Archive for Partnership

The Power of Situation – The Stanford Prison Experiment

August 19, 2008 / / No comments

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Professor Philip G. Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University to explore the question of the power of situation to shape the moral behavior of participants. The role play involved simulating a prison in the basement of one of the buildings at Stanford. The study recruited male college students in good mental health and no history of violence as volunteers and randomly assigned them roles as guards and prisoners. The simulation was made as realistic as possible: “prisoners” were arrested by actual police officers, the guards were given uniforms and the prisoners were made to wear prison attire. The professor assumed the role of prison superintendent.

The situation quickly deteriorated: When the prisoners rebelled on the morning of the second day, the guards asserted their dominance through increasingly sadistic punishments that prefigured the abuses later seen in Abu Garib. By the fifth day of the experiment, five of the students needed to be released due to extreme stress; the others collapsed into numbed and docile obedience.

Professor Zimbardo observes that his own perception also seems to have been distorted. It was only when a colleague, Assistant Professor Christina Maslach visited the “prison” and pointed out to him the awfulness of his actions in allowing the experiment to continue, that Zimbardo was fully able to appreciate its human cost. He had to pull the plug on the experiment after only six days.

As Zimbardo writes, “We had created a dominating behavioral context whose power insidously frayed the seemingly impervious values of compassion, fair play, and belief in a just world” (3).

This experiment demonstrates the enormous power of situation. We might notice that this situation included well-defined roles, characterized by a semi-permanent absolute power differential, established by a clear authority figure and reinforced with identifying uniforms. We can also notice how the setting itself also reflected and supported the roles and rules, and thus behavior.

Finally, we might notice how the setting, roles and uniforms helped to shape the perspectives that led to the behavior of both the guards and prisoners. 

So, at this point, we might observe that while it is true that perceptions shape roles, rules and settings, and it is also true that settings, roles and rules shape perception.  Together, they function as a self-reinforcing system or we can use the word paradigm. Because paradigms are “self-sealing” to borrow the term from Steve March’s blog, they seem obvious, commonsensical and “God-given.”

Our takeaway here is to notice another point of power that we have to shift off our wheel of fear and onto the wheel of freedom — to create a shift in paradigm — and that is to shift the settings, roles, and rules that shape behavior. 

Zimbardo, Philip G. “Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: A Lesson in the Power of Situation.” The Chronicle Review, 53, no. 30, p. B6. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i30/30b00601.htm

Category: All Posts, Culture, Design, Ethics, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Rewards, Values /

The Body of Sustainability Includes an “I-Thou”

August 8, 2008 / / No comments

Another valuable post from Steve March that is pertinent to the philosophy and embodiment of Partnership: http://stevemarch.typepad.com/on_living/2008/08/the-body-of-s-1.html

Category: All Posts, Culture, Partnership, Philosophy, Values /

The Body of Sustainability (A Must Read)

August 7, 2008 / / No comments

I highly recommend this post if you haven’t already seen it:
http://stevemarch.typepad.com/on_living/2008/08/the-body-of-sus.html

Steve March writes about how we inherit our ways of being, and that our ways of being are “self-sealing” — “the ways we act bring forth the world we live in.” And, at the physical, psychological, socialogical, environmental levels, our way of being has not been sustainable. So, he raises the excellent question: what is the body (or embodiment) of sustainability?

I would like to suggest that Partnership http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2007/12/09/what-is-partnershipwhat-is-partnership/ is a philosophy and way of being is deeply related to the embodiment of sustainability — for ourselves (flourishing rather than existing, or burning out), for sustainable relationships, sustainable organizations, and of course, a sustainable economy and ecology.

Kudos to Steve on an excellent article!

Category: All Posts, Organization, Partnership, Philosophy /

How perception creates reality

June 27, 2008 / / No comments

In my last post, I described how our perspective can shape the very conditions that reinforce our perspective; in this sense, we tend to create our realities. In that post, I used the example of how my fear of being unsafe on cliffy moutain roads actually caused me to become a more unsafe driver; the more afraid I was, the less safe I became. Becoming a safer driver did not involve forgetting that the lanes were narrow and that the drop off steep; on the contrary, being aware of these conditions rationally constrained my driving. For example, I didn’t speed or try to pass. However, by keeping my focus on what I wanted rather than I didn’t want, I materially improved the odds of my achieving my objective.

This is also true in a more subtle sense. For example, earlier we discussed organizations based on Theory X.  Theory X assumes that people don’t really want to work, and that the manager’s job is (essentially) to create the “unnatural” conditions under which “workers” will be productive. Organizations based on on this philosophy rely on supervision and control, rewards and punishments to stimulate productivity. Motivation is driven from the outside, which is another way of expressing the idea of “control.”

Operating within this perspective, it would never occur to us to “enrich” the work environment to make it more intrinsically satisfying, because the possibility that people *may be* self-motivated and want to contribute will not have occurred to us; in fact, that possibility would be eclipsed by our belief that people are inherently lazy.

Not surprisingly, as leadership coach Robert Hargrove (1995) points out, organizations with this perspective, create the very conditions that discourage employee enrollment, and generate passivity (endorsing the assumptions of Theory X).

Now imagine that things aren’t working very well — which given that current conditions require organizations to become more creative, proactive and adaptive, would likely be true for this kind of organization. Given these beliefs, the most likely response of a leadership team influenced by Theory X thinking would be to tighten controls. This would *tend* to further decrease commitment and increase passive compliance — a classic organizational wheel of fear.

In my next post, we will consider the very interesting example of the power of our perceptions in shaping both ourselves and the self-perceptions of others. This can be very subtle, yet it shapes personal, family, community, organizational, national and world histories.  Then, in subsequent posts, we’ll begin to apply these insights to our wheel of freedom and creativity.

Hargrove, Robert. Masterful Coaching: Extraordinary Results by Impacting People and the Way They Think and Work Together. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 1995.

Category: All Posts, Change, Coaching, Creativity, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Partnership /

Organization as Organism & Machine

May 9, 2008 / / 15 comments

In my last post we backed our way into a discussion of an emerging way of thinking about leadership and organization: the metaphor of the organization as an organsim. 

 http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2008/05/01/the-brain-as-a-metaphor-for-organization/

As we talked about earlier, metaphors are maps of the terrain that can yield some useful insights, so we don’t need to hold on to them too tightly (as an ideology). Rather, when considering a metaphor we might ask two questions:

  1. Does it have some basis in reality?
  2. Is it useful?

Whereas the organization as a machine metaphor can be seen to have arisen out of Newtonian physics (the view of the Cosmos as machine) and the industrial revolution, the metaphor of the organization as an organism has its recent roots in new physics and biology, and the framework of systems theory, which observes that the whole has emergent properties that can’t be fully explained by examining each of the parts. Rather these properties emerge as a result of the relationship and interaction of the parts. 

I’ll apologize in advance for this: A useful but gorey example that is often given is that you sacrifice an animal and examine each of its parts, you won’t find life; life is an emergent property of the whole animal.  The same could be said of  a well-functioning team: a quality emerges in the interaction that only exists in potential in the individual team members.

 Seeing relationships vs. parts requires us to shift our vision. Are you familiar with the famous cognitive optical illusion: the figure-ground vase? http://www.123opticalillusions.com/pages/Facevase.php

The image can be validly interpreted as two faces or as a vase. The one we see is the result of a mental interpretation, which may or may not be conscious. Once we’ve seen one view, it can be a challenge to see the other, because our current perspective is so obvious to us!  Yet, if we look for the other figure, as described by others (or the text), we can see that as well.  

And so it is with our metaphors of organization (and the cosmos). We might see the parts or we might see the relationships/interactions of the parts and the structures formed by those interactions.  As Westerners, our cultural history has attuned us to see the parts very well. However, most of us have not been trained to “see” the tangible reality of the qualities that emerge in relationship and how these materially influence what emerges as the whole.

Coming back to our earlier post on the brain analogy for organizations … Scientist Fritjof Capra (1988) observes that biological organisms often have some machine-like qualities (Turning Point, p. 266).  Our knowledge of these qualities has empowered the accomplishments of modern medicine. And, it is also true that biological organisms (and as it turns out, social organizations) also have emerging systemic properties. To “see” how relationships give rise to these properties, we need to shift our field of vision to look at relationships and patterns of relationship.  (This is where Riane Eisler’s concept of Partnership can be seen to be very relevant to leadership and organizational development).

This is just one example of how a shift in perspective can be extremely powerful in opening up a whole new set of tools and possibilities. And that is what coaching is all about…

Category: All Posts, Coaching, Collaboration, Communication, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Philosophy, Science, Teams /

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 /

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 /

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 /

Transformative Leadership in Times of Stress

January 19, 2008 / / One comment

In a recent article, Chris Rice, CEO of BlessingWhite reminds us that the quality of leadership becomes especially important in challenging times. Keeping your employees energized and enthused, and retaining your best employees best positions our organizations to adapt and respond to changing conditions.  Yet, if surveys of employee satisfaction and commitment are any indication, more of your employees than you would like to imagine are open to or considering other opportunities.  The quality of leadership and, especially, the quality of the manager-employee relationship are critical to retention and engagement.  

Yet, have you noticed that, under conditions of organizational stress, the quality of leadership may decline rather than than become stronger?  Research has shown that whereas the perception that a team is winning tends to build team cohesion, teams that experience themselves as “losing” are more likely to engage in finger-pointing and to pull apart in the face of heightened demands.

A big part of the challenge (and the opportunity) is that leaders are human.  When we are fearful, our knee-jerk reactions (in our current cultural context) are often an impulse to self-protection and an increased need to control the situation. In an organizational setting this translates to tightened controls and more unilateral top-down directives, in which alternative perspectives are suppressed. This tends to demoralize employees and fuel a sense of alienation at precisely the same time that greater engagement and commitment is needed.

What can be done? 

Well, first, may I propose that we have a choice in how we respond to stress. Extraordinary leadership begins with extraordinary self-leadership.  How many of us, when we are under stress begin to skip exercising (guilty), eat poorly, and sleep less?  Sprinters can afford to invest all of their energy in that one big push, but most of are not in a short race — we are in a marathon. Or to use a financial analogy, how long can we draw down our “capital” before we begin to see diminishing returns on our investments?

A coaching client of mine — a remarkable woman — when under extraordinary demands on many fronts, described to me her proactive, constructive response to stress: she began to eat better (more fresh vegetables and healthy meals), she intensified her stress management routine, she reached out to good friends and colleagues for support, she took time to appreciate her accomplishments, to give appreciation to others.  Impressed, I asked her how she managed to do precisely the right thing when most of us tend to feel the compulsion to do precisely the wrong thing; she said she had done what we all do in the past and had learned from it.  (Coaches learn from their clients all the time.)

You can bet that she was (and is) a Rock of Gibraltar for her colleagues, who look to her for leadership.

Another aspect of her success, you might have noticed, is that she reaches out to others to form collaborative relationships to constructively deal with the challenging environment.  This, by the way, tends to be a very successful strategy for dealing with stress that comes most naturally to women  (http://raysweb.net/poems/articles/tannen.html) but works well for both genders.   

Effectively, using the language of Partnership (http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2007/12/09/what-is-partnership/), in times of stress, we do have a choice between domination (pushing ourselves into ill health and fractured relationships, and dominating others through demands and control), and Partnering with ourselves and others.  We might also notice that the dominator approach is fear-based and reactive, and as such, it does not draw on our higher human endowments;  whereas the Partnership approach is expansive and intelligent, and offer us far greater potential for personal and organizational health.

Application

How do you respond to stress? What is one thing you could do differently to make yourself and others stronger rather than weaker in times of challenge?

Category: All Posts, Collaboration, Communication, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Teams /

Transformative Leadership Degree with a Concentration in Partnership Studies

January 5, 2008 / / No comments

I’m so pleased to share with you that the California Institute of Integral Studies is launching a new graduate degree program in Transformative Leadership, with a concentration in Partnership Studies.  As you know if you have been reading this blog, I am excited about the potential of a Partnership orientation to meet the challenges we are facing in our organizations today (as well as at every level of our culture). 

Riane Eisler and Susan Carter will be co-teaching the first course this Spring.  If you are interested in a leading-edge graduate education in transformative leadership, I hope you’ll take a look…

transformative-leadership-concentration-in-partnership-studies.pdf

Category: All Posts, Education, Leadership, Partnership /
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