Learning from reality

One of the things I enjoyed about the Futures programme at Newcastle last week was the fact that the participants were asked to engage with serious current strategic issues facing the University, and come up with suggestions, which were taken seriously (and indeed valued) by the Faculty PVCs.

This, of course, is an excellent way of getting people to learn both about the specific strategic issues, but also to understand the nature of (some of) the work of the University Executive Board.

It was extremely interesting and challenging, and the Faculty PVCs were happy to share both sensitive data and their own thinking, which made for a very rich and stimulating session.

I'd love to tell you more about the content of the discussion, but as it was confidential and potentially sensitive, I can't do so.

That fact, too - sharing sensitive data and the trust implicit in that - is also very conducive to creating a good environment for learning.  Trusting people builds both trust and confidence, which makes honest discussion very much easier.

So an excellent day, and kudos to Profs Charles Harvey and Chris Day for their approach and contributions.

As a general point, it is very powerful to foster learning about leadership and management by getting people to engage with real issues and deal with them as the leadership team would have to; teaching them what we know is easier but possibly dated; getting them to help with what we don't know, what we are grappling with, is possibly riskier, but certainly very valuable.

Stuck for a Present? - A Thought for Christmas

In the run-up to Christmas, a friend introduced me to Kiva.

Kiva is an organisation that enables people to make loans to those in the developing world who need capital to start or develop some means of becoming self-sufficient.  So you can go to their site, look at projects, and decide whether you want to support the expansion of a farm, or the purchase of a goat…

Over time, the loan is repaid, at which point you can reclaim your money, reinvest it in another project, or make it a donation.

You can start with a very small amount, to get the feel of it ($30, I think). Then, of course, you can expand your portfolio...

So this year, following a friend's example, we are giving each of the children a Kiva voucher. They can then choose which projects they wish to support, and watch their progress over time.

I envisage we will repeat this every Christmas, so over the years they will end up with a portfolio of several projects they have supported - and also with an appreciation of how much good relatively small amounts of spare cash can do to people much less fortunate than themselves: so it is a present which educates as well.

So if you are stuck for a present, I commend Kiva to you (and even if you are not…)

A note of thanks

In the New Year, I will be running a large Open Space event for a client, who has never experienced one before.

 

Until a year or so ago, I had not run one.  But I have done several in the interim, thanks to a client who had experienced one and took the risk of commissioning me to run one with him - and then several more, as it was so successful.

Reflecting on that, I realised that it is something of a pattern. Over the 25 years I have worked as a freelance consultant, I have changed and developed what I do significantly - and frequently I have been supported by a client who understands that I want to try something new, and is prepared to take the risk of allowing me to do it with his or her people.

That is true of coaching, of many of the consultancy projects I have done, and of new workshops or approaches to team development that I have undertaken.

So I am extremely grateful to all my clients, past and present, who have been willing to take that risk, and trust me to try something out for the first time.

And the approach of Christmas feels like the right time to put my gratitude on the record, and to say thank you.

Anti Hero as Leader

I was sent a link to this report about Anti-Heroes by Professor Gerry Docherty, formerly of Newcastle University (UK) and now of Griffith University in Australia.

Gerry in many ways exemplifies the style of leadership articulated in this report, which, I think, is why many of us value, respect and admire him.  I hope that his style and qualities are likewise recognised at his new University and that he flourishes there.

The thesis of the report - which is well worth reading in full - is that the new realities of the world require, in many roles, a new style of leadership, quite different from the types of leadership which have been effective in the past, and indeed remain effective, in some circumstances, in the present.

The traditional style of leadership is characterised as:

• Clear thinking
• Self-Confident
• Expert
• Charismatic

These are undoubted strengths in some situations, but such leaders are also prone to the following flaws:

• Un-empathetic
• Over-confident and opinionated
• Inflexible 
• In denial of uncertainty.

The Anti Hero, by contrast, is characterised by the following traits, which are typically less valued by organisations :

• Empathy
• Humility
• Flexibility
• Acknowledgement of uncertainty
• Self-awareness.

These characteristics suggest that the Anti Hero is better at:

• Adapting to new circumstances
• Drawing upon all the relevant information
• Building diverse relationships
• Understanding other people

Anti Heroes also have their typical flaws, which include:

• Complicated communications
• Slower decision making

The report explores when each of these approaches might be of most use, and also has several case studies to put the flesh on the bones of this analysis.

It is more polemic and exploratory than academic in tone, so I would see it as a provocation to thought and reflection rather than an authoritative piece of research. But it resonates with both my prejudices and my experience, so I commend it to you on that basis.

Reflecting on all this in the light of the recent death of Nelson Mandela prompts some further thoughts.

Perhaps he was truly great because he combined characteristics of both types, without any seeming conflict or contradiction within himself.

For who could deny that he was clear-thinking, self-confident and charismatic? Yet he also demonstrated empathy, humility, flexibility and self-awareness to an extraordinary degree as well.  So perhaps the two types are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But I suspect such fusion is rare: which is why a leader of the stature of Mandela is also rare.

Best predictor of group effectiveness?

As I have remarked before, it is always pleasing to come across research that matches and validates one's own beliefs and values.

In this case, it is an article by Adam Grant in the McKinsey Quarterly, called Givers take all: The hidden dimension of corporate culture.  In it, Grant argues that the single strongest predictor of group effectiveness is the amount of help that people give to each other.

Note that this is not just about individuals being prepared to offer help, but also for that help to be accepted: that is to say, it is about a culture in which people are both generous and open with their time and their skills, but also have sufficient humility to recognise that they need help.

He explores not only why this might be the case, but also how to go about developing such a culture, and cites many examples, including the intriguing Reciprocity Ring exercise, with which I shall experiment (watch this space).

I won't summarise the whole thing here: it is worth reading in full - not least for the wonderful example with which Grant concludes his piece. I have no doubt the book, on which the article is based, would be worth reading, too.


As a Christian (work in progress) I have long thought about the relationship between virtues and leadership (and organisational behaviour more generally). 

I think one could draw up a remarkably robust set of corporate values based on the virtues: faith, hope, charity; justice, fortitude, prudence and temperance.  

So I am delighted to see that work like this validates such things as charity and indeed humility. Understanding the value of virtues is one thing; putting them into practice is, of course, another and more difficult challenge.  But as Grant points out, in his final paragraph, walking the talk is essential (or as one team I worked with put it: we may not always walk the talk, but be do try to stumble the mumble.)

Are trainers particularly gullible?

At an event recently, I made a disparaging remark about NLP.  An academic who was present agreed, suggesting that all the claims of NLP, when subjected to proper research, were proved to be spurious, or at best unproven or unprovable.

I thought he was over-stating it, and mentioned the eye access cues: something I have found interesting and have frequently observed.

A quick search on Google brings up many versions of this chart: interestingly, if you add the filter 'free for re-use' they all disappear (something I will come back to) so I drew my own.

The academic who had queried all NLP said he thought this was bogus too, something I was slow to believe, because I had observed it.  I even asked a 'visual'  question of the group and noticed the eyes of the chap nearest me going up and to the side as expected. 

Subsequently, my academic nemesis pointed me at research that calls this into question.  And there is much, much more. It seems that while some peoples' eyes move when they are asked a question, it is by no means universal, and there is no consistent pattern.  IE there are enough examples to make the gullible (such as me) believe the chart, not least due to confirmation bias, but the hypothesis does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

The same seems to be true of most other tenets of NLP. Wikipedia carries a long,  and well-referenced, article describing the various aspects that have been unsupported when subjected to scientific scrutiny.  Wikipedia also notes that there is nothing to stop anyone branding him- or herself as an NLP Master Practitioner (though you will gather that I will not be doing so.)

Which raises some interesting questions: given that NLP is, to say the least, an unproven technique, why are so many trainers so keen to be initiated into it?  And given that my outlook on it is sceptical, why was I still so quick to believe the 'eye access cues' claims? Are trainers, in general, particularly gullible?

And it is not just NLP.  I have blogged before about the much repeated (by trainers) 'research' that 'proves' that verbal communication is responsible for only 7% of the meaning we receive (the rest being voice (38%) and body language (55%).  Clearly bunkum, but passed on from trainer to trainer with all the authority of the Verbal Tradition…

And then there are all the various pseudo-psychometric instruments of varying validity; with even those that benefit from some statistical evidence base (such as MBTI) being wildly mis-represented and over-sold.

I thing there are a few considerations that might lead trainers, as an occupational group, to be more prone to such fads than the average person.  

One is the need to have something to offer. Of course, there are things that we can learn from research which may be of help to those we are seeking to serve: the Harvard work on Principled Negotiation would be a good example. But very often the best work I do in the realm of interpersonal skills training is to help people with issues like self-awareness, reflection and experimentation: that is, people construct their own highly personal learning, rather than my teaching them anything.

A second consideration might be the fact that trainers, by and large, are optimistic by temperament. Clearly that is likely to be valuable in a profession that seeks to bring the best out of everyone; but it may incline us more to credulity.

A third is the need to feel professionally qualified and up-to-date.  Certification in various methodologies is reassuring, and may help convince clients or potential clients that one really does have something to offer.

Related to that is the fear of being left behind: if everyone else is getting qualified in {whatever it may be} then I probably should too.

I think there is something else going on, too.  There is something very appealing about being one of the initiated: I think NLP really trades on this - indeed someone recently described it to me as a giant pyramid selling scam, and I think there is some accuracy in that description. I particularly dislike the labelling Master Practitioner etc. and the amazing amount of money demanded by many of the big NLP organisations to train and qualify people in such an unverified (to be kind) approach.  I do not think it a coincidence that every version of the eye access cue chart that Google threw up was copyright.

But I remain embarrassed at my own gullibility, having thought I was above such credulity.

When less is more...

It is always fun when one stumbles across research which supports one's own existing hypotheses (or indeed prejudices).  So I was delighted to find a piece or work (courtesy a blogpost on the excellent Harvard Business Review site) which suggests that leaders who talk too much get poorer results from their teams.

The thesis is that leaders who feel powerful tend to dominate (verbally) their teams; that encourages team members to believe that their ideas and contributions are not valued, and the result is poorer team performance.


Call it confirmation bias, but I certainly think I have witnessed this.  And by the same token, some of the leaders I admire the most, and who seem to me to get the best results from people working with them, are precisely those who go out of their way to demonstrate their genuine interest in the ideas of others, and recognise (and counter-act) the power dynamics that make it less likely that people will be truly open and honest in talking with them.

The full article may be found here: and it is well worth a read.  I do not agree with all their hypotheses.  Also I question some of the underlying assumptions. For example, they hypothesise that when leaders are reminded of team members' instrumentality [that is, usefulness to them in accomplishing goals] their tendency to dominate will be restrained, which seems to me to ignore the power of habit. The fact that the experiments were conducted using subjects who do not usually work together might not show this: but a leader who has dominated for years might need more than a 'reminder' of others' instrumentality to help him or her to modify behaviour… (In fairness, the article does recognise this and other limitations implied by their methodology).

(I also deprecate some of their language: 'to summit' as a verb is a new one on me - but I am told that there is no noun that can't be verbed!)

But it is all fascinating and thought-provoking stuff - and the overall message concurs with my prejudices, so is clearly true!

Interestingly, this also resonates with my interest in rhetoric: one of the points I should have made in my previous post is that brevity is often a hall mark of the effective influencer.