Too many leaders make fast (and wrong) decisions in the face of disagreement. They trust their own thinking, and then justify their decision based on what they interpret as positive results. Yet they fail to consider the cost of rejecting an opposing view that would have led to a different decision or additional insight. I recently learned this firsthand: The story starts two years ago, when in a moment of weakness my wife gave me a helmet for my birthday and permission to buy a scooter. As most men might predict, after 15 months I required an upgrade. A friend was leaving the country, and needed to sell his four motorcycles (it seems you can’t have just one). After a brief email exchange, I bought his biggest, heaviest, and most purple cruising bike. I bought it sight unseen AND sound unheard. The first time I cranked the beast I was shocked. It didn’t purr as expected. Rather, it started with an apocalyptic blast, and then settled in to an endless series of deafening explosions. My friend called this “running smoothly.” He drove it first and I could still hear him 9 blocks later. As I waited, disheartened, I reviewed my
When I wasn’t quaking in my waterproof shoes walking across a swaying footbridge high above a lush rainforest in Costa Rica, I was listening intently as our guide described the complex eco-system of the forest. Jose told incredible stories about how plants, animals and even the atmosphere compete and cooperate to sustain the delicate balance of life in the forest. One story in particular stood out, perhaps because of its sobering relevance to my own practice as a facilitator of organizational change. When the Hanging Bridges tour was opened, well-meaning guides were motivated to provide visitors with a memorable experience. Specifically, people wanted to see wildlife and especially, monkeys. Yet a rainforest is not a zoo. Monkeys and other fauna are not just hanging around waiting to entertain us; they have other priorities. So in order to satisfy tourists’ desire to see wildlife, guides inconspicuously dropped banana pieces on the trail, which monkeys found irresistible (just to be clear, bananas are not a natural food for monkeys regardless of how many Curious George books you have read). Here is what happened when pregnant monkeys ate the bananas – the high level of potassium in the bananas led their fetuses to
Recently, some friends in Asheville, NC introduced me to the River Arts District where I discovered an unexpected nugget of wisdom. Here, amid a collection of art studios down by the French Broad River, I had an encounter with a prolific, internationally known painter at his studio / gallery. He was preparing to take the stage to demonstrate his craft. He chatted with a few members of the audience as he set up. “What are you going to paint today?” asked one. Without batting an eye, the artist confidently replied “I don’t know.” I don’t know. Too often, this thought stops me in my tracks. Like many of my clients, it is easy for me to convince myself that I’m being paid as an expert; or, if they are bosses, to always have the answer. Admitting I don’t know is something we’ve learned should be avoided because it brings up feelings of inadequacy and incompetence. Yet for this artist, I don’t know had unusual meaning and power. It expressed his openness to creativity and to collaborating with his brushes, paints, and canvas. He was constrained neither by self-criticism nor by expectations of pre-ordained results. He was not made weak by
We cannot help be but who we are. This hit home recently when I reviewed a 360-degree feedback report with the new president of a high tech company. Catherine’s vice-presidents viewed her as a passionate, brilliant, credible yet compassionate leader – a rare and wonderful person and executive. Yet she was also perceived as a self-righteous, opinionated micro-manager, who communicated emphatically and quickly that she was always right. Maybe not so good… I thought we were making progress after an hour or so of wrestling around the issues, and finally getting beyond her self-justifications. All of a sudden one of the verbatim comments from the feedback report caught her eye and she said, “I vehemently disagree with this. How can he say I’m not 100% committed to the company because of my external board participation? It’s important that we are represented in the community, blah blah…” Her comment stopped me cold, and I re-stated what she said – “you vehemently disagree?” I asked. “Catherine, couldn’t you just disagree regular, without the vehemence?” She stared at me for a moment, and started to crack up laughing, at which point so did I. The moment encapsulated for her more than any other
In a recent leadership development workshop, our participants were contrasting how much time they spend these days collaborating across functions on complex issues vs. earlier in their careers. As the group worked to define what collaboration today really means, one of the participants blurted: “For the first 25 years of my life, including getting my graduate engineering degree, if I did the things that you are calling “collaboration,” my teachers would refer to it as “cheating!” As this comment illustrates, true collaboration sometimes runs counter to our mind-sets, habits, and even training. In our consulting partnership, we have been learning about, and teaching how to overcome the challenges of true collaboration for a long time. It is in this spirit that we are committing to our new blog, the primary purpose of which is to collaborate with each other and with our readers to develop unique insights in several areas we work in and are passionate about: organizational, team and individual leadership development, to name a few. We have been in partnership for 13 years and spend much of our time operating from individual offices, navigating lonely airports, and working independently. So the secondary purpose of this blog, the selfish
Last April we received an intriguing call from the Deputy Director of one of the world’s largest professional Societies.. “Do you remember 5 years ago, at the end of our conference in Dallas, when we all felt we accomplished something very special that we had been trying to do for years?” she said, “Well, we need to do it again, and the stakes are even higher”. Back then we had helped plan and execute an organizational change strategy that culminated in what they now refer to as a “watershed event’ — 140 engineers representing 8 different working Boards came together to create a radical change in their Organization’s strategy and structure. The conference built a consensus that at the time no one believed was possible. This time they wanted all the Boards and Committees that worked on different technical issues and didn’t know each other, to learn about each other’s work, find ways to collaborate, and create the foundation of the overall strategic plan. And this meeting, which we facilitated in San Diego last month, led to comments like. “I’ll never forget Dallas, but San Diego was really amazing.” Over the last 13 years, we’ve learned a lot about how
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