – whatever that means.

“We are beginning to find it very satisfying, though often painful, to share just what it is we’re feeling at this moment. You know, it’s really helpful to try to listen to ourself, to hear what is going on in our collective consciousness. We’re not so frightened any more of what is going on in ourself. It seems pretty trustworthy. We use some of our hours with him to dig deep into ourself to know what we are feeling. It’s scary work, but we want to know. And we do trust him most of the time, and that helps. We feel pretty vulnerable and raw, but we know he doesn’t want to hurt us, and we even believe he cares. It occurs to us as we try to let ourself down and down, deep into ourself, that maybe if we could sense what is going on in us, and could realise its meaning, we would know who we are, and we would also know what to do. At least we feel this sense of knowing sometimes, with him.

“We can even tell him just how we’re feeling toward him at any given moment and instead of this killing the relationship, as we used to fear, it seems to deepen it. Do you suppose that could be so with our feelings about other people and entities, too? Perhaps that wouldn’t be too dangerous either.

“You know, we feel as if we’re floating along on the current of life, very adventurously, being our authentic self. We get defeated sometimes, we get hurt sometimes, but we’re learning that those experiences are not fatal. We don’t know exactly who we are, but we can feel our reactions at any given moment, and they seem to work out pretty well as a basis for our behavior from moment to moment. Maybe this is what it means to be our authentic self. But of course we can only do this because we feel safe in the relationship with ourself and our therapist. Or could we be ourself this way outside of this therapy relationship? We wonder. We wonder. Perhaps we could. One day.”

– Bob

The Organisational Therapist’s Experience

November 9, 2012

Coaching, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

2 Comments

The Organisational Therapist’s Experience

Carl Rogers wrote some inspiring, insightful, beautiful prose describing the experience of individual therapy, from the perspectives of both the therapist and the client. I have here re-cast his description of the Therapist’s Experience to describe my own feelings when working with an organisation – as its organisational therapist.

The Therapist

To the therapist, this is a new venture, an new instance of relating. The therapist feels:

“Here is this other organism. I’m a little afraid of it, afraid of the depths in it as I am a little afraid of the depths in myself.

“Yet as we meet, I begin to feel a respect for it, to feel my kinship to it. I sense how blind it is to itself and its ‘feelings’, and how frightening its world is for it, how tightly it tries to gain some understanding of itself and its place. To hold onto its sense of self.

“I would like to sense this organisation’s ‘feelings’, and I would like it to know that I understand its feelings. I would like it to know that I stand with it in its tight, constricted little world, and that I can look upon its world relatively unafraid. Perhaps we can together make it seems a safer world, in time.

“I would like my feelings in this relationship, with this organisation, to be as clear and transparent as possible, so that they are a discernible reality for everyone who is part of the organisation. A discernible reality to which they – and the organisation as a whole – can return again and again. I look forward to the experience of travelling together with the organisation on its fearful journey into itself, into the buried fear, and angst, and doubt, and love which it has never been able to embrace and explore by itself.

“I recognise that this is a very human and unpredictable journey for me, as well as for them, and that I may, without even knowing my fear, shrink away within myself, from some of the feelings it discovers. To this extent I know I will be limited in my ability to help them.

“I realise that at times its own fears may make the organisation perceive me as uncaring, as rejecting, as an intruder, as one who does not understand. I want fully to accept these feelings, and yet I hope also that my own real feelings will show through so clearly that in time the organisation cannot fail to perceive them.

“Most of all I want it to encounter in me a real person. I do not need to be uneasy as to whether my own feelings are ‘therapeutic’. What I am and what I feel are good enough to be a basis for therapy, if I can transparently be what I am and what I feel in relationship to them. Then perhaps the organisation can be what it is, openly and without fear.”

You might like to see also my next post, for the organisation’s (client’s) perspective on the therapy experience.

– Bob

The Way of the Harmonious Spirit

October 8, 2012

Coaching, Dialogue, Fellowship, Organisational effectiveness

1 Comment

The Way of the Harmonious Spirit

“Aiki is not a technique to fight with or defeat an enemy. It is the way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family”
~ Morihei Ueshiba (Ōsensei)

Human Potentialities

As a coach – and a human being – I’m interested in seeing the world fully realise what some folks call “human potentialities“. In this I find I have much in common with George Leonard, and the folks at Esalen where he was President Emeritus for some years.

Mastery

Dan Pink’s work on Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose seems quite widely known nowadays, at least amongst the Agile community. Less well-known, perhaps, are some of the roots of these ideas, including the subject of Mastery. I’m eternally grateful to my one-time boss Peter Moon, a forex futures trader, ex Pink Floyd roadie and close friend of the explorer Sir Ranulf Fiennes. Peter snuck me a copy of “Mastery” when I was working with him in Battersea. In some ways it changed my life, introducing me as it did to both the ideas of George Leonard, and the world of Aikido.

“How can I describe the kind of person who is on a path to mastery? First, I don’t think it should be so dead serious. I think you should understand the joy of it, the fun of it. Being willing to see just how far you can go is the self-surpassing quality that we human beings are stuck with. Evolution is a whole long story of mastery. It’s being real. It’s being human. It’s being who we are.”
~ George Leonard, Mastery

Threads

Joy and harmony seem like unwelcome interlopers in many of our organisations, and lives, today. I feel sad to contemplate how long this has to continue before we wake up and restore them to centre stage. Joy and harmony are common threads to many of the ideas I choose to study, including Seligman’s Positive Psychology, Zen and Buddhism, Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, Ueshiba’s, Dobson’s and Leonard’s Aikido, and Scharmer’s Theory-U, to name but a few.

“For the atom’s soul is nothing but energy. Spirit blazes in the dullest of clay. The life of every woman or man – the heart of it – is pure and holy joy.”
~ George Leonard

Aikido

Many folks see martial arts as being about thumping people, e.g. violence. I can’t speak for other martial arts, but Aikido – the way of the harmonious spirit – was created by Morihei Ueshiba (Ōsensei ), in the late 1920s, as an expression of his personal philosophy of universal peace and reconciliation. Given his history, this in itself seems remarkable. At the heart of Aikido is a concern for the well-being of all, and especially of the Uke or “attacker”.

“Aikido demonstrates [Ōmoto-kyō – the philosophy of love and compassion] in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution, not only is the receiver unharmed, but so is the attacker.”

“O-Sensei’s Aikido was not a continuation and extension of the old [physical martial arts] and has a distinct discontinuity with past martial and philosophical concepts.”

Blending

Here is an excerpt on blending or the spirtual practice of love:

“What do you do when somebody pushes you?
“Over the past twenty-five years, I’ve posed this question to groups totaling more than fifty thousand people in workshop sessions, and the first answer in every case has been ‘Push back.’ I’ve heard ‘Push back,’ as a matter of fact, in four languages: English, French, German, and Spanish. From this experience, I’ve concluded that the practice of pushing back whenever pushed is ubiquitous in Western culture — and, I suspect, in other cultures as well.
“And here, of course, we’re not just talking about a physical push. It’s unlikely you’ll be pushed physically between now and this time next week. But the odds are pretty good that someone will push you verbally or psychologically. And if you’re like most people, you’re quite likely to push back verbally or psychologically. So let’s see what options you have, what outcomes you can expect, in case you do. It’s simple: You can win, you can lose, or there can be a stalemate — none of which is conductive to harmony and mutual satisfaction. If you win, somebody else has to lose. If you lose, it doesn’t feel very good. And a stalemate’s a big waste of time…

You can find the full excerpt from “The Way of Aikido: Life Lessons from an American Sensei” here.

The Road Not Taken

“At the heart of it, mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.”
~ George Leonard

If you’re looking for a point to this post, there is none, excepting maybe some pointers to some roads not (often) taken. I’d love to hear from folks who also follow such paths.

– Bob

How to Give Feedback

September 26, 2012

Agile, Coaching, Dialogue, Ethics, Organisational effectiveness, Organisational Therapy, Psychology, Rightshifting

36 Comments

How to Give Feedback

I’ve always sought feedback on my work. Not out of a need for reassurance or approbation, but out of a desire to improve. And maybe out of a need for meaningful human connection, too. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I see a lot of other folks asking for, or hoping for, feedback too – mostly with very limited success.

Setting aside the value of effective feedback for a moment – there’s been much written about this, especially in the context of reducing cycle times and shortening feedback loops in software and product development, as well as in organisational change – I’d like to share some ideas on how to give feedback.

“As more and more people learn to offer feedback…the overall dread of feedback-giving can diminish, and feedback can be restored to its fundamental function: a method for people to work together to create environments where productivity flows, where trust and goodwill flourish, and where individuals thrive.”
~ Miki Kashtan

Shortage of Feedback

I don’t get nearly as much feedback on my work as I’d like. Or even as much as I need to improve it. I used to think it was because people are unused to giving feedback, or don’t realise how valuable it can be. Or have worked themselves for so long in organisations where feedback is given so poorly that they want to avoid inflicting the same pain on others (including me).

“Knowing how painful it can be for people to hear a criticism, and how rarely feedback leads to productive conversations or satisfying change, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine that giving feedback can have beneficial consequences. ”
~ Miki Kashtan

Now, though, I’m coming round to the idea that maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s just that folks are uncertain about how to approach giving feedback. Hopefully this post can make a contribution towards testing that hypothesis – and in addressing that uncertainty, too.

The Perfection Game

For some years now, I have favoured the Perfection Game as the best format I know of by which to give and receive feedback. I commend it to you as a means to focus on the positive, and exclude or reduce negative criticisms.

But it still strikes (sic) me as coercive and violent – what we might call call “life-alienating communication” – both in its giving and its receiving. At least in the terms of Marshall Rosenberg‘s Non-violent Communication.

Non-violent Feedback

This kind of feedback is not just a small change or tweak, but a major realignment of our understanding of what it means to “give feedback”. From expressing “what we think”, to seeking to understand the feelings and needs of all concerned. This may sound like it’s turning each occasion we give feedback into a major piece of work, and it can be – at least until practice reduces the effort involved.

“If we are able to remain open to creating a solution [or improvement] together, instead of being attached to a particular outcome, others can sense that their well-being matters.”
~ Miki Kashtan

Use Positive Action Language

Express what you do want, rather than what you don’t want.

“How do you do a don’t?”
~ from a children’s song by Ruth Bebermeyer

Also, expressing your requests in terms of concrete actions can better reveal what you really want . Avoid vague, abstract or ambiguous phrases:

Ask for a Reflection

The message we send is not always the message that’s received. To be more confident that we’ve been understood when giving feedback, we can ask others – e.g. the listener – to reflect back in their own words what they heard us say. We then have the opportunity to restate parts of our message to address any discrepancies or omissions we might have noticed through their reflection. Express appreciation when your listeners try to meet your request for a reflection. And empathise with listeners who don’t want to (or can’t) reflect back.

Avoid Compliments

“Compliments are often judgements – however positive – of others.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

Rosenberg regards compliments and expressions of appreciation and praise as life-alienating communications. I share that viewpoint. Instead, he suggests we include three components in our expressions of appreciation:

The actions that have contributes to our well-being.
The particular needs of ours that have been fulfilled.
The pleasureful feelings engendered by the fulfilment of those needs.

(Non-violent Communication ~ Rosenberg p.186)

In other words, saying “Thank you” consists of sharing:

This is what you did;
This is what I feel;
This is the need of mine that was met.

Like receiving feedback effectively, receiving appreciation effectively takes some practice and skill, too:

“I kiss the Spirit in you that allows you to give me what you did.”
~ Nafez Assailey

And if you, like so many of us, crave some kind of appreciation, why not tell people what kind of appreciation would leave you jumping for joy?

How often do you go out of your way to express appreciation for someone? If receiving sincere and effective appreciation is a joyful experience for you, imagine the similar joy that your actions might bring to others.

Solicitation

When feedback is solicited, the exchange can often feel less confrontational than when “feedback” is unsolicited. Unsolicited feedback, however well intentioned, can feel more like some kind of blame, coercion, judgmentalism or personal attack.

I have seen advice to the effect that if one is not explicitly asked to provide feedback, then one should refrain. That seems to me to be avoiding the issue – maybe acceptable as a coping strategy in the face of absent or limited skills, but dysfunctional nevertheless.

Maybe we might more usefully reframe “giving effective unsolicited feedback” as “learning to more effectively express ourselves and our own feelings, needs and requests”.

Receiving Feedback

Not only is the ability to give feedback (effectively) a useful skill, receiving feedback effectively is also a useful – and similarly often under-appreciated – skill.

Do you like receiving praise? Does it stroke your ego? Can you act on it?

“Compliments are often no more than judgements – however positive – of others.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

What do you do – what CAN you do – when someone tells you something like “You’re great” or “That was fantastic”? Here’s an example:

Praiser: “Bob, that was a really good presentation.”
Me: “Thank you. But I’m not able to get as much out of your appreciation as I would like.”
Praiser: “Errm. What do you mean?”
Me: “I’ve been called many things over the years. I can’t remember ever learning much by being told what I am. I’d like to learn from your appreciation and enjoy it, but I’d need more information.”
Praiser: “What kind of information?”
Me: “First off, I’d like to know what I said or did that made life more wonderful for you?”
Praiser: “Oh. Ok. You said X. And later showed slide Y.”
Me: “So it’s those two things that you appreciate?”
Praiser: “I guess so.”
Me: “Next up, I’d like to know how you feel, consequent on those two things.”
Praiser: “Hmmm.” (Pauses, thinks) “Enthused. And enlightened.”
Me: “And now, I’d like to know what needs of yours were met by hearing and seeing X and Y?”
Praiser: “I have colleagues who always undermine my belief in the value of X. Hearing your view on X tells me I’m not completely crazy. And I never really succeeded in understanding Y until now.”

Only upon hearing all three pieces of information – what I did, how they felt about (some of) it, and what needs of theirs were fulfilled – can we then celebrate the appreciation together.

Of course, if the praiser had some skills in NVC, they might have said directly: “Bob, when you said X, and later showed slide Y, I felt enthused and enlightened, because I’ve been searching for support and encouragement with my ideas on X, and I never really understood Y until now.”

“NVC encourages us to receive appreciation with the same quality of empathy we express when listening to other messages. We hear what we have done that has contributed to others’ well-being. We hear their feelings and the needs that we fulfilled. We take into our hearts the joyous reality that we can each enhance the quality of others’ lives.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

Feedback on this Post

I would really like to hear about your viewpoint on this article, and in particular what changes (actions) I might take to improve it. This would help enrich my life through meeting my need for improvement, as well as for meaningful (human) connection. I would also value hearing about what, if anything, in this post has causes you to reflect, research more, or change your views – as this would meet my need for making a difference in the world.

– Bob

Postscript

“There’s no question that feedback may be one of the most difficult arenas to negotiate in our lives. We might choose to remember, though, that victory is not getting good feedback, avoiding giving difficult feedback, or avoiding the need for feedback. Instead it’s taking off the armor, showing up, and engaging.”
~ Brené Brown

Respect For People

September 25, 2012

Agile, Coaching, Dialogue, Ethics, Organisational Therapy, Psychology

10 Comments

Respect for People

I’m just back from a great Lean Agile Scotland 2012 conference (of which, more in a later post). I very much enjoyed presenting a session as part of the Rightshifting Fest, as well as participating in some great sessions by other folks I have come to admire.

Liz Keogh’s keynote, opening the Saturday morning, impressed me, both with the depth of its research and thoughtfulness, and the courageous choice of topic – plus setting a very appropriate tone for the Rightshifting sessions that followed.

Liz focused on “Respect” as one of the two “Pillars of the Toyota Way“. In particular I felt the etymological root of the word chimed with my own understanding of the term:

Respect – re-spect (from Latin rēspicere to look back, pay attention to, re- “back” + specere “look at”) i.e. to look again, to challenge or reconsider our initial judgement or assumption(s) about someone or something.

Even the simple notion of respect in the workplace often seems contentious, or at best a nice-to-have. Liz echoed my own feelings that much of the language of work – including much of the language of Agile – actively undermines respect, and in doing so reduces folks’ joy and engagement in their work. For knowledge-work in particular, this can be highly dysfunctional.

If I were not presently so enamoured of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC), I may well have applauded Liz’s presentation unreservedly. But I do have one reservation I’d like to explore: Judgmentalism.

Judgmentalism

Even as long ago as the era of the New Testament, Matthew cautions against the hypocrisy and censoriousness of passing judgement on one another:

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
~ Matthew 7:1-5

Setting aside the language of obligation and domination (what Rosenberg calls “Jackal language“) common to many religious texts, how does this relate to respect?

For me, implicit in the idea of respect, as Liz indicates, is the implication that we will look again. I take this to mean that a respectful position is one where we may afford ourselves the opportunity to judge again.

“[Our] judgements of others are alienated expressions of our own unmet needs.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

Personally, I would feel more comfortable to recast this as the opportunity to reject our initial (and nearly always automatic and subconscious) leap to judgement in favour of compassion (both for ourselves and the person we’re judging). This stance also seems aligned to the idea of equanimity. In other words, I share Rosenberg’s view that:

“Classifying and judging people promotes violence.”

and violence (and abuse) makes me feel both sad and angry. I believe that I have a need to see folks treated with honesty, kindness, empathy and non-violence – and judging someone, however implicit or unintentional, feels inimical to that.

What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.

Note to self: I’m still learning the ropes, here, myself, and feel a need to be more authentic, more skilful.

“The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti once remarked that observing without evaluating is the highest form of human intelligence. When I first read this statement, the thought, “What nonsense!” shot through my mind before I realized that I had just made an evaluation. For most of us, it is difficult to make observations, especially of people and their behavior, that are free of judgement, criticism, or other forms of analysis.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

If you don’t chime with my discomfort regarding the notion of judgmentalism, but would like to know more, I can but recommend Marshall Rosenberg’s book “Nonviolent Communication”.

“There’s nothing wrong (or right) with judgmentalism, but do folks understand the impact it has on their life and their way of being in the world?”

Relevance

“It is our nature to enjoy giving and receiving compassionately. We have, however, learned many forms of life-alienating communication that lead us to speak and behave in ways that injure others and ourselves. One form of life-alienating communication is the use of moralistic judgements that imply wrongness or badness on the part of those who don’t act in harmony with our values. Another is the use of comparisons, which can block compassion both for others and for ourselves. Life-alienating communication also obscures our awareness that we are each responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Communicating our desires in the form of demands is yet another characteristic of language that blocks compassion.”
~ Marshall Rosenberg

Is this nit-picking, or has the distinction between judgemental and non-judgemental respect any significance in the world of work? I’d say yes, but then, that’s why I wrote this post – to draw the distinction. Would you be willing to share how you feel about it?

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
~ Rumi

– Bob

Wolf Magic

My Omega Wolf Credo

Further Reading

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The Antimatter Principle

The Antimatter Principle

Attend To

Folks’

Needs

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Can’t Be Bothered

What is a Good Job?

Some Advice

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Health Warning

Observations

Feelings

Needs

Requests

Warning

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From Here to Eternity

What Do You Want?

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The Management Violence Inherent In The Golden Rule

So To The Platinum Question

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Coaching and Deming

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Are You Sitting Comfortably?

A Mentor Can Help

Business Partnerships

Consequences

Solutions?

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Hyper-joyful

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Learning to Let Go

The Lesson Relearnt

Letting Go

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Intervention on People Issues is a Red Herring

Photo Credit: StuartWebster

Managers As Coaches

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Nonviolent Change

What’s Wrong With this Picture?

The Nonviolent Posture

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Beware Eumemics

The Standard Response

Respect for People

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Damning with Fulsome Praise

Application to Organisations

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The Ties that Bind

The Bind

UPR – A Definition

The Bind in Mind

How about you?

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The Organisation’s Therapy Experience

The Client

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The Organisational Therapist’s Experience