Archive for Lisa Christie

Communication problems in traditional organizations

March 29, 2008 / / No comments

The human body-mind can be imagined as a network which both consists of specialized parts and as a seamless whole. Our ability to act in an intelligent and appropriate way as a seamless whole is a function of a massive network of electro-chemical communications. When the environment changes in a meaningful way – for example, the temperature rises beyond a certain point — this information is communicated throughout the body leading to both conscious and unconscious physical adaptive responses, to ensure our ongoing health and wellbeing.

Similarly, in an organizational context, our ability to act in an intelligent and appropriate way as seamless whole is a function of a massive network of communications.  However, unlike our human organism, traditional organizations have a number of built-in impediments to healthy communication: 1) communications flow primarily from the top down; channels for bottom-up communications tend to be very narrow; 2) bureaucratic organizational structure often gives rise to the silo effect; and 3) socialization and organizational power dynamics can work to suppress open communications even at the same organizational level.

If our body-minds suffered from such substantial systemic communication problems, we would not be able to function and would probably not survive very long. For example, although our feet might notice that we are walking on glass, but not pass the message on to the brain. Of course, this is silly; but these kinds of dysfunctions happen in organizations all of the time.

We’ll continue to explore these dynamics in greater depth in upcoming posts, with the purpose of continuing to raise awareness of how unexamined dominator cultural assumptions have created our current set of problems. And, of course, the gift here, is that every problem holds the seeds to its own solution…

Category: All Posts, Communication, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Partnership /

Experience of Right and Left Hemispheres of the Brain

March 22, 2008 / / One comment

Below is a link to an awesome video, in which neuroanatomist Jill Bolte describes alternating experiences of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. 

This is important because in the West, we have extensively developed the left brain, associated with rational sequential thought, and modern organizations and approaches to leadership reflect this orientation.  However, it is the right side of the brain which sees larger patterns and is the source of our creativity, including creative leaps.  Therefore, learning how to integrate these diverse facilities — to draw on our inner diversity — can help us to see new opportunities and solutions to old problems.  

Coaching does just this, and therefore it is increasingly being recognized as a core leadership competency in contemporary organizations. And, there are many more interesting and exciting implications of this insight that we will discuss in this blog…

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

Category: All Posts, Coaching, Creativity, Diversity, Innovation, Leadership, Organization, Science /

Riane Eisler and Alfonso Montuori on Women’s Radio!

March 19, 2008 / / No comments

This is a great opportunity to hear Dr. Riane Eisler interview Professor Alfonso Montuori about the new Transformative Leadership program at the California Insitute of Integral Stuides. 

http://www.womensradio.com/content/templates/?a=2229&z=11

Category: All Posts, Creativity, Education, Leadership, Partnership /

Innovation & the Machine

March 17, 2008 / / No comments

 The juxtaposition of these two words sounds unlikely doesn’t it?  We really don’t think of machines as being innovative — they do pre-programmed things (one hopes well).  For certain, the operator of the machine can innovate, but not the machine itself.  Similarly, traditional bureaucratic organizations, specialization and organizational lines of communication and control usually substantially limit innovation from within.  

As we discussed earlier, the bureaucratic organization structure is based on the principle of rational control, which enables a small number of people to exercise control over a large number of people. Because security, privileges and economic rewards tend to be commensurate with the scope of authority and power, managers tend to guard and seek to enlarge their scope of conrol.  This and other factors tend to lead both to internal competition and a resistance to changes that may decrease a manager’s scope of control, or put him/her in a less advantageous position.  

Although this blog promotes a Partnership paradigm of leadership and organization, which is distinctly un-Machiavellian, there are few as insightful or eloquent with respect to the dynamics of authoritarian leadership than Machiavelli, who confirms one reason that innovation and change tends to be so difficult for modern organizations:  

“It should be borne in mind that there is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. The innovator makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old order and receives only lukewarm support from those would prosper under the new.” (Niccolo Machiavelli 1512)

This tendency to pursue one’s own self interest can be counterbalanced by an inspiring vision — which is one of the key functions of good leadership. However, it is interesting and potentially instructive to observe that the burueaucratic organization form we take for granted today was not designed or intended to be innovative. This is not to say that such organizations cannot be innovative, but in order to do so, they have to overcome some problems of their own making.

In upcoming posts, we will continue to explore the dynamics of traditional organizations, and also begin to explore emerging paradigms of organization and leadership, and how coaching is both a means and an end to more empowered, collaborative and innovative organizations ….

Category: All Posts, Coaching, Creativity, Design, Innovation, Leadership, Organization /

Is there less stress in flat modern organizations?

March 9, 2008 / / No comments

Have you noticed how there can be tremendous value in a good question? And good questions come to us in many ways. Recently, in reviewing the search terms that bring people to this blog, I found two such excellent questions:

  • Can a bureaucratic organization have a strong culture?
  • Is there less stress in flat modern organizations?

Each of these questions raises the topic of culture. One way of thinking about culture, organizational processes and organization structure is to imagine culture as being analogous to our assumptions, beliefs, and feelings; processes as being analogous to our behavior; and organizational structure and other structures (such as the environment) as more solid aspects of that process, which direct energies and activities to flow in a particular way… So, just as our thoughts give rise to behaviors, we might say that organization culture gives rise to organizational behaviors and structures.

It’s often observed how action or structure follows thought. However, in my experience, it’s less often observed that process or structure also influences our thoughts and feelings. At the level of the individual, how we hold our bodies both  reflects how we think and feel, and can also cause us to think and feel in certain ways. For example, it’s difficult to really smile without feeling brighter and better…  Similarly, at the level of the organization, other kinds of structures help shape the kinds of culture we create. For example, a long narrow conference room table will tend to shape one kind of meeting and a round table another kind of meeting. The design of buildings (another area I hope to get to in this blog) and organization structure also make a difference. 

I personally find this latter insight to be pretty cool because it gives us more tools and options to work with to create the cultures and environments that will really serve us.

So, all this said, I think the answer to the first question is: Yes, many organizations using the traditional bureaucratic form of organization are well-known for having strong, distinctive cultures that have helped them (or, sometimes, hindered them).  Two organizations with identical organization structures may have very different cultures!  The organization structure is just one part of the picture.

And, with regard to the second question, is there less stress in flat organizations? Assuming that by “stress” we mean the stresses and dysfunctions inherent in a “dominator-type” culture (see my earlier post on Partnership for a definition of the word dominator as it is used in this blog), then flatter organizations can potentially reduce this kind of stress.  Of course, based on the above discussion, we can see that we would need to look at the whole picture or system (culture, process, structure … and probably some more factors) to really know.

In summary, yes, it’s definately useful to recognize that we are talking about more than a way of structuring our organizations, but the gestalt of the organization as a whole…

Category: All Posts, Culture, Design, Organization /

Leadership & the Machine

March 1, 2008 / / No comments

Theories of leadership are informed by our understanding of the world, including our understanding of others.  This post will consider the worldview out of which the bureaucratic organization arose, including its understanding of creativity and intelligence, and then examine the nature and role of leadership in light of that understanding.  This is valuable to us because it builds towards an understanding that organizational realities are substantially shaped by leadership perspectives — which is a key insight of transformative leadership and a potential source of power for us as we seek to overcome the challenges we are facing both within and without our organizations. 

The concept of the organization as machine evolved from a worldview in which the world itself was seen as an unintelligent mechanism.  In this worldview, the apparent intelligence (and indeed, according to some philosophers, causation itself) arose wholly from God. One prominant scientist later dropped “that hypothesis,” leaving us to imagine the world to be, for the most part, to be a “heap” of unintelligent atoms.  Intelligence (or the appearance thereof) was primarily attributed to human beings.

Further, in this worldview, the idea of intelligence came to be especially equated with rational thought. Some philosophers proposed that rational thought, sealed off from the “corrupting” influence of the body and emotions, participated, in a sense, in the divine.

According to philosopher Charlene Spretnak, “Plato intensified dualistic thought […] by perceiving not only a divine order […] but a sense that the order created by divine, or ideal, forms was radically other than the material world we inhabit.  He established a dualism of universal and particular, of noumenon and phenomenon, of mind and body, and of spirit and matter that shaped all subsequent philosophy and religion in the European tradition [italics added for emphasis] (Resurgence of the Real, 47).

Although, according to this view, the realm of divine order, truth and beauty existed in a realm outside the material universe, Plato held that it could be approached by man through his rational facilities: “[R]ational thought could be experienced only if sealed off from “corrupting” influences  of the body (sensations, emotions, desires) and properly isolated from “lowly” nature. Plato felt that we, that is, our minds, are imprisoned in the dumb matter of our bodies. Although he considered the cosmos to be sacred in its orderliness, he shared with his teacher Socrates, a belief that nature is irrelevant….” (45).

However, not all human beings were considered equally capable of such thought. The relationship between knowledge and power becomes clear in Aristotle’s rendering of gendered reality: “[M]ale rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in all of them, they are present in different degrees.  For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature (“Politics” 1260b; Code, What Can She Know?, 9 n. 5).

Therefore, some men (who per chance :-/ happened already to be in power and serve as the gatekeepers of knowledge…), were, by virtue of their asserted superiority of mind, considered to be closer to the divine order of things and thus “better suited” for leadership. (There is a historical parallel in the claim that wealth is a sign of divine favor). 

So, coming back to the topic of leadership and “the machine,” in the industrial-age organization, relatively well-educated managers sought to maximize economic outputs (roles requiring some intelligence and creativity), and “workers” were considered interchangeable “cogs in the machine.” Work was routine and boring, and working conditions were often unsafe.

Metaphorically, leaders were the operator of the machine; the workers were part of the machine itself.

 The leadership style associated with this philosophy and approach to organization has been called, “Theory X,” or what Robert Hargrove calls the “command, control, and coercion model” (Masterful Coaching p.7) and Riane Eisler calls the “dominator model.” 

In such a model, vision, communications and control flow from the top down; management ensures the efficiency and predictability of the machine, through planning, organizing and controlling.

Such highly structured and controlled organizations allow control by a centralized group and support a high degree of efficiency and predictabiliy. The flip side of that coin is that they are also exceptionally good at suppressing creativity and resisting innovation … 

In this post, we might begin to notice how leadership assumptions and values substantially shape organizational realities.  In upcoming posts, we will consider this core insight of transformative leadership in much greater depth, to demonstrate how and why this is so, and how we can use this insight to overcome some of our most previously intractable problems…  

Category: All Posts, Communication, Creativity, Innovation, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Philosophy, Values, Vision /

The Organization as Machine:Industrial-Age Strategies of Rational Control

February 23, 2008 / / No comments

I must say that it is a challenge to write about industrial-age models of leadership and organization, as I am so eager to move on to talk about emerging models, which are much more interesting and useful to those of us in the knowledge economy – which is practically everyone… 

Still, this philosophical, psychological and sociological review of the current situation is useful because it helps to show why modern organizations have the challenges they do, and why, emerging models can be so much more helpful to us in dealing with a very dynamic environment.

In my last post, I discussed the hierarchal organization as a control strategy, in that it allows one or a small number of people to control a broad scope of resources and activities. It’s also very rational in that rational (vs. creative) thought involves breaking the whole into different parts for individual study (and control).

The hierarchal organization was therefore a natural choice of 19th century industrial-age capitalists, seeking the market power and economies of mass production:

1)      It provided owners of capital with the necessary means of control;

2)      The specialization implied by rational forms of organization supported the operational efficiencies of mass production.

3)      The workforce at this time was largely uneducated; relevant knowledge and control were concentrated at the supervisory level.

4)      Culturally, it fit well with an orientation to hierarchy based on economic class and modern rational strategies of control.

This form of organization, as factory, was compared to a perfect machine, rational and efficient. In the next post, we’ll talk about the leadership styles appropriate to managing “the machine.”

Category: All Posts, Creativity, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Philosophy /

Origins of the Modern Bureaucratic Organization

February 16, 2008 / / No comments

If you were to choose the organizational form that maximizes the number of people and functions that can be controlled by a single leader, what style would you choose? (The correct answer can be found at the bottom of this post).

  1. Flat organization
  2. Bureaucratic organization
  3. Leader-full team
  4. Matrix organization

Since thousands of years before the dawn of the industrial revolution, “strong men,” wanting to maximize their control of people and resources have employed a pyramid-shaped, hierarchal form of organization: small societies based on “strong-man rule” evolved into kingships with their own militaries, which evolved into nation states …

Hierarchal societies are based on a hierarchal flow of power from the top down. Anthropologically, they tend to be male dominated (in that men dominate women). Human order is frequently understood to reflect divine order, and since early times, rulers have often claimed a special relationship to divinity, which justifies and endorses their power. They were sometimes understood to be incarnations or partners of the gods (as in Sumeria), or, more recently in Western cultures, to be chosen or annointed by God.  For example, in the late 19th century Germany, childrearing manuals emphasized disciplining the child in such a way as to exact unquestioning obedience to the father. This practice was thought to prepare the child to submit to governmental authority and thereby live a godly life (Alice Miller, For Your Own Good).

The values and ethics of a culture cannot be entirely separated from the power structure in that those in power shape the rules that define “goodness.” “Rules favor the rule makers and when they don’t, the rules are changed.” Therefore, “good citizens” conform to power; those who both are not powerful and do not conform are “bad citizens” and risk punishment. The culture of these organizations tends to be paternalistic. Loyalty is rewarded (for example, with position and lands — a share of the power) and disloyalty is punished.

More subtly, the worldview of the rulers, in which light the rules seem right and appropriate, is the correct view. Therefore, loyalty includes endorsing the worldview of those in power. Challenging this perspective, in a sense, also challenges the legitimacy and power of the ruler. For this reason, challenging this worldview entails some risk and is best done with diplomacy, in privacy behind closed doors. Diplomacy avoids the sense of direct challenge, and privacy allows the leader an opportunity to adapt the perspective as his or her own. The same conversation in public would be the equivalent of a frontal challenge to power. 

In this way, there will always be a link between power, knowledge and values, in any given culture: Power is about making rules that reflect and benefit a particular perspective, and propagating that perspective, and such knowledge and rules help shape the values and ethics of the culture.  

In an upcoming entry, we will talk about the emergence of the modern bureaucratic organization, including how it drew on the military/feudal model, and how it both fit and shaped the industrial age of the 20th century…

(The correct answer is 2. Bureaucratic Organization)

Category: All Posts, Culture, Ethics, Leadership, Organization, Philosophy, Values /

Developing Leadership Capabilities for the Innovation Age

February 11, 2008 / / No comments

One of the purposes of this blog is to encourage fresh thinking with respect to how we can most effectively collaborate to achieve worthy goals.  According to leadership gurus, James Kouzes and Barry Posner, getting extraordinary things done in organizations in the current age (often called the “innovation age”) requires leaders who can:

  1. Articulate a vision of the future when things are so unpredictable […]
  2. Inspire others toward a common purpose […]
  3. Create an environment that promotes innovation and risk […]
  4. Build a cohesive and spirited team […]
  5. Share power and information, and still maintain accountability […]
  6. Put more joy and celebration into our efforts […]  (Kouzes & Posner, The Leadership Challenge, 4th ed., 2008)

Leaders and organizations that are deeply rooted in “industrial age” models leadership and organization, based on metaphors such as the “organization as machine,” often struggle to achieve the capacities needed to meet current challenges.  In the next few posts, we’ll discuss why this is the case and why coaching is such an effective strategy for organizational transformation and change.

First, we’ll talk about the goals of traditional bureaucratic organizations, the assumptions that underlie this strategy, and the conditions under which those assumptions might be appropriate.

Second, we’ll talk about common organizational problems, and why they are so difficult to solve, using industrial-age models of leadership and organization.

Third, we’ll talk about some emerging paradigms of leadership, and how they support leaders in building needed organizational capabilities.

Finally, we’ll talk about how leadership and organizational coaching can support leaders in transforming their organizations to develop the needed capabilities.

Does that sound good?

Category: All Posts, Coaching, Collaboration, Innovation, Leadership, Organization, Vision /

Coaching as a Transformative Leadership Competency

February 3, 2008 / / No comments

A key theme in this blog is transformative leadership, which involves transformative learning – on the part of both the leader and the organization. A key competency of transformative leadership is coaching.

As a transformative learning strategy, coaching can be contrasted with consulting. Consultants are experts who supply answers. However, more often than we might hope, these answers may become expensive “shelfware.” Knowledge becomes shelfware primarily because leaders and their organizations have not digested it and made it their own.

As an example, the CEO of a personal care products company in the Western U.S. wants to increase the company’s sales.  He has hired a succession of marketing consultants to advise him on how to accomplish this. Each consultant is hired with great expectations and eventually ushered out the door as a disappointment. Why? The CEO does not agree with the consultants’ assessments or recommendations. What they see as dysfunction, he sees as the way he wants to run his business. He has a particular philosophy of business and isn’t inclined to change it, even though it is not working for him.  If he saw the world in such a way that the recommendations made sense, chances are, he would already have been taking the actions the consultants’ recommended. He wants someone to make his philosophy work.

Assuming that the CEO is behind the needed changes, if the changes don’t seem normal and natural to all of the organization members who need to make them work, the organization will struggle to change. People will do what is asked as long as someone is looking over their shoulders but will tend to drift back to old, comfortable behaviors.

Transformative coaching, on the other hand, involves supporting leaders and organizations in developing expanded and more effective perspectives and strategies. In the above example, a coach might support the CEO in thinking though the assumptions that underlie his philosophy, to learn why it hasn’t achieved the desired results; in developing an enlarged perspective; and in developing and executing strategies that reflect these new insights.

Similarly, the CEO as transformative leader and coach, has the tools to facilitate a similar shift on the part of the organization as a whole…

Category: All Posts, Coaching, Leadership, Organization /
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