Getting Past the Impasse

So you’re butting heads with someone, or you’re participating in a session where people are butting heads.  What options are available for getting beyond the disagreement – other than just resorting to a show of power? Here are some options to consider:

Discuss the issue and persuade the other side. This is probably the most common way to deal with disagreement. We make our best case for our particular position and hope that our rationale will convince the other side to see things our way.

Agree on standards to which a solution must adhere, then look for solutions that best meet the standards. For example, we might agree ahead of time that a solution must cost no more than X dollars, be completed in Y number of weeks, and allow us to accomplish certain outcomes. We can then evaluate each proposal as it’s generated to determine how well it meets the predefined standards.

                                                                                                              

Agree on common interests, and work toward a solution that best meets those interests.  In a classic example, two people argue over which one of them should have the last orange in a bowl. As long as they remain stuck on their positions – “I need the orange!”, “No, I need the orange!” – they’ll never be able to reach agreement. It’s only when the parties explore why each needs the orange – “I want to make juice! , “I want to make marmalade!” – that they can see that their positions may be incompatible but not their respective interests. In fact, in this case, both of their interests can be satisfied with only one orange – by giving one the inside of the orange (for the juice) and the other the peel (for the marmalade).

                                                                               

Clarify the positions to see if new understanding minimizes or eliminates the disagreement. Sometimes in the course of discussion, the parties raise so many different proposals, contingencies, assumptions, etc., that the trail of information being shared becomes muddied beyond recognition. In those situations, the parties can find themselves reacting to positions that in fact mischaracterize what others are saying. It can help to just stop and have each party restate what they’re saying – and what they think they’re hearing. They may well find that they were in “violent agreement” all along.

Clarify the definitions of terms being used to see if new understanding minimizes or eliminates the disagreement. I recall once observing two parties who were in disagreement over how an analysis task should be conducted in a meeting. One party kept saying that they needed to just “keep it simple,” which seemed to set the other party off, as if she were being accused of overcomplicating the task. It was only when the first party was asked “What does ‘simple’ look like?” that the parties started to focus more on the needs and the defined scope of the project and less on their differing interpretations of the term “simple.” As they discussed, they found that they really weren’t so far apart after all.

Have a neutral third party decide. Even when the parties look beyond their positions and explore their interests, they may still find themselves at an impasse. In that case, the best course may be to have the tie broken by a decision-maker whom both parties respect.  Usually, this more drastic approach is indicated if the stakes – and the need for urgency – are particularly high.

Take a vote. Sometimes, groups get wrapped up in contending over a relatively minor issue that could be easily settled by just taking a vote – for example, “Where should we go for lunch - Mexican or Italian?” Even then, though, there are several options available for conducting a vote that go beyond just signifying either “This” or “That.” For example, if there are many choices on the table, each group member can be given (say) five votes, with the option to allocate his votes among the different options however he likes – all five votes on one option, or three votes on one option and two on another, etc.

Another voting option, called the Gradient of Agreement, allows members to indicate on a scale of 1 to 5 how strongly they support a proposal – a 5 means “I fully support it,” 4 means “I like it with some minor reservations,” 3 means “I’m ok with it,” 2 means “I don’t like it but I won’t stand in the group’s way,” and 1 means “I veto it.” Even if nobody vetoes a proposal, the group can still take a reading of how strongly the members support the proposal. If the votes tend toward the 3s and 2s, then even though it “passed,” the group might still decide to continue working toward a solution that might be even better. 

Learning After the Training

In my previous article, I described the GAPS Model of individual development as an approach that allows a learner to fill in skill gaps by using a series of learning steps that progressively build toward proficiency in the skill

So when you’ve completed each of the GAPS steps, you should be ready to hit the ground running on the other side of the chasm, right? Well, likely not. And this is the point where even the best development strategy can break down.

To become truly proficient at a task, you need to begin performing it in actual situations.  And no matter how closely your Synthesize-oriented learning activities resemble reality, they are after all just simulations. When you exercise the skill for the first time in actual situations, you’re still in learning mode. And you’re likely to become frustrated and discouraged when you encounter real-world challenges that the simulations didn’t cover – especially when you feel as if you’re on your own when it comes to figuring out how to proceed.

You can muddle through this School of Hard Knocks, and certainly many people do that. But you can also seek out some supporting mechanisms to help you through this critical period when you’re trying to transfer classroom learning back to the job. Such mechanisms include:

Action Learning – Action Learning is a process in which small groups work on real problems, periodically reflecting on and discussing (usually with the help of a coach) their individual and group learnings. By using actual situations as a laboratory for exploring how their learned skills and knowledge can be applied, participants can get the benefit of learning to deal with non-simulated complexity in a supportive environment. In addition, the organization gets the benefit of a completed project.

Coaching – In their influential book Transfer of Training, Mary Broad and John Newstrom demonstrated how the actions of a class participant’s manager immediately after a training event play a critical role in ensuring the application of the learned skills back on the job. Coaching at this stage can be focused on helping the learner discover how the skills and knowledge she acquired in training can be applied to  real-world situations.

Class Reunions – After a class has concluded, the facilitator can schedule a follow-up session with all participants to share and discuss some of the ways in which the participants have applied their learnings on the job. The participants can also describe some of the challenges they’ve had in implementing their new skills and knowledge and can gain insight from their cohorts about how to deal with those challenges.

Shadowing – As Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Shadowing involves approaching someone whose performance you’d like to model and asking if you can spend time with them as they go throughout their business day. This can be an effective way of understanding more about leadership practices and the types of things on which they focus in a typical day. Or, if you have a more specific skill you’re trying to develop – say, making effective presentations – you can watch someone who has mastered the skill and take a few pointers as he performs it.

Seeking Feedback – This can be thought of as the reverse of shadowing. When you’re trying out a new skill, you can ask someone whose opinion you value to observe your performance and provide feedback. You can make this even more powerful by briefing the observer upfront on the specific parts of the task you find challenging and asking the observer to pay particular attention to those parts.

Games – One of the biggest and most promising trends in organizational life today is gamification, the application of game structures (with their competitive aspects) to non-game contexts such as learning and development. As Ellen Langer has shown in her research on mindfulness, recasting a “task” into a “game” can have powerful benefits for individuals and organizations, such as greater engagement, increased motivation, and better retention of learning points.

The public records lookup site MyReportPlan.com demonstrated how gamification could be used as a post-class follow-up. The company split its customer service representatives into two teams, with one team playing themselves and the other team playing problem customers. The goal of the customer team was to create the most difficult-to-solve customer service problem possible. Then the customer service rep team tried to solve the problem as quickly as possible. Points redeemable for rewards were given to the rep team for solving the problem in a set amount of time, and to the customer team for stumping the reps.

If MyReportPlan.com only experienced an uptick in energy and engagement from its reps, the game effort would probably be worth it. But there was more: Measurements showed a 58% increase in customer satisfaction after a team was put through game training. Clearly, the reps’ self-generated learning based on real-life customers, along with the competitive features of the game structure, resulted in better transfer of learning and solid bottom-line gains.

REFLECTIONS FOR THE YES! LEADER

Many leaders seem to believe that developing their people’s skills is a matter of giving them a “training pill” – that is, sending them to a class and expecting immediate performance improvement when they return. As we’ve seen, though, the classroom event is usually just the start of the learning process. It’s what happens after the class that makes the most difference in applying what’s learned in the class. And it’s the leader’s post-class actions that can be the difference between “Yep, fun class” and “Hey, this stuff really works!” – because many of the post-class strategies mentioned above can best be implemented by the leader.

Here are some questions for the YES! Leader to consider:

·         Do you discuss an upcoming training class with a team member before the class begins, emphasizing the importance of the topic and creating a plan for post-class follow-up?

·         Do you seek opportunities to coach your employees as to how they might apply their new skills to real-life situations?

·         Are you always on the lookout for creative post-class experiences that can give your team members an opportunity (with your support) to exercise their new skills?

·         As you develop your team, do you observe the 70-20-10 guideline that says that 10% of learning comes from formal classes, 20% comes from coaching and learner observation of others, and 70% comes from on-the-job experience?

The YES! Leader Closes the Skill GAPS

Let’s say that you wanted to improve a particular skill in your leadership toolkit – for example, influencing others.

You could start your effort by reading a good book on the subject. This would help you grasp the best practices involved in moving people to think and act in a certain way. But while a book can increase your general knowledge of the topic, it wouldn’t make you proficient in actually using the skills in your daily work.

So you might go a step further and organize a discussion group to talk about the book. The group could identify ways to apply the best practices to particular situations, discussing (for example) case studies drawn from the members’ own experience. This would go beyond providing you a flashcard-level knowledge of concepts and give you an increased understanding of how the concepts could be used to vary the approaches you take to your actual work.

Yet at this point, when it comes to your skill-development effort, you’re still primarily working in your head, at the level of recognition and realization. In order to truly change your behavior, you need to embed new skills (as my applied improvisation colleague Gary Schwartz says) “in your bones” and start developing your muscle memory.

So your next best step would be a strategy of actually practicing the skills that you’ve been reading about and discussing with others. In your discussion group, for example, you might create role plays that would call on members to verbalize and vocalize a persuasive message that they might actually be called upon to deliver in their work. Your role play could involve a written scenario that describes the situation, such as “You are Jeff, a manager trying to influence your manager, Najila, to adopt a new process in your department.” After brief preparation to plan what you might say in the role of “Jeff,” you would then interact with “Najila” (another role-playing participant) in a semi-scripted, semi-improvised scene that would let you practice coming up with the right words and saying them out loud. You would then get feedback from the other group members.

You’re now getting closer to your goal of implementing new behaviors. But a role play is still, after all, an artificial situation that only resembles real life. For one thing, in real life you don’t often have the luxury of pre-planning an approach as to what you’ll say. Further, real-life interpersonal interactions involve an emotional component that can only be simulated (and usually not very well) in a role play. Finally, a role play essentially says, “OK, get ready now for a situation involving the use of influencing skills,” and then constrains the roles and reactions of the role-players to those set out in the written scenario (“You, Najila, are risk-averse and value the status quo”). Real life situations are of course much more ambiguous (or, to use the technical term, messy) than that, calling for quick action on your part based on instant processing of data, taking into account factors such as power relationships, interpretation of body language and tone of voice, urgency, long-range impacts, and myriad other considerations.

To get the most from your practice, you need to create situations that more closely resemble real life. This will allow you to use your developing skills in order to synthesize many complex considerations into an effective action – on the spot, in real time. In our “influencing skills” example, your discussion group could enlist the services of trained improvisational actors to portray a group of skeptical managers whom you are trying to persuade toward a certain course of action. The actors would just be given a broad outline of the situation and their roles and then respond in a realistic manner to your attempts to change their way of thinking.

The progression of development steps described above comprises what I call the GAPS Model of development. The GAPS Model conveys the idea that development starts with recognition of a “gap” between our current level of skill and our desired level. Just as a wide chasm can’t be crossed with a single leap, a skill gap can’t be effectively traversed with a single development method, such as reading a book or taking a class. Instead, the gap must be progressively filled in with development activities that build upon each other, as follows:

Grasp – Developing a basic understanding of the concepts and procedures that comprise the skill.

Apply – Developing an ability to recognize how the concepts and procedures are or could be used in different situations.

Practice – Developing an ability to put a concept or procedure into action in a controlled environment via role plays or skill practices.

Synthesize – Developing an ability to select and use the right concept or combinations of concepts to address a given situation or scenario, usually in ambiguous circumstances that simulate actual situations and time frames.

The GAPS Model can be used to identify a multi-step strategy (similar to the “influencing skills” example I described above) for developing complex interpersonal and leadership skills. But it can also be used to design and evaluate an individual training program to assure that it doesn’t overlook any of the steps or become too heavily weighted toward (say) Grasp-oriented activities that might be more effectively covered as prework, leaving classroom time for more interactive Practice and Synthesize activities.

So when you’ve completed each of the GAPS steps, you should be ready to hit the ground running on the other side of the chasm, right? Well, probably not – and this is the point where even the best development strategy can break down. Next time, I’ll talk about strategies to continue the learning even after the training.

Be Here NOW!

In my previous article, I described how Ellen Langer’s research into the topic of mindfulness squares with the YES! Leader’s ExploreFlexSupport model. I noted how Langer’s definition of mindfulness (“Seeing the novelty in every situation”) corresponds to the YES! Leader’s practice of Exploring new opportunities, Flexing his behavior to meet the needs of current situations, and Supporting others by seeing each person as having unique developmental needs. By doing this, the YES! Leader avoids taking a rigid one-size-fits-all approach to leadership that prizes adherence to the status quo and keeps a tight grip on the controls at all times.

In addition to exploring, flexing, and supporting, the YES! Leader must reflect two foundational behaviors that come into play in any situation – and that also synch up well with Langer’s mindfulness concept. I refer to these as the NOW! and the WOW! I’ll focus on the first of these behaviors in this article and cover the second one next time.

The NOW! In order to be mindful, the YES! Leader must be fully present as she interacts with her environment. Given the rush of events of any typical organizational day, it can be difficult for the YES! Leader to put the past and the future out of her mind so that she can focus on the people and events immediately in front of her.  But just as the best performance improvisers develop the skill of listening fiercely to their onstage partners, so must the YES! Leader treat each encounter as the most important in the world at that moment.

And listening must go beyond just hearing what is being said. The YES! Leader must also be alert to how it is being said, using cues such as body language, nuances of speech, tone of voice, and other indicators of meaning. And not only that: She also must pick up on what is not being said, what’s falling between the lines.

Being fully present in the NOW! involves more than just passively receiving input. The YES! Leader must complement her listening with behaviors that encourage the other to talk, that check her understanding of what she’s hearing, and that gather more information by means of questioning.

All of this can be a tall order. But it’s essential if the YES! Leader is going to get a full view of the situation – what makes it similar to past situations, but also what makes it unique – so she can use the most appropriate Exploring, Flexing, and/or Supporting responses for that situation.

REFLECTIONS FOR THE YES! LEADER

There are many different activities the YES! Leader can conduct with his team to help develop and reinforce the skill of staying in the NOW! One that I particularly like is called Quiz Show.

In Quiz Show, a team member (the Teller) gives a three-minute talk on an experience he’s had or a topic of interest to him, preferably one not related to work (for example, making deep-fried turkey, or meeting a famous celebrity). While the Teller speaks, another team member plays the role of Listener, and the remaining team members play the role of Quizmasters. At the end of three minutes, each Quizmaster will ask the Listener a question regarding details of the Teller’s story, and score will be kept as to the number of right answers. The roles are then rotated among the team members until everyone has played the role of Teller and Listener. The Listener who answers the most questions correctly wins.

The Quizmasters are encouraged to ask the most detailed questions possible and to be as literal as possible when scoring. For example, a Teller might start her story as follows: “I was trudging to my gate at Reagan National Airport in DC on a cold December evening when I noticed a huge long line at the checkpoint winding around the security ropes like a big accordion.” Based on this sentence, possible questions could include:

·         In what month did this happen? (December)

·         Was it snowing? (she didn’t say)

·         At what part of the day did this happen? (evening) [NOTE: “night” would be incorrect]

·         She didn’t say she was “walking” to her gate – what did she say instead? (trudging)

As a variation, you can have the Listener practice listening and communicating at an even deeper level by having her ask the Teller questions that go beyond the bare facts contained in the Teller’s story. For example, after she gets her score on the quiz, the Listener could ask the Teller questions such as:

·         How did you feel when you saw the long line?

·         What do you like the most about flying? The least?

·         If you could change one thing about the flying experience, what would it be?

What's New? Mindfulness and the YES! Leader

Since it’s the New Year, this seems like a good time to write about novelty.

In my previous article, I described Ellen Langer’s research into the concept of mindfulness, which can be defined as finding the novelty in every situation.

Mindfulness can best be understood by contrasting it with its opposite, mindlessness, a form of autopilot in which people think and act reflexively rather than reflectively. When people act mindlessly, they make quick assessments and assumptions based on a few immediate data points that remind them of a similar situation in the past.

As an example of mindlessness, you might be attending a meeting when another participant starts to talk, prompting the following thoughts to circulate in your head: I hear what this person is saying, and I know exactly what he’s going to say next, and it reminds me of a fool I dealt with two years ago who even was wearing a similar tie. When people act mindlessly, it’s as if they’re locked in a continual state of déjà vu.

As Langer’s research shows, mindfulness can serve as the antidote to mindlessness by alerting us to the factors in the current situation that are new and novel – i.e., different from a similar past situation. Being mindful can break those knee-jerk patterns of thinking that trap us in our unwarranted assumptions, harmful stereotypes, and rigid beliefs and behaviors. We approach each situation anew.

Mindfulness is directly in synch with the YES! Leader’s ExploreFlexSupport Model that I’ve described elsewhere:

EXPLORE: The YES! Leader keeps her radar tuned to changing conditions that might require new approaches to conducting work, designing products, or setting strategy. But her exploration of new ways isn’t just reactive; she also anticipates the need for change and seeks out novel ideas and approaches in advance of necessity. And not only does she respond to or anticipate change; she also seeks out change, since she recognizes that the very act of looking for fresh, creative avenues (and encouraging others to do the same) is energizing and engaging in itself.

FLEX: The YES! Leader’s mindfulness also prompts him to size up people and situations accurately. In interacting with others, he uses such behavioral models as DiSC to interpret behavioral signals – tone of voice, word use, pace of speech – in order to adapt his behavior in a way that will connect with each particular person. He doesn’t use a single behavioral style – a “my way or the highway” approach – nor does he base his responses on first impressions (“she’s talking loud and fast, so she must be an extravert”), either of which would represent an unthinking, mindless style of leadership.

SUPPORT: Many leaders tend to take a “one size fits all” approach to managing and developing their people. For example, when starting someone on a new task, such a leader might give specific, detailed directions and carefully monitor the person’s progress at the start, yet continue to take a constant watching-and-telling approach even as the person demonstrates greater proficiency. By failing to take note of the person’s new level of skill and loosening the reins accordingly, the leader rightly earns the “micromanager” label that can keep people from becoming fully self-sufficient. By contrast, the YES! Leader watches for signs that the person is moving to the next level of skill and performance and keeps pace by shifting her development approach from a telling role to a coaching role.

In my next article, I’ll describe two more foundational YES! Leader behaviors that closely track with Ellen Langer’s concept of mindfulness.

Mind the (Knowledge) Gap! The YES! Leader and Mindfulness

A curious thing happened recently while I was driving on an unfamiliar urban tollway.

As I approached a toll plaza, I noticed that three of the six lanes displayed an electronic sign with green lights and the word CASH above the booths.  For some reason, though, the cars ahead of me began heading for the two open lanes at the far right, leaving the third open lane at the far left free and clear for me. As I sailed through, I couldn’t help wondering: Why are those drivers deliberately queuing up in the right-hand lanes when the left lane is wide open?

But after I drove through a few more toll plazas, a pattern started to emerge. At each of the other plazas, the far left lane had a green-light indicator but also a sign reading “PREPAID PASSES ONLY,” which apparently meant that the booth attendant didn’t handle cash or make change.

Finally, I figured out that the first plaza’s acceptance of cash in the left lane must have been an anomaly. Most of the time that lane probably also fit the “PREPAID PASSES ONLY” pattern of the left lanes in the other plazas, but for some reason it was operating as a CASH lane when I drove through.  Apparently, though, the other drivers were so accustomed to using the right lanes for cash transactions that they failed to notice the break in the pattern on this particular occasion. But since driving on this freeway was a novel situation for me, I had to pay attention to the signs to guide my behavior rather than lapsing into habitual behavior – a situation that worked to my benefit.

I think the other drivers’ behavior was a good example of something that the Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer calls mindlessness – the human tendency to operate on autopilot, whether by stereotyping, performing mechanically, or simply not paying attention.  Certainly we can’t treat every waking moment as a new experience requiring a new cognitive formulation, or else we would be in a constant state of reinventing the wheel (see my article on why trying to achieve “direct experience” of our world may not be the ideal). Yet, as Langer’s research shows, humans tend to go too far in the other direction, making superficial (and usually unconscious) assessments of situations based on surface data that recalls a prior similar experience (see my article on the “looked but did not see” syndrome). Rather than being alert to the differences (or what Langer calls the “novelty”) in the current situation, we often quickly latch onto similarities with past experiences and reuse our responses over and over again – even though a new or different response might be more appropriate.

One area in which mindlessness seems to abound, says Langer, is education. She notes that people new to a topic often aspire to learn “the basics” in such a way that they become internalized and engrained – and thus not subject to further reflection. “Once we learn the basics mindlessly so that we no longer have to think about them,” she writes, “we are not in a position to vary them readily as we get more information about the task.” I would add that, if we don’t understand the underpinnings and rationale of the basics, we will not be able to consciously apply (and adapt) them to new situations, explain them to others, support arguments based on them – or be open to changing our minds when presented with controverting evidence.

The resistance to examining their basic knowledge is another example of the challenge many leaders have with comfortably dealing with contradictions – that is, evidence or experience that runs against what they “know” to be true. Rather than look for the novelty in a situation – “What is it about this situation that makes it different from earlier, similar situations?” – they may apply a one-size-fits-all approach that might be wholly inapt. “Fred didn’t run a good meeting today, thus Fred can’t run good meetings” may become gospel received knowledge to Fred’s manager who sees Fred struggle with a large formal meeting involving several senior leaders. Fred’s manager may then dismiss further thoughts of Fred’s leading any future meeting regardless of its size and scope. Even if Fred later shows a knack for pulling together impromptu meetings of his peers that result in quick, effective action, Fred’s manager may still act on her “knowledge” that Fred can’t lead meetings, thus limiting Fred’s development and depriving her department of a valuable skillset.

As I’ve observed many times, one of the hallmarks of the YES! Leader is the ability to resolve (seeming) contradictions – that is, to look past surface incongruities and see the opportunities for harmonizing and integrating apparently irreconcilable differences. Being mindful – seeing the novelty in the current situation – can help the YES! Leader reduce the sense of incongruity between what she “knows” and what the situation actually calls for.

The Institutional YES!

In my previous article, I referred to a Harvard Business Review article "The Institutional Yes" in which Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos described Amazon’s approach to setting strategy: Generate new ideas by asking “Why not?’ and then test those ideas through the least-expensive experiments possible. As Bezos said, “You should be making guesses and then finding out at lowest cost whether or not they are needle movers.”

Or, as I would put it in improv lingo: Leap boldly while aiming for a mattress.

But, as Bezos makes clear, sometimes you have to focus more on the leaping, less on the mattress:

“[Y]ou have to recognize that there are times when you can’t put a toe in the water; you have to leap in with both feet…. You allow that you might take lots of twists and turns on the details, but you really commit yourself to the objective.”

I can’t think of a better description of an improv show. As I described it earlier, improv is all about Exploring, Flexing, and Being Spontaneous on Purpose. It means totally committing to your goal and accepting that many winding roads can take you there.

Bezos then goes on to say:

“And by the way, it’s very fun to have the kind of culture where people are willing to take these leaps – it’s the opposite of the ‘institutional no.’ It’s the institutional yes. People say, ‘We’re going to do this. We’re going to figure out a way.’”

Here Bezos echoes two other improv imperatives: Supporting each other (by saying “Yes And”) and Having Fun (aka “The Wow”). Finding big challenges, treating them as problems to be collectively solved, gaining energy from the power of saying Yes!

Finally, Bezos says:

“It’s important to be stubborn on the vision and flexible on the details.”

If this is all starting to sound like institutional improvisation around a Commander's Intent – you’re right! Shades of Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher saying to employees: “Have fun while keeping fares low!” The Institutional YES! creates a clear purpose and a loose framework within which organizational performers can exercise all of their improvisational skills – and have fun in the process!

Boldly Go! (But Carefully Plan)

A well-known improv tenet says: “Fall first – then, on the way down, figure out what you’re going to do next!” In other words, take action – any action – and trust that your native wit and intuition will solve the problem of what to do afterward.

This is probably the one improv tenet that prospective YES! Leaders have the most trouble accepting. With visions of Wile E. Coyote firmly in mind, they might say: “What?! Throw myself into the void, without a net, no lifelines? Leave myself to the mercy of hope, luck, and the vagaries of the Universe and the Acme Company? You go first!”

Well, to take a "both-and" approach here, I think we can respect both sentiments – “fling yourself headlong into an uncertain future”AND “keep your ankle tied to a bungee.” Even performance improvisers don’t expect to splat against a blank canvas when they leap. They rely on multiple supporting structures – ideas they’ve used in the past, aspects of their character, rules of the game being played, heuristics such as "Yes And" – as a loose framework within which they can improvise a solution to their onstage challenge.

These thoughts were prompted by an intriguing Harvard Business Review article titled “The Institutional Yes.” The article comprises an interview with Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in which he describes many ways in which Amazon keeps its sights on both imperatives: “leap” and “aim for the mattress.”

As to the Leap Imperative, Bezos says:

“One useful habit [in setting strategy] is to ask the question ‘Why Not?’ When something seems like an opportunity … you will always get asked the question ‘Why? Why do that?’ But ‘Why not?’ is an equally valid question.”

But if that sounds like the voice of the thrill-seeking, ready-fire-aim, leap-think-act personality, consider Bezos’s follow-on statement:

“And there may be good reasons why not …. In that case, if somebody asked ‘Why not?’ you would say ‘Here’s why not.’”

And even if you proceed, it’s not with reckless abandon, as Bezos makes clear:

“[S]ince the outcomes of all these things are uncertain, if you can figure out how to conduct an experiment, you can make more bets. So the key, really, is reducing the cost of the experiments.”

Experiments. Prototypes. Parallel processes. As you boldly go forth with your strategy, these are your supporting structures, your lifelines, your Institutional Mattresses. The YES! Leader must not be afraid to take the leap, but, as Bezos indicates, she also needs to consider how to mitigate the possible dangers of the landing.

Does Jeff Bezos have something to say about initiatives that do require leaping in with both feet? Will Wile E. Coyote survive his latest precipitous cliff dive?

To find out, tune in again next time!

The Serious Business of Play in the Workplace

I’ve been associated with a group called the Applied Improvisation Network since its inception in 2001. One of the main areas of focus of the AIN is helping organizations realize the benefits of play – that is, using games and other similar activities in training, teambuilding, and problem-solving, and just generally adopting a more playful, lighthearted approach to the challenges of organizational life.

Play in the workplace can take many forms – from quick teambuilding games at the start of a staff meeting (such as Word at a Time Story) to the type of near-chaotic playground atmosphere pioneered by Google in its offices. The benefits of play in the workplace include:

·         Reduced stress

·         Increased employee engagement

·         More creative ideas (by stimulating the right brain)

·         A more positive work environment

·         Ultimately, better service and solutions for customers, resulting in bottom-line impact for the organization

Still, though, the benefits of play can be a hard sell in business organizations. Many people seem to think that “work” and “play” are two distinct activities, with “work” being the domain of serious, no-nonsense, analytical thinkers, and “play” being regarded as a frivolous, time-wasting activity that gets in the way of efficient operations. Even where play is allowed into an organization, it’s often grudgingly seen as a necessary (but temporary) diversion from the serious business of … business.  

In a classic article titled “What Is Team Building, Really?”, Peter Grazier suggests another way to view the role of “playing” in organizations – a view that highlights the integral link between playing and getting the job done.

Grazier points out that business organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of teamwork among its members in generating innovative ideas, making good decisions, and carrying out tactical and strategic plans. As Grazier says:

“Teaming isn’t something we do because it creates harmonious work groups, or is neat to do. It is a way to formalize the power of collaboration among individuals. It is a way to blend the talents, skills, and inherent creativity of diverse people. It is a way to use this collaboration so that the work group leverages its skills, time, and resources for their own benefit and that of the organization.”

To reinforce team-based attitudes and actions, many people in organizations use teambuilding activities. In essence, a teambuilding activity is a form of play - a form that uses such structures as games, challenges, skits, and (yes!) improvisational-theater activities to generate fun, energy, and (most important) learning about one’s team members and about oneself.

I think it’s fair to say that teamwork in organizations is a concept that most people support. However, even people who agree with the importance of teamwork often deride teambuilding as a “feel good” activity that has little to do with what happens back on the job. According to this view (which I’ve frequently heard expressed), the only way people can really learn to work together is to jump in and do actual work on actual projects.

The problem with that view, says Grazier, is that teamwork often has a hard time naturally emerging from our actual on-the-job interactions due to the continuing emphasis that organizations tend to place on individual accomplishment. Grazier points to the “psychic dissonance” that often arises when organizations say they want teamwork but continue to evaluate and reward people in terms of their individual results.  As a result, people find it difficult to truly embrace and pursue a collaborative approach to their work.

This is why taking people out of their normal work environment and having them collaborate on non-work-related activities in a spirit of play is a central aspect of teambuilding. Grazier notes that this is an echo of our experience from schooldays, in which we learn about collaboration and the satisfaction of joint accomplishment, not so much in the classroom, but on the playground. As he says:

“We moved through our school system learning that the way to succeed in the classroom (or ‘the real world’) was to do it ourselves in an ongoing competition against others. On the playground, the system favored teaming.”

A logical conclusion to draw from Grazier’s observations is that engaging each other in a spirit of play through teambuilding activities isn’t just a good way to create teamwork. Play is essential in order for a group of people to develop the trust, respect, understanding, and joint celebration of common achievement necessary to sustain the motivation to put aside individual agendas in favor of realizing team goals. Truly, teamwork and play go hand-in-hand.

Mutual Coaching: Expanding Our View of What "Coaching" Is All About

In a recent article in The YES! Leader, I described the concept of “framing” – the process of conjuring images in our heads whenever we hear certain words. These images serve as metaphors that shape our definitions of those words and determine our attitudes toward the concepts they represent.

One common business term that people tend to frame in widely different ways is “Coach.” To some,“Coach” evokes the image of a manager who observes a direct report, gives feedback on his performance, and advises him how to do things differently – much like a sports coach giving instructions and orders to his players. Others might also think of a “Coach” as a manager working with a direct report on his performance, but in more of a two-way, question-oriented manner that focuses on leading the direct to self-discovery of what he should do. Still others might expand the image of “Coach” beyond the manager-subordinate context and envision a peer engaging in a dialogue with another peer to help her find a solution to a performance issue.

Each of these three frames contains differences that can cause disagreement among the people who hold them if they are not explored. Yet all three do have one element in common: The picture of one person sitting in the “coach’s chair” and the other person in the “coachee’s chair.” In this view, the coachee is the one with something to learn, do, or change, with the coach being the instrument of the coachee’s improvement.

But even this Coaching frame can be expanded if we consider what really goes on in any effective coaching interaction: 1) A gap is identified between what exists and what’s desired; 2) Possibilities for closing that gap are identified; and 3) An agreement is reached about specific action steps to close that gap.

With this expanded view, I think we can find yet another way to frame coaching – what I refer to as Mutual Coaching.

Let me illustrate this with an example. Gary and Kate are team members who are participating in a group brainstorming session when Gary starts to get agitated at the session’s lack of progress. After Kate mentions a particularly off-the-wall idea, Gary makes a comment about all the “dumb” ideas that are leading the group nowhere. After the meeting, Gary stops by Kate’s office to discuss another team matter, but Kate ignores him and just keeps working at her computer. Angry, Gary storms down to their office of their manager, Danielle, and complains about Kate’s “unprofessionalism” and “uncalled-for behavior.”

As Danielle inquires into the interaction, she learns about what transpired at the earlier meeting. She decides to engage in a standard supervisor-to-direct-report coaching session with Gary by (among other things) asking, “How do you think Kate might have felt when you said the group was generating ‘dumb’ ideas?” As he considers the question, Gary concedes that, yes, Kate might have been offended by that comment, and it might have been the reason for her ignoring him later, but that was still no excuse for her “childish” behavior. Gary then says, “I suppose I could have handled the meeting differently, but I think you need to coach Kate about her behavior, too. She’s not totally innocent here.”

Now, many managers might take the bait and get further embroiled in the Gary-Kate controversy by calling in Kate for a coaching session as well. But Danielle realizes that doing so would 1) remove the accountability for resolving the issue from Gary’s and Kate’s shoulders, 2) rob them of an opportunity to develop their conflict-resolution skills, and 3) distract Danielle from her own tasks. So Danielle says instead: “If you think Kate exhibited unproductive behavior, I’d really like to see you work that issue with her yourself.”

After thinking about it, Gary approaches Kate again:

GARY: I’m sensing a lot of tension between us. I think it’s important for us to have a good working relationship, so I’d like to see if we can work through our differences.

KATE: OK.

GARY: When I came in here before, you didn’t look up or acknowledge my presence. I’m wondering if that had something to do with our brainstorming meeting.

KATE: Well, yeah, I was mad! You called my idea dumb.

GARY: I can see why you thought that, and I apologize. I didn’t think we were making good progress, but I shouldn’t have used that word. I wonder if we can make some agreements going forward?

KATE: Agreements?

GARY: About how to have productive meetings and work together better. Speaking for myself, I know I need to avoid using words like “dumb” when I get frustrated with our progress. What else do you think we need to do?

KATE: I think we need to recognize the purpose of brainstorming sessions. We’re supposed to generate off-the-wall ideas to help us break old patterns of thinking and find creative solutions.

GARY: I know. At the same time, I think we’re getting behind in our project. Maybe we should lead off our next team meeting with a discussion about our progress.

KATE: Sounds good.

GARY: What else, if anything, do we need to do to work together better?

KATE: Well … from now on, I should probably tell you if something’s bothering me rather than avoiding talking with you about it.

GARY (smiling): And I’ll do the same.

In this type of Mutual Coaching interaction, both parties play the role of coach and coachee simultaneously. In the course of their interaction, they satisfy the above description of coaching by: 1) Identifying a gap, 2) Coming up with ideas to close it, and 3) Reaching agreement on action steps to put those ideas into effect. In the process, both Gary and Kate learn something about the other - and about their own capabilities for working through difficult interpersonal issues.

In Mutual Coaching, you don't have to wait for a designated "coach" to step up to the role of helping someone else work a change in behavior. You can do it yourself - and open yourself for coaching at the same time. Mutual Coaching expands our frames for thinking about coaching and can help us realize the range of opportunities we have for coaching each other - and even for coaching ourselves.