Support Systems: #8 of Eight Disciplines for Planned Change

SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Joan Baez sang, “No man is an island, no man stands alone,” echoing John Donne’s “No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” There is fundamental truth in these powerful quotes, yet our Western culture has deeply socialized us into believing in a tacit philosophy of individualism and its attendant value on independence—as if there were such a thing. A belief closer to reality is that there is little or nothing of any significance that a single person has or can accomplish alone! When I offer this idea during one of my programs, I often get a question like, “What about an individual competitor like Usain Bolt?” He certainly runs (and wins!) his races alone. But could he have accomplished what he has without the support of several coaches, training partners, a manager, and parents who travel with him? I don’t think so. I generally view myself as a Lone Ranger; however, I don’t need to think very hard to identify the hosts that have been important to success. So today we explore support systems in two related flavors.

Critical Mass Support Systems

A systemic planned change effort will succeed when the support for that change reaches critical mass among the members of that system. The success of your planned change efforts depends on our ability to develop empowering partnerships across a full range of differences using the infinite perspective of power. This is the very essence of the work of effective leaders and organization development practitioners. Of course, coaching leaders, bridging communications gaps, managing conflict, developing accountability, and facilitating groups are a part of the process of building a support system to critical mass!

Personal Support Systems

The doingness of “coaching leaders, bridging communications gaps, managing conflict, etc.” requires conscious use of self, systems thinking, sound and current data, and the five other disciplines that this series has been exploring. However, applying eight disciplines to all of the tasks of managing change can be daunting. Those who choose to take on this task must develop strong personal support systems. I know that I cannot be trusted to consistently use myself effectively, to seek sound and current data rather than trust my assumptions and interpretations. Likewise, under a bit of stress I all too easily engage in win/lose power dynamics when curiosity would serve me better. Accordingly, my personal support system recruited from among friends, clients and students alike has the job of reminding me that I can get off automatic and become effective again when such is needed. They often need to be persistent when I become defensive, and they do because I’ve asked them to. Our personal support system needs to have a balance of comrades who share my concerns, friends who will console me, challengers who will challenge me, and role models whom I can follow. With such a support system conscious use of self and the other disciplines move within me toward deeper competence.

Change in human systems is never created alone. Support systems are required. An initial support system might be one or two confidants. This small informal group might evolve into a larger group willing to take direct action and contribute to the critical mass that is crucial to success. We cannot manage systemic change—or ourselves—alone. Develop support systems to help you strategize and operationalize your change strategy and to support you in using yourself effectively.

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Infinite Power: #5 of Eight Disciplines for Planned Change

INFINITE POWER

Traditional change management approaches often call for identifying the person or people who are not in accord with a change project and fixing or replacing them with people who are. This process typically leads to a series of finite, win/lose power struggles that change little and waste much systemic energy on non-productive activities. Noting that win/lose processes will, in the long run, always generate lose/lose results, an alternative approach would be to focus on infinite, win/win change goals and strategies.

An important aspect of playing infinitely is to focus on changing the quality of relationships within the target system rather than trying to change or fix members who do not seem in accord with a proposed change. This is directly related to the processes of conflict management and team-building mentioned in previous sections.

Focusing on changing the quality of relationships rather than trying to fix or change people or groups of people minimizes the need for power struggles. When open, collaborative decision-making processes are used, most individual needs can be met while focusing on developing strategies and tactics aimed at the change goals.

I remember a situation in a high-value, light manufacturing company. The head of manufacturing was upset with the head of sales for bringing in an order that she couldn’t fulfill by the date promised with the personnel to which she was limited by a budget crunch. The sales manager insisted that that was what the customer wanted and that he was under pressure to increase revenue flow. Their boss, the general manager, gave me the job of helping them resolve their issues. I asked the boss if either of the constraints could be eased. He said, “No,” very politely, but firmly. I interviewed both parties to help get them into a listening mode by my listening extensively to them, so that both were feeling heard before meeting together. It took awhile for them to get past their self-righteousness and figure out that if they worked together they could short-circuit the issues they had with each other. The detail of “working together” was interesting: They decided to do monthly forecasts together and that a manufacturing representative would go along on customer meetings involving potential sales over a certain amount. Yes, it took three hours including lunch to work all of this out, and we created a process through which both could win in addition to the organization winning! With persistence, patience, and enough passion, infinite solutions are most always available!

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CHOICE POINTS FOR CONSCIOUS USE OF SELF–PART 2

Click here to read part 1 from last week

Sometimes choosing different behavior is all we need. Other times we know what we should do, but find ourselves not following through.

Imagine that my team has told me to stop accepting conflictual behavior and start holding folks accountable for improving productivity—which I had previously agreed to do, but never did. To change my problematic behavior I need to notice what emotions and thoughts come up when an opportunity to follow-through arises. I notice that I become anxious when I think about disciplining a member of my team. When I ask myself what I’m anxious about, I realize that I’m afraid of being thought of as unfair and that I won’t be liked anymore. Hmm, interesting! Why don’t I just choose to stop feeling anxious and get on with what I know I need to do?

Most of us know that is easier said than done. I might have better success choosing to change my thought process to one that tells me that if I don’t start holding my folks accountable that I could lose my job. That could work. But, it leaves me in a state of conflict with myself—I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. What a mess. More stress.

Instead, I can ask myself: On what beliefs are my thoughts based? As I look to see what they might be I notice a series of related beliefs:

1. I must be liked to feel good about myself.
2. To be liked I must be seen as fair.
3. The perceptions of other people are more important than my perception of myself.

I believe those things because that’s how my world worked when I was a kid. When my parents seemed to like me they did things that I liked. And, they always seemed unhappy with me when they told me I was being unfair even when I didn’t think I was being unfair. Now I ask myself: How applicable and/or useful are those beliefs to my current situation and goals? The answer, of course, is not very.

This gives me the opportunity to consciously and intentionally choose a set of beliefs that are based on the sound and current data of the present where I am an adult, not a child. I can choose to believe that holding my team members accountable for working with each other supportively will result in increased productivity! And a more pleasant working environment will increase their respect for me. And, if they respect me more they will even like me more.

Besides, my self-esteem need not be dependent on their liking me. I can choose to approve of myself rather than depend solely on others approving of me.

In summary:

Behavior (Action) is driven by our emotions – our vehicle of motivation. What we don’t care about, we don’t do. The caring might be in the form of joy, anger, fear, or love. They are all emotions without which we do much of nothing.

Emotions are driven by our thoughts, which we use to make meaning of the events in which we are involved. The meaning we make may not or may reflect the actual nature of the event depending on our automatic interpretations and assumptions. Often our interpretations and assumptions sufficiently match sound and current data and are useful. However, in situations that are important to us do we want to trust “often?”

Thoughts are driven by our beliefs. If I believe that my thoughts (including the meaning that I make of an event) reflect the actuality without the need for further checking, I increase the probability of having my emotional response and subsequent behavior be off target. Of course, with such a belief we will also believe that our being off target is not our fault but is that of somebody or something else.

Beliefs are based on a combination of what we’ve learned from past experience, what we’ve been socialized to believe by our caretakers, teachers, friends, and society in general, plus whatever we invent as truth. A highly problematic belief is that they (my beliefs) represent the reality of the present. Such a belief will effectively prevent the taking in or use of sound and current data.

Each of our behaviors, emotions, thoughts, and beliefs is a choice point reflecting a level of possible mastery of conscious use of self. Mastery at the level of behavior—where our emotions, thoughts, and beliefs may be incongruent with our behavior—is a general (though often misplaced) expectation of adults in our society. Mastery at the level of emotions and thought is often the province of healthy adults who have done their share of introspection, personal growth and often therapy. Mastery at the level of beliefs is akin to wisdom calling for understanding that our egos and minds are not who we are, whose dictates we must follow, but simple tools for our full selves to use at conscious choice.

As we move toward deeper and deeper levels of conscious choice about how we use ourselves, we will be more and more able to behave in such a manner that the systems within which we wish to live and manage change will respond to us in ways consonant with our goals and intentions.

CHOICE POINTS FOR CONSCIOUS USE OF SELF—PART 1

Conscious use of self, described in our previous blog, calls for learning how to be aware of and direct our beliefs, our emotions, our thoughts, and our behavior. These are the primary points of choice that allow us to consciously manage ourselves. The choices we make at those points directly impact how well we manage or create change in our personal or organizational worlds.

Unfortunately, most of us normal human beings have only begun to develop full command of these tools of self. Most of us respond automatically to many situations where our goals would be better served by greater awareness and consciousness about how we are using our selves.  Our automatic or habitual reactions are based on responses that were successful in some (generally unconscious, often childhood-based) past experiences. However, when applied too broadly and unconsciously to current situations, we find that the impact of too many of our behaviors fall far from our desired results.

How we use ourselves in one situation may or may not be very effective in another, though similar, situation. Over reliance on past experience is a significant pitfall to the flexibility we need to effectively work our way through today’s world of constant change. To gain this needed flexibility a deeper understanding of the choice points is useful.

Every action we take is directed by some combination of emotions and thoughts. Those emotions and thoughts are directed by our database of beliefs. The database is constructed from conclusions from past experiences, socializations (Edie says, “We’ve been duped by society”), and ideas of our own invention. For example, imagine that I want members of a team for which I am responsible to decrease the time they spend in conflict and increase their productivity. First, I need to determine what I’m doing (my actions, my behavior) that is contributing to the way things are rather than what I want, and what I could do that would work better. To find that out, I ask my team’s members. If they get that my curiosity is genuine, they’ll tell me. Now, I can consciously choose the behaviors that work rather than those that don’t.

Part 2 to be continued next week

The Eight Disciplines of Planned Change: Conscious Use of Self

The Disciplines of Managing Change in Human Systems

On behalf of creating effectiveness within each of the prescribed stages of change, the eight disciplines are important. They are: Conscious Use of Self, Systems Thinking, Sound and Current Data, Feedback, Infinite Power, Learning from Differences, Empowerment, and Support Systems. These disciplines directly support the notion of the empowerability of human systems and the people that live and work within them. Accordingly, they also support the use of collaborative strategies and tactics aimed at open communication and consensual decision-making. We call them disciplines because of their necessity. Bobby McFerrin in his tune “Discipline” chanted “for those who have been trained by it, no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful.” We take that to reflect our experience that not being disciplined seems pleasant in it’s easiness, but painful when we don’t get the results we want.

Conscious use of self: #1 of Eight Disciplines for Planned Change

The primary tool that anyone wishing to manage change in a human system uses is the configuration of intellectual, emotional, and physical energies that we call our Self.  Our Self includes our personality, our various abilities (particularly our ability to learn) and our idiosyncrasies. Most of us have only begun to recognize and develop full command of these energies. Most of us respond to many situations automatically. These automatic or habitual responses are the result of over-learning. Over-learning is the application of an appropriate learning from past experiences and applying it too broadly to every other set of similar situations. Over-learning gives us an automatic approach to life which works much of the time. Who need to be conscious of every step we take and every word we say? However, when we want to manage change in some human system to which we belong those automatic behaviors too often don’t work.

In the same vein, the way we define parts of ourselves as OK and other parts as not OK is another hindrance to effective use of self. Too often we deny the large portions of ourselves that we define as not OK. We want to see ourselves as male, not female or female, not male. We want to see ourselves as ‘nice,‘ never as ‘mean.’ In this manner, we deprive ourselves of the inherent flexibility that comes with the multiple aspects and attitudes that make up our fundamental integrity. We often judge ourselves harshly in ways that prevent us from using the totality of ourselves that could be needed to get the changes we want.

In the processes of effective change management we need all the personal flexibility we can muster. How we use ourselves in one situation with one person is not likely to be very effective in another, though similar situation. A part of that flexibility is the ability to notice when we might be mistaking our assumptions for real data. This is a pervasive pitfall in the world and in managing change in human systems. (More on this issue in a later blog in this series.)

Effective, Conscious Use of Self calls for learning how to be aware of and choose behavior that will be effective in the present situation. As we move with practice toward mastery, we will be more and more able to behave in such a manner that the systems within which we wish to manage change will respond in ways consonant with our goals and intention. Such mastery can be difficult and at times fraught with frustration.  To help with those situations check out my next blog “Conscious use of self and Choice Points!” Learn to Make a Difference in the World of People, Teams, and Organizations http://bit.ly/zFCNfv