Harrison Owen on assymetrical patterns

Today one of my friends invited me to read an article of Harrison Owen on Facebook. A lot to think about. He speaks about assymetrical patterns in the world and we can easily see it but what does it mean in the organizations? We know that doing more of the same is seldom the answer to solving problems we face today. So when I later read about the culture in Gothenburg where it seems that it is okey to use public money (taxes) for private affairs and where bribes are part of the normal, I started to think about what the assymetrical pattern means here. Some people want more control. Will it help? Is that only more of the same symmetrical thinking that has not helped before and will not help now. Here are some of Harrison Owen´s own writing to consider:

Supposing everything is asymmetrical? Or what would be perhaps more distressing – everything is so complex, interconnected and fast moving that even though patterns of symmetry may exist, our capacity to comprehend, and certainly control, is so limited as to be non-existent. Not only would the world be out of joint, as we perceive it, we could do little, if anything, to rectify the situation. And certainly our previous tools of the trade (planning, system design, to say nothing of the Diplomatic Code or The Rules of War) are inadequate for the task.

Why don´t go there and read the rest of it. I am still thinking.

Leadership as organizational body language

21/8 2011


What impact does leadership have on the culture of an organization? I would say – a lot! Leadership is really about body language. When we raise our children we often say that they will not learn to do as we tell them but instead they will do as we do. My experience is that it is the same with organizations. When I once worked with a political party, the chairman and I invited the local leaders to meetings. They wanted to participate because they were interested in discussing political subjects with the board. After some time the chairmen told me to convene the meetings without him because he had more important business to take care of. I did as I was told but found that many of the local leaders stopped coming. It was obvious that when the chairman was not there, it was a clear signal to the leaders that the meetings were not important, even if he told them they still were.

It is also interesting to reflect on what it means when leaders say that their staff is their greatest asset and when the times get tough they choose to cut the resources for competence development before cutting the recourses for offices or equipment. And what impact does it have that paying staff is considered a cost but buying equipment or buildings is seen as investment?

When a leader wants to create a certain culture, everything needs to be taken into consideration, even such things as the headlines in the budget. It must be possible to put the resources for training and education on the account for investment. To do that would really be to change some of the body language of an organization.

 

Resonant energy fields

Today I read the posting of Birgitt Williams, Dalar International Consultancy, on her blog Genuine Contact Way. She writes about whether the energy fields of facilitators are affecting the meetings they are facilitating. Her discussion is specifically about facilitators of Open Space Technology meetings. I think the discussion could be about any facilitator and/or leader and how their energy field affects their environment and the results in a meeting and workplace.

I imagine that many of you have experienced a time when you entered a room and immediately got a sense of the climate in that room. I remember very well when I was elected to the church board and thought it would be a very nice experience. When I entered the room to participate in my first meeting, it was like walking into a solid wall of antagonism. I later found out that some people in that room disliked each other so much that they could hardly bear to be together in the meeting. Of course this energy field affected the whole meeting and the results of it. There were constant misunderstandings and problems to come to agreements.

We are all energy field generators. When we are in a position as a leader/facilitator we might have more space where the energy field could extend. If the leader/facilitator wants to achieve positive results, the energy field needs to be resonant. A resonant energy field is vibrating at a frequency that is harmonious, which means that it is a natural vibration that takes little effort to sustain. Our energy field is made up of emotions and thoughts among other things. To be able to generate resonant energy fields, we could do our homework with self towards a state of positive loving thoughts and allowing the emotions to guide us without dominating us.

The energy fields of the leaders are often influencing the workplace more than that of the co-workers. So when the leaders want to change the culture of their organization, they also have to attend to their own energy field and then generate the energy they want to have in their organization. Easy said, not so easy done. In every workshop with Birgitt Williams, where I have participated, and they are quite a few, she usually tell the participants that this is homework for tomorrow but the rest is homework for a lifetime.

Do you like the resonant energy field generator below? Beautiful, isn´t it?

Purpose

Every organization has a purpose, an answer to WHY the organization was born. The purpose could be seen as the core or foundation for the organization and a large part of its identity. It doesn´t matter if the organization is a community, a family or a business. There is always a purpose, even if no one talks about it. Do you know why your organization was born?

The purpose forms the organization together with the assumptions from those people who were in the organization from start. An example: if the purpose is to make money for its owners and there is an assumption that some people are less worth than others, the business could be to sell slaves or transport refugees from one continent to another in poor ships. If the purpose is to make money for its owners and the assumption is that nature is important, the business could be to work with ecotourism. So even with a similar purpose, the form it takes depends on the assumptions around it. Now, most organizations have other purposes than to make money. Making money and also allocating other recourses is a requirement to be able to achieve the purpose of the organization.

When the purpose is never discussed, the people in the organization sometimes make up their own picture of what the purpose is and why they are there. In that case the organization could end up with many different purposes, that allows people to go in different directions and disagree on how the work should be done. With diverse visions it is natural that there are disagreements on the strategies that will lead to reaching the vision. It could really create a mess.

The purpose is an important component of an organizations identity. Sheila Margolis, Core InSites inc. and Carol D Hansen, Georgia State University, have in a study discovered how the central purpose and distinctive philosophy constitute the organizational identity. Priorities and practices are also attributes of the identity but could be changed without losing the distinctive and enduring essence of the organization. Relating to this, when people are unsure about the purpose of their organization it will have an impact on the organizational identity. According to Mary Jo Hatch, University of Virginia and Majken Schultz, Copenhagen Business School, this also affects the employee´s sense of belonging and level of commitment, their relationship with the organization.

So when the organization looses its focus of the purpose with which it was started, it not only could move in different directions, which is a fast way to disperse its recourses and the energy of its people. It could also mean that the identity of the organization, its image of self, is scattered and thereby its reputation. So let´s start to talk about purpose!

From the Genuine Contact© program,  created by Dalar International Consultancy.

Reason for meetings

What is the reason for having meetings? You might find the question funny or even stupid. Why ask when meetings are a standard component of the everyday work in most organizations. But what are they for? Why do we have these meetings? There could be a large cost connected with the meeting. Often there is paperwork to be done before, there is the cost for the room, for coffee and of course for the payment to the participants. Sometimes there has to be extra staff hired to do work instead of those participating in the meeting. When people are in a meeting they are only an expense and are not generating any revenues - or are they?


I regard meetings to be an important work component, where information is exchanged, creative ideas are developed, plans and strategies are made and learning happens. But it all depends on how the meeting is designed so therefore my question: what is the reason for having the meeting? A few days ago I discussed the effect of inspirational lectures. For some they are great and they learn a lot. For many of us they are a nice break in the ordinary day but are forgotten as soon as we leave the room. This is because the lectures are not designed to attend to the different learning styles people have. It is the same with many meetings where the chairmen or chairwoman says they want people to participate in the creation of plans or strategies. I have been to so many political meetings where the participants are invited to be come up with creative solutions and to make well informed decisions, without having the opportunity to really learn about the content. The meetings were designed only for one-sided information. Sometimes I think about how much better the communities would work if the community board dared to design their meetings differently.

Most board meetings in the communities, at least in Sweden, are still designed for an era when only men were in charge and thus formed by the masculine way of speaking. Now, both women and men have masculine and feminine ways of speaking even if men tend to speak in a more masculine way than women, but it varies depending on the individual. The masculine way of speaking is more of a competition where subject is switched often and abrupt and the acknowledgement of each other´s speech is made through repeating what the previous speaker has said. The female way of speaking is more of a weaving together different subjects. The acknowledgement is made through nodding and humming or speaking together at the end of sentences, while being careful not to push the speaker into a corner. Maybe this is why men sometimes think a woman agrees, when she in fact only wants to encourage him to go on talking.

There are many participative meeting designs out there but if you don´t know what you want from investing in meetings, it is difficult to chose one that will give you the results you wish for. So I think, the question is relevant, what is the reason for having meetings?

This picture was borrowed so long ago that I lost track on who sent it to me first but I still would like to acknowledge the wisdom behind it.

Change

I am sure you have heard Mahatma Ghandi´s well known words: “You have to be the change you want to see in the world”. I relate those to the sentence “Walk your talk”. Sustainable changes in an organization requires that the leaders are part of the changes. As Birgitt Williams says in the Genuine Contact Way e-book, http://www.genuinecontactway.com/ : “A shift in consciousness of an organization is dependent on a shift in consciousness of the individuals who make up the organization.”

So if you as a leader are serious about shifting the organizational culture, you have to start with yourself. Angeles Arrien in her The Four-Fold Way, tells us about the principles of leadership. The first principle is to show up and be present. It means to be who you are without being disguised or playing a role. It means being a role model, leading the way. It is about being courageous. Again using the words from Birgitt Williams: “Courageous living is what we are asked to embrace.”

Actually we are all part of a change process – all the time. Change is the only thing we can be sure of. It is very interesting when people say it would have been better if Sweden never became part of the European Union, because we knew what we had but were not sure what we would get. I believe we can never be sure of what we will get, union or not. The clue is to be able to handle change, to know how to stay in balance in the middle of it and also to learn how to make the most of the opportunities it brings. Because it does!

The opportunities that come with change, can go by quickly so one challenge is to have an organizational culture that allows for self-organizing, for people to make their own decisions and grasp the opportunities without having to go back to the leaders every time. And this requires trust – a valuable asset that comes from the leaders trusting their people. Which might or might not require a shift in consciousness.

Organizational Body Language

Have you ever thought about body language of an organization? We often say that body language can tell more than thousand words. When someone talks to you, you might feel something is not matching the words. Their body language is saying something else than what comes out from their mouth. Our human body language consists of how we move our physical body when communicating with other people. In a discussion it shows the other person if we understand, if we are interested and if we are really present. Clothes, jewelries, haircut and makeup could also be part of the body language since they say something about how we understand ourselves.

The body language of an organization also consists of physical things that tell us something about how they see themselves and the values they work from. It contains houses, offices, furniture, pictures etc. A large jacaranda table breaths prosperity and power. An open landscape could say that “we have no secrets here”. It could also say “we want to see that you are really working all the time”.

That the organizational body language consists of principles, protocols, control systems and unwritten rules might be quite obvious, but it also consists of the way they arrange their furniture, the way they hold their meetings and how they handle their budget. When an organization say “our staff is our greatest asset” and then put in a new control system and cut the budget for training, do you believe them? It is a little bit like when you tell your teenager that he is doing fine, with your arms crossed over your chest, a raised eyebrow and tapping your foot. He knows for sure that he has done something you don´t like.

Walk your talk is as important for organizations as it is for us human beings. Our body language will show when we do as we say. We will be calm, grounded and successful in achieving our goals. Most of all, our honesty will allow people around us to use all their wisdom and be the person they truly are.

              What does this placement of the chairs tell you about what the sponsors want with their meeting?

Culture in organisations

Many articles in the newspapers lately talk about people´s behaviour at work. Some days ago a professor in psychology said that people behave as they are taught by the culture in their workplace. So true!

One example: In one of the Swedish communities, Mark, just east of Gothenburg, there has been issues about their way to handle fosterchildren. They have been accused for doing inferior research and not take the perspective of the children into consideration. It created headlines some year ago and now they have done it again. The first time both the politicians and the officer resigned. It seemed people thought this was the end of the problem, but they did not do anything to the real problem - the culture in their organization. So it happened again.

The same thing happens when people get outburnt. Most of the time this is caused by the organizational culture or climate, sometimes in combination with personal patterns. The culture affects everyone in it and creates certain patterns. The person on sickleave gets rehabilitated and sent back to their old job, only to get sick again. Who rehabilitates the organization?

It would be interesting to learn how many organizations that consciously works with their culture in order to create healthy and positive patterns among their people. If you are working in such an organization or leading one, please share what you are doing. If you would like to work in a consciously learning organization, let´s discuss what it takes to get there.

Water of life, 

tiny drops and an ocean,

irresistable force when flowing in the same direction