If I’ve been asked that question once, I’ve been asked it a hundred times in the last few years. In an age of the “sound bite” trying to talk about the complexity of human relationships that make up business life doesn’t quite lend itself to co-operation.
All of my work comes to me structured as a “problem” that needs to be “sorted out”. That “problem” may be a plan that needs to be written, a consultation process that needs to be designed and rolled out; a “difficult” person or team in an organisation that needs to be “fixed”. While the framework around which my invitation is phrased can often look quite generic – the underlying issues are always about people and relationships. What I “do” is design processes for engaging people in dialogue. What happens as a result of that is that we create plans that are owned, consultation processes that are genuinely dialogical/meaningful and solve human resource issues.
My toolkit consists of questions – rather a lot of them at times. I work from the perspective that there are no “taken for granteds” and my starting point is generally trying to explore the assumptions and hypotheses around which the particular problem or issue is constructed. One approach I use is Appreciative Inquiry.
I like working with problems. I see them as solutions. By that I mean that a particular kind of behaviour – whether it is bullying, excessive praise, stubbornness, stuckness etc… - is the only way at this moment in time that an individual or a team can give voice to an issue. As such, I approach problems from a benign, curious position. I don’t begin my work by assuming that this problem is a bad thing (which can be challenging for my clients sometimes!). In fact, it may be a very useful thing. It may contain rather a lot of information about how the whole system is communicating. That way, I avoid falling into the trap of blaming and I hope that I can approach each member of a team or organisation from an appreciative position. It gives me, and the organisation, a richer understanding of how this issue is relevant to the broader organisational system.
As well as working appreciatively and asking questions about what is going on overtly, I’m curious about what’s not said – the unconscious processes that contribute to organisational life - and more interestingly – the emotional climate in organisations. Because like it or not – we don’t leave our emotional selves at the front door and enter into a rational entity that is “organisation” even though there is a dominant discourse that organisations are “rational” entities. Organisations are emotion generating environments and asking people to be rational only is a fairly irrational request when you think about it.
Approaching consulting to organisations from this perspective means I offer insights that address the overt “problem” while also addressing the “covert” issues that may be informing it at a deep and unspoken level.
Tomorrow morning I head for Paris where I’m participating in my first Group Relations Conference. It’s not a traditional conference where papers are presented, workshops convened etc. Group Relations conferences are about the study of behaviour in organisations. To that end managers, consultants, students and psychotherapists from all over the world will converge in Paris to spend 7 days working together to more closely understand how leadership and organisations work and more importantly, how we contribute to the task of organising. The temporary organisation that we create over the course of the week will be the context and the purpose of our work.
There will be a number of organising tasks – as yet unknown - and as we gather and organise together over the course of a week we will be invited to look at
What roles we take up in organisations
How those roles are “assigned” through the organisation itself and by our personal stories
What authority looks like
How learning is constructed and integrated in organisations
How what is not openly acknowledged influences action
The emotional life of organising and leadership
I have a variety of feelings about participating in this conference – I’m anxious in case it descends into “group therapy”, I’m stressed because there is a strike scheduled for tomorrow so by the time I arrive at the Conference it will have already begun – will I be left behind? Will I be able to catch up? I’m excited about networking with colleagues many of whom work from a systems psychodynamic perspective as I am. The conference will be bi-lingual and I'm a bit nervous that I'll end up in the wrong working group where my French won't be adequate.
My point is that working in organisations is influenced by more than what happens when you walk in the front door – we bring a lot of stuff with us and the task of organising creates its own dynamics. Conferences such as this are structured around the process of reflection and reflexivity – two activities that I place very high on my list of essential consulting tools. The process of reflection will be the key tool for organisational learning, planning, review, evaluation and strategy.
Reflection and reflexivity mean more than navel gazing – they present a challenge to act on the basis of what is discovered. Leadership is an act, not a job title.
I’ll be attending with three hats on – as consultant, as psychotherapist and as PhD researcher and I’m looking forward to contributing and learning from each perspective. I’ll keep posting as the week evolves.
For more information on Group Relations Conferences, click here.
What happens when you have 80 people in a confined space over 8 days?
Emotions start running high, that’s what. And in some cases – very high and I include myself in that description. It’s interesting to find myself in an institutional setting experiencing much of what my clients experience when they invite me to work with them to “solve” the problem.
Many organisations fear emotion. There is an assumption that to be emotional = out of control and to be out of control = inevitable chaos. Often the point at which someone starts exhibiting emotional behaviour in an organisation the three Cs will be called for – the Coach, the Consultant of the Counsellor. Taking the “problem” out of the system is seen as a way of containing and controlling the situation.
Here in Paris there’s nowhere to go. The hotel is about 25KM from the centre of Paris, there’s little outside the hotel in terms of distraction, (in fact the location has all the charm of an industrial estate on the edge of nowhere) there are limited circulation spaces and many people are sharing rooms. From an outside perspective it looks like a recipe for disaster. But we’re being challenged to look at, experience and understand emotion as a systemic manifestation. Why is it that people get “set up” in organisations to be the carriers of emotion? In my own experience, many of the trouble makers in organisational life are expressing what the rest of the system is too afraid to say. Here in Paris there is a lot of emotion – frustration, anger, intimacy, sadness etc and we are exploring how the relationships in our temporary institution create carriers of emotional messages. Both how we accept the invitation to act on behalf of the group and how we assign that invitation and responsibility to others.
Increasingly I’m becoming more interested in keeping the learning about this kind of systemic interaction within the organisations with whom I work. If I can help the organisation understand why particular kinds of behaviour speak on behalf of the organisation then the intervention can be appreciative as distinct accusative. That’s not to suggest that people don’t have choice about how they behave in organisations either – not everything can be blamed “on the system”. Systems can generate emotion but individuals make the choice about how to express it. Coaching and consulting can work hand in hand to bridge the gap between the individual and the organisation and when I’ve been privileged to have access at both levels the results in terms of organisational learning are impressive. It takes bravery to contain rather than control emotion and then use the wisdom to advance the learning of the entire organisation.
I'm delighted to announce that Interactions has won the contract to design and manage a consultation process for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to inform the first strategy for arts development in the county. We'll be working closely with the Arts Office and I'm looking forward to meeting artists, policy makers and audience members over the course of the next few months as we wonder out loud and draft a plan that speaks to the priorities for arts development in the county over the next 3 - 5 years. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council is a new client for Interactions and we're very excited to be their chosen consultation partners for this assignment.
We're also looking forward to rolling out a creative approach to the consultation using our Dynamic Participation model. We've already used the Dynamic Participation model in our work with The Arts Council in 2005 where we designed and rolled out a national consultation process involving over 1000 people, 100 meetings and many geographically disparate locations to inform the national plan for arts development. Set against significant consultation fatigue in this sector, the consultation process was widely hailed as a successful model of public consultation and resulted in the recently published Partnership for the Arts (available on The Arts Council's website).
“In terms of clarity, strategy has become an ever more obtuse art” (Micklethwait J and Wooldridge A, 1996, pp159).
We are regularly invited to assist organisations in the generation of strategic plans. The generation of a document or report is very often seen as the “end product” of a process and in some cases the plan itself then needs to be “sold” to the organisation. Increasingly we find management teams wanting to approach this task in a more creative way. The following are some thoughts, garnered from conversations with our clients about how it might be done differently.
Controlling the future
Why do organisations strategically plan? This question is rarely asked because of the dominant discourse in business that suggests that not to plan is somewhat reckless. Banks require plans in order to release funds. Marketing departments require plans in order to position the company or product. Most business engagement with state or central government requires a written plan that serves to reassure the parties that some kind of certainty exists as to who the primary actors are. Plans and strategic plans in particular are a primary map and compass of the business world. This raises one of the fundamental aspects of strategic planning – i.e. the hope that in producing a plan, uncertainty will be controlled and the future predicted.
Many strategic planning processes are predicated on the assumption that the “future” exists as a separate tangible place and the role of the strategic planner is to identify which aspects of the organisation’s mission and activities can be made to “fit” with that expected arrival. This can sometimes set up a defensive pattern within organisations that may turn a strategising process into one which seeks to prevent the organisation from experiencing any risk whatsoever, thereby protecting it from uncertainty and potentially from growthful risk and challenge.
The Paradox of Plans
The paradox can often look like this:
Increasingly I’m working with clients to create strategic planning processes whereby the strategising is fluid and evolving while at the same time visible and tangible. A plan is delivered but it is the result of and beginning of strategic thinking. If we are fixated on “one” future, then any unpredictability or deviation from that future can leave us feeling unprepared which is what we’re supposed to be addressing by doing a strategic plan in the first place!
Strategising vs Strategy
The contracting phase is now a time when I work with clients to re-frame the possibility of strategising and planning as one where the future is co-created in the present and is seen as a plurality rather than a single certainty. As a consultant I assist clients create safe enough spaces to imagine a different way of working, and more importantly, a jointly constructed future that embraces change, challenge and uncertainty.
Graetz draws a distinction between strategic thinking and strategic planning.
“..Planning concerns analysis – establishing and formalising systems and procedures; thinking involves synthesis - encouraging intuitive, innovative and creative thinking at all levels of the organisation”.
Hypothesising, de-constructing, re-framing etc are all tools for creative thinking and strategising which fit within my consultancy tool kit.
“So long as contrasting right versions not all reducible to one are countenanced, unity is to be sought not in an ambivalent or neutral something beneath these versions but in an overall organization embracing them” (Goodman, 1978, pp5).
In revisiting some of the work I have undertaken with clients strategising has been a way of asking creative questions with a view to generating new possibilities and new futures. The other insight of course is that we strategise all the time – whether how to sneak out of the house in our teens or securing additional finance for a business venture – strategic thinking comes naturally!
The Challenge for Consultants
The primary challenge to those of us involved in assisting organisations to strategise is the co-creation of a secure enough environment in which to envision a future that is insecure.
An un-attributed quote states – “Martin Luther King did not say, ‘I have a strategic plan,” he said “I have a dream’” – and has a lot to offer those of us in the midst of strategising. The dilemmas about outputs become secondary to the strategising itself and business plans, marketing material, bank proposals etc become obvious ways of developing contextually situated conversations that can only enhance understanding.
Goodman, Nelson, (1978), Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett Publishing Company
Graetz, Fiona (2002), Strategic Thinking Versus Strategic Planning: Towards Understanding the Complementarities, Management and Decision, Volume 40, Number 5, pp456 - 463
Micklethwait J and Wooldridge A, (1996), The Witch Doctors, Heinemann, London,
As I mentioned in the previous post, I use a process called Dynamic Participation as a methodology for consulting and facilitating. Increasingly we live in an age where "participation" is thrown around like snuff at a wake - what exactly does it mean? and more to the point, what does it look like? Here are some of the principles that I work by:
- Always work in the “here and now”. Who said what to whom a week ago; a month ago or a year ago is rarely useful in terms of moving a situation forward. Working with what is going on in the room right now is.
- Always work on a live issue. Role plays and case studies can be really interesting ways of getting a group to work on a task, but they rarely result in that group applying the learning in their work environment after the workshop/session has finished. Working on something that is a live issue for everyone in the room is one sure fired way to ensuring that learning sticks.
- Context is as important as content. How someone decides to "put something into the room" is always as important as what they say and is a huge source of information about how this group works together in helpful and unhelpful ways.
- Making a difference starts with being in the room. If people can’t understand why you have invited them together then the process is pointless. If however, you can show people by the way in which you interact with them that their presence and view is essential then you create immediate buy in.
- Keep the process public. Have the conversations about why you are there, what is expected and hoped for, boundaries around time etc out loud and with those you invite into your process. Take a risk and produce notes of the meeting that summarise what has been discussed and distribute these openly to all who attend.
- Dialogue, not monologue. Are you sure you are consulting/facilitating? And not disseminating? A real dialogue involves myriad views…are you open to changing yours on the basis of what you hear? If so, then a real and genuine dialogue can yield exciting results. If not, then you are engaged in a monologue and people will rarely come back for a second lecture.
- Roles come with responsibilities and that goes for everyone in the conversation. Dynamic Participation offers a space to ask each participant – what is my role? And what is my responsibility? Taking the blame culture out of organisational life can only be done if both of these questions are asked and answered by everyone in the room (including the consultant).
- Attend to boundaries, not rules. By attending to the boundaries of the process you leave room for difference. By attending to rules you impose conformity.
- Ask those who present with negative statements to offer positive alternatives, thereby focussing on what is possible as distinct from what is not.
- Defensive people are usually trying to protect something important. Instead of getting frustrated with the defence try asking “what is so important here that it needs this kind of protection?”
In order to meet the demands of (some!) readers...I'm reverting to consulting "lite" for this post which I've shamelessly borrowed from this site.
The idea is to choose a word from each column and viola! instant consulting jargon...and if anything I ever write conforms to this protocol, please operationalize bleeding-edge thoughtware.
How much responsibility does a facilitator take on for what happens in a room with a group with whom he or she is working? This is something I think about quite a bit depending on the kind of relationship, the longevity of it and what the task in hand is.
I am a believer in keeping the planning conversations about the process in the room and out loud. Any other approach infantilises clients and results in the facilitator having more control than s/he needs to. If the ultimate aim of the process is to generate action then this set up can stifle that before you even begin.
The “difficult” or “angry” person in a group is the place where this approach is really tested and I’ve worked with this in myriad ways over the course of my consulting career. Now if I’m working over an extended period of time then I can process what that hostility may be communicating on behalf of the group. You need a good working alliance and time and space to do that kind of work. If I am in a situation where I have a short amount of time and a clear piece of work the group needs to engage with then my approach is more direct.
If someone is “interrupting” the task of the group by complaining (usually about a deficit of some kind) then instead of dealing with them directly about it I put the following into the room.
I appreciate the fact that people feel comfortable speaking freely about what they wish to talk about
However, the context for the meeting is that we are here to discuss the following items – and then I refer to the invitation or agenda.
There are resources available to the group including my facilitating skill, time, physical resources etc and they need, as a group, to make a choice about how they want to do that. We can talk about what’s “not” happening or we can talk about what is….They can choose to change the agenda and focus on other items and I will willingly go with them there and facilitate that discussion. What I am not willing to do is make a decision for them and then find out that many people in the room are disappointed that we didn’t talk about the agenda which was agreed.
I generally find that putting that out into a group does several things
- It respects the diversion from the topic at hand, and the person who is brave enough to say out loud what some people may not be able to articulate.
- It puts responsibility for the content of the conversation where it belongs – with the group
- It puts responsibility for the context and boundary of the conversation where it belongs – with the facilitator
- It engages with the participants as adults, with choices about how they use the resources available to them
- It requires action on the part of the group, which if the outcomes of the meeting are to be successful will require the same kind of action.
The alternative is for the facilitator to take all the responsibility which in turn means that you prevent a group from learning how they choose to include and exclude.
So far I’ve never encountered a group that hasn’t been able to engage with that task and make a decision about how to continue to work together.
For years I’ve fooled everyone around me into believing I think in straight lines. My academic and business writing makes “sense” and I can follow the rules if I’m pushed to it. But I’m a secret mind mapper…it’s the only way I can make any kind of sense out of complex ideas and concepts while doing them justice before re-framing them for consumption elsewhere.
Over the past few days I’ve been reflecting on my France experience with a view to writing up those reflections in the form of a paper. As usual, it took me ages to get going on the computer to actually write it up. But I kept a mind map open and as thoughts occurred to me I added them in to a branch here and there so I had the paper plotted before I started writing.
In all honesty this isn’t a real mind map because there is far too much writing and not enough single words and images. But the thing with mind maps is that each one is individual. I’m guessing that no one would be able to figure out what the final document looked like from this diagram and that suits me just fine – they don’t need to – I need to!
I have used mind maps over the years to capture the content of books, plan presentations, to think through complex meetings and I’m amazed at how it aids retention of information. If, like me, you take notes at meetings and never read them again then you’ll breathe a sigh of relief when it comes to mind maps. They’re creative, playful and indulgent in all the best senses of those words.
The thing about mind maps is that each of the branches really doesn’t need to connect to the others when the idea occurs to you. The connection is with the middle. And that’s the way I work in groups also. I’m not that concerned when seemingly random comments or branches of conversations happen that on the surface, don’t seem to link up. My job is thinking about how they link to the middle, or the big picture. When conversations “wander” there’s always something interesting happening in the room. Sometimes it’s an avoidance of difficult issues, other times it’s free association, but ultimately it’s all related to the middle. Who enjoys being in groups where it all works in linear and straight lines. If you're like me - then the big picture is where it's at.
I’ve embarked on a PhD programme this year which is throwing up all kinds of challenges and delights (so far, in equal measure). I’m in that beginning phase where as each day goes by I realise what I don’t know. There are times when it’s incredibly dispiriting because I know it is going to be a long time before I can speak with any confidence about what it is I do know.
I’ve found this little tool useful in the past in helping me position myself in relation to learning and newness. It’s generally outlined in a matrix but I prefer a circular model because there’s never a point at which learning “ends”. We’re always at some point in this circle in relation to something.
Right now I’m in the unconscious incompetence phase of learning and it’s uncomfortable beyond belief. However, I‘m in the unconscious competence phase in relation to the process of learning – I have been here before and while I can experience the uncomfortableness of it, I know it will shift and abate somewhat when the time is right.
When I’m working with clients I refer to this model to help people position themselves in relation to what they “do” know. There’s so much of what we do in organisational life that we take for granted and by taking it for granted, we often dismiss it. When a learning opportunity arrives we then feel inadequate in some way instead of seeing learning as a cyclical process. Often, taking the time to sit with what we take for granted can lessen the anxiety about “starting over” with something new.
Johnnie Moore has an interesting post on the Fetish of Change where he references a fascinating article by Christopher Grey
Grey’s article is a
critique of the current orthodoxy that the world is changing at an ever faster rate, that organizations must adapt to this change in order to survive, and that change management techniques enable organizations to do this. There is no basis to evaluate the proposition that thewe face unprecedented rates of change, and change is not something to which organizations must respond, but is instead an outcome of organizational actions. Change management initiatives are largely failures, and the usual explanations for these failures are inadequate.
He goes on to talk about change management in these terms:
change management rests upon the conceit that it is possible systematically to control social and organisational relations, a conceit shared by the social sciences in general
The article is a great read and Johnnie offers his own take on the change process at the end with which I completely agree.
too often, conversations about change treat it as something done to other people at another time; as something that people must be talked into.
I’d offer an additional perspective which is that (a) we are always resistant to change and (b) we are always changing. So many managers and leaders I work with are grappling with having to implement or deal with the fallout from change. They enter into the relationship feeling scared, utterly inadequate and hiding in their academic understanding of the “value” of change. I have moments when I genuinely think they’ve been brainwashed into believing that it should be simple and straightforward. Which of course it’s not. How could it be when we are grappling with that paradox?
Ask anyone about the value of an academic approach to fitness, weight loss, saving for a rainy day and see how effective it is to talk at people about something they are willingly losing or giving up by not doing things the “new” way. It simply doesn’t work. Most of the time people are scared about what they are losing – sense of self, dignity, finance, position etc…our identity is completely challenged by change processes and yet…
We all change
- we recover from relationships that don’t work
- We learn to move on from the death of significant others
- We adapt to being in relationships with others where our sense of self has to evolve and accommodate difference
- We deal with our children leaving home
And somehow, at the end of it all we survive. Change processes that tap into what we already know about change, our capacity for both hating and managing together with our ability to survive and move on are the most meaningful change interventions I have seen work. I’m privileged to have been part of designing some of those processes also and like Johnnie I believe in the power of open spaces (using that technology and others) for genuine and meaningful connections between people. Safe places that address and manage power relationships are they only ways to effective real change in my humble opinion.
David Maister has an interesting post about whether or not blogging is "dead" but more critically he's talking about blogging as a relational activity also (one of my key reasons for blogging!). He asks a great question at the end of the post
Let me ask all of you out there a question: based on what you tell of my interests by reading my blog, what other blogs should I be reading regularly? It's like those reviews in music magazines - if you like this CD then you'll probably like that one. Help me out here, folks!
And I'm sure he won't mind if I ask the same question here..on the basis of what you are reading and what fires you up when you read - what blogs would you recommend that I read?
Edit: If, like me, you often lose track of where you've been commenting and when (not to mention with whom!) then this gizmo will change your life! Co-Comment is a comment aggregator - you sign up for an account then it automatically tracks and saves the comment feeds (your comments and others) and shows them all on one page...you can run it in the background and add a firefox extension...So while I'm technically asking for your recommendations of what I should be reading consider this an offer in the other direction. Thanks to Amy for the link.
Some of the bloggers I read include a "links for the day" posting where they link to four or five sites sometimes with little or no information about why those links have been chosen. I guess if you like a blogger's fare then you're likely to understand why they've chosen this particular selection.
I'm also a member of a number of listservs in relation to my research and occasionally someone will link to an article or a site and ask others what they think about it, without saying why they have selected what they have and what interests them about it.
Sometimes, depending on what mood I’m in – I’ll get a bit grumpy and say to myself “why are they posting links? Isn’t that just lazy? Expecting me to do the finding out?”
I think of blogs as curated spaces…the selection of what we choose to talk about or link to, says something considered about who each of us are. In much the same way as walking into a gallery space, there’s the individual art pieces and then there’s the selection together – what does this say about the artist’s body of work? What does it say about the curator who gathered together this particular selection of work?
I work with a lot of arts and cultural organisations and come up against the “what does it mean?” comments frequently. I’m lucky to work with people who want to make it possible to make connections between the work, where it is shown, who makes it, what it means, and how people can make their own meaning from the experience. Part of my work is to create thinking spaces for people to say “I don’t understand that” and for it to be acceptable to do so.
While I’m initially confused by the links many bloggers post, I can choose to engage with them, follow my nose (and theirs) and maybe discover something interesting for myself. I don’t need to be spoon fed the whole way. If I know something of the blogger’s interests and work then the selection tells me something more about their interests without them having to spell it all out for me. The list is an invitation – and likewise when someone is confused in a group I’m working with, their confusion is also an invitation to curiosity.
I contributed to a comment stream over at
Creating Passionate Users recently and meant to come back to it to post something here in response.
Kathy posted a really interesting article on criticism. She says
The tricky part is that the criticisms aren't always wrong. It really might be all hype. It might be BS. It might be just a fad, or the same s*** with a new name. But things are rarely that black and white. Where there is passion (not just fad or fashion), there is something real there. Something that some people see and feel. But the key point to keep in mind--and the one that offers a simple solution--is this:
People will sometimes diss things they know very little about
In my response to a really great article about the value of passion (in all its forms) I said:
Sometimes the uninformed criticism is a reaction to being patronised and I think advocates and evangelists for various products/services need to be careful that they don’t cross the boundary between enthusiasm/passion and being patronising. Ultimately, we have to make it possible for people to say “I don’t like that” or “I don’t know” without imposing a value judgement. I’ll never get golf…I don’t think my life is in any way diminished as a result…the more I can admit that then the less I am likely to take a cudgel and bludgeon golf lovers to metaphorical death!
I sometimes come across this situation with client organisations which are so enthusiastic to promote the value of what they do that they sometimes forget that not everyone sees it the same way. Take golf for example (and I apologise in advance to any golf playing readers). I don’t play it, I probably never will and I remember feeling distinctly patronised by a friend on one occasion who suggested that I was missing something by not trying it out. I didn’t feel like I was missing anything and felt then that I’d never walk onto a golf course because it would be proving him right, me wrong and as a result I haven’t entertained the notion since. He made it difficult for me to see the value of it by assuming a high moral ground about the value and I made it impossible for myself to see the invitation by reacting to it.
I agree with Kathy that passion comes in all shapes and sizes and needs to be attended to. I also believe that creators, consultants or whomever need to moderate our enthusiasm so that it comes across as an invitation and not the potential sound of a door slamming.
I contributed to a comment stream over at Management Craft where Lisa has a great rant about the intrusive nature of mobile phones (I am soo with her on this one). The post is about the message we give to the person we are with when we ask them to hold on a moment while we answer our phones. The overt and covert message is that the person on the other end of the phone is more important than the person we’re talking with.I’ve seen the increase in this type of behaviour rocket in the past 24 months here in Ireland. As Lisa says
Unless you are the President (of a country), an on call neurosurgeon, or the only person with nuclear launch codes, you do not need to answer the phone. If you are talking with someone in person, it is rude and inconsiderate to interrupt that conversation. In addition, doing both things is pretty close to multitasking which we know is not an effective way to use time.
But the point I made over there and I’ll make it here again, is that this idea of being available 24/7 is a myth. I think there are a few things going on. Sometimes our sense of self is reliant on external sources. Being “available” is one way of feeling better about ourselves and in turn convincing ourselves that we really "matter". The 24/7 thing with phones/blackberries is also a way of saying we are available to everyone all of the time which in turns means – to no one body most of the time. The relentless availability culture is in my opinion a charade that is an avoidance of “intimacy”. If I’m scanning my text messages or waiting to answer a call then I’m not available to the person I am with. My mind is wandering, my attention is frayed and I’m simply “not there”. “Showing up” then takes on a vacuous quality that undermines and gets in the way of an authentic meeting.
If I can’t pay attention and be present when I’m with someone – be it a personal friend or a business colleague then I’m wasting their time, being disrespectful and ultimately pretending to be interested. How can authentic communication happen under those circumstances? Being present is the best way we have of making the people we know "matter" and in turn having the same experience ourselves. So switch off the phone/blackberry and pay attention to the moment...yes, this moment, right now...
I was recently asked to participate in a survey by a by post graduate student who is investigating blogging. It involved me ticking a series of multiple choice answers in response to around 30 questions. I’m always keen to offer what ever wisdom I’ve picked up after nearly 3 years of blogging so off I went with my cyber pen in hand. After getting thorough about half of the survey I found myself getting tense and agitated.
“It’s only a survey” I kept telling myself – what’s the problem?”
The “problem” was the way in which the questions were framed. Closed questions, limited pre-ordained answers and no context.. My agitation arose from feeling like I was being channelled in a direction that had nothing to do with my experience and everything to do with the interests of the researcher. (I hasten to add this was all in my own mind and not a criticism of the individual researcher).
I’m currently doing my own PhD research which is predicated on qualitative interviewing i.e. lots of open questions and data that I will have to hand code and interpret. No computer programme is going to do the work for me. My open questions are generating the most extraordinary insights from the people who are graciously giving me their time. After comepleting the survey above, I wondered what kind of impact a closed questioning approach would have on my research participants, if my experience of the online survey is anything to go by. My hypothesis is that they would have felt agitated; limited in their ability to reply and less generous in their responses. I know that’s how I felt 50% of the way through the survey. I felt as though “I” didn’t matter but whatever data I might have gathered would. All in all, a depersonalising experience.I can’t emphasise enough the importance I place on personalising my engagements with clients, research participants and others…If it’s not about what happens between us – then we should just “Phone it in”. There’s no point in being in a room with someone, or asking them to participate in something we’ve originated if we’re not that interested in making it possible for them to shine.
I didn’t “shine” in the online survey, but it’s given me a good lesson in how to ensure my research participants do.
I'm quoted in this month's Business Plus magazine in an article by Dick O'Brien about business blogging. I've made the transition from writing a personal blog to writing a business one and while there are definitely differences in content and motivation, I still view this space as one where I bring my personal self to the table as much as my business self. O'Brien comments at the end of the piece:
The common thread running across good business blogs is that authors tend to leave the marketing talk at the door. A willingness to engage on industry issues, interact with readers and follow up on their feedback, seems to be the recipe for success.
I think that's an astute observation about business blogs in general. The ones I am reading are all stamped with the personality of their authors and its rare to see any of the writers I enjoy selling something directly or peddling a predictable line. So I guess the line between personal and professional is a thin one at times.
It appears that we've still quite a bit to go in Ireland before business blogging takes off but I'm optimistic that within a few years we will see key opinion formers blogging and engaging directly with peers and customers. I've been very heartened at the response I've had at home and abroad since I took up the biz blog mantle a couple of months ago and I'm getting more excited as the weeks progress about the possibilities, the conversations and the new relationships.
I spent today in Kilkenny where I was a speaker at the Craft Council of Ireland’s one day seminar on Best Practice in Commissioning and the Corporate Gift Market. The speakers included Cornelia McCarthy (Crafts Council of Ireland), Rachel Joynt (Sculptor), Tim O’Neill (Calligrapher), Lorraine O’Rahilly (Researcher), Angela Rolfe (Assistant Principal Architect at the Office of Public Works) and Gerry Crosbie (Designyard). I managed to get the graveyard shift at the very end of the morning and just before lunch. As we were over time I did a very speedy run through of my presentation which was about Professionalism in Answering a Brief. My brief was to give some pointers for crafts people who may be entering into the commissioning process in the public arena about how to approach the process from a professional perspective.
This is the first time I’ve given a presentation and avoided the bullet points - the feedback from people was pretty positive overall so it’s definitely something I need to think about doing again in the future.
The afternoon was taken up with a series of “clinics” (speed dating effectively!) where attendees spent short amounts of time with the speakers and additional experts who joined us. I’m hoping that some of what I was able to offer was useful (I was the only person who didn’t have money to spend purchasing or commissioning) and I promised several people there that I would upload my presentation, the notes that I worked from and also some useful links so here goes:
My presentation is here. (It's a fairly large file so will take a while to download, you also shouldn't need powerpoint to view it and it won’t make any sense to anyone who wasn’t at the seminar).
The following are some links which people who attended might find useful.
The Arts Council’s website has some useful information that people working in the craft area may find helpful. If you click on the Links and Resources page and then on the Arts Officers link (no direct hyperlink available unfortunately) then you get a list of all of the current Arts Officers in Ireland.
Each local authority in Ireland has a web site and all are mandated to produce a county development plan and arts plan. Both of these documents are essential reading for anyone considering applying for commissions from local authorities as they will give you the context and background out of which the commission is being generated.
Here is the link for Sligo County Council, their county development plan is available here and their last arts plan (which I wrote) is available here.
The Public Art Guidelines referred to by Angela Rolfe from the Office of Public Works are available here.
The two artists' briefs that I referred to in my presentation are available here (In Context 3) and here (Breaking Ground).
Another useful resource is Visual Artists Ireland. Their website is a treasure trove of helpful information including contracts, commissioning opportunities, professional development programmes etc.
I had a most enjoyable day – the Crafts Council of Ireland looked after us really well and the conference centre in Kilkenny Castle was a superb location for this event. I hope that the material I’ve referred to here is useful for people who attended (and indeed others) and I’m looking forward to participating in more of these events in the future.
I should also mention the wonderful Liam at Butler House who, after I managed to miss my return train to Dublin (don't ask), organised a room, pots of fresh tea, broadband access, a generous discount because I would be missing breakfast in the morning and a hearty welcome in out of the rain. My thanks!
I spent a great day yesterday delivering a training seminar for a group of crafts people from north and south of the border. One of the interesting issues that emerged at one point in the proceedings was the difference in how men and women deal with money. Most of the people present were solopreneurs and working independently, the quality of their work from the brief tour of websites I undertook is superb. Yet many of the women in particular professed a degree of discomfort when negotiating face to face with clients about fees.
We talked about some practical strategies for dealing with the very real issue of getting paid for your work but there seemed to be something more profound going on that reminded me of my training as a therapist. There comes a point when you have to feel comfortable asking for a suitable fee for the work you have done – particularly when that work is personal – and can only be undertaken by you. It’s a paradox. You are charging for a service, but you are also valuing your particular view, craft, skill or way of doing business. That’s why someone is standing in front of you asking you to do something for them. In a large corporation there’s a department that deals with the mucky stuff of invoicing and credit control. Many creative types have agents and managers…then there are those who have to manage both the creative stuff and the mucky stuff together – it’s hard to separate out the personal from the professional. The men present yesterday seemed to have no problem whatsoever in charging for their work, placing a value on what they do and asking for money.
There is a cultural discourse about women asking for money for “personal” service that inevitably plays into this whole discussion. The fine line between prostitution and therapy has been written about extensively and when there is no external “object” around which a discussion takes place it can be deeply uncomfortable for some people. As I have mentioned before, I don’t have a bag of tricks or a “thing” I sell. What I bring to a client is myself, my experience, my wisdom and my skill. It is personal – it has to be. But it can only work if there are good boundaries and I am a fond fan of that cliché that good fences make very good neighbours.
Some of the strategies we discussed that might be useful for crafts people yesterday included:
Writing up a “terms and conditions” document, framed in positive language about what you can and will provide and how you expect payment – post it on your website so people can see this before they contact you. The chances are they won’t bat an eyelid about payment terms if you’ve outlined it in advance.
Follow up “informal” discussions about commissions or work with a friendly email – put your understanding of what the client is looking for in writing, this will serve to clarify your own thinking and prompt some similar thinking on the part of the client. It also serves as the starting point to the assignment.
Keep a log or a diary of a project from the outset and include in it the time you spend thinking about a client and designs as well as the time you spend making – you’ll be surprised at how much work you are actually doing and how little value you may be attributing to it.
Sometimes small interventions can be the most meaningful of all and I hope that some of the people who came to the workshop yesterday will find those three suggestions useful in creating a boundary around what needs to be protected – their personal skill and ability and what can sometimes be eroded – their sense of worth and value.
I spent much of the last few days working on a number of interview transcripts for my research. One of the challenges when trying to put together a paper is how you carve up the space between those who are “experts” i.e. published authors, and those who are “applied experts” i.e. those who reflect on their experience of theory in practice when invited to participate in research projects such as my own. When I submitted my Masters dissertation I wrote a chapter on that dilemma and made a decision to give equal weight to the published and non published experts. Both complimented each other very well but I do remember weighing up that decision very carefully.
I suppose the reason it is popping into my mind again is that on several occasions over the last week or so I have found myself in conversations where the issue of “expertise” and who owns it has arisen. I often ask myself – what am I an expert in or at? And how can I see the expertise in those I work with even when it’s a challenge to do so.
Increasingly I am looking at “difficult people” in organisations as “experts” about a certain type of organisational intelligence. Sometimes the story they tell has to be shouted loudly and inarticulately for those who have “authority” to hear. Perhaps I’m deluding myself but I do think that there is an expertise at work there…there’s also an expertise involved in decoding and hearing it and I think the real challenge is finding a way in which someone’s expertise can shine instead of asking them to modify that expertise into something that fits a preordained box which denudes them of their expertise in the first place. In my fantasy life recruitment processes would be full of questions about how a candidate’s expertise could shine, what their suggestions for modifying or adapting organisations to fit them might be and what they themselves could contribute to the emotional temperature of a system…maybe someday!
I left a comment over at Johnnie’s blog about empathy. It’s a fairly essential element of a psychotherapist’s toolkit and there is much writing to substantiate the position that regardless of orientation, a therapist’s ability to empathise with a client is a key factor in the success of the working alliance.
Johnnie's take on it is interesting
I think empathy is what gets left out of many narratives about how change happens
In business I see an enormous anxiety about being empathic because there can be an assumption that to be empathic means I have to experience the other’s pain and if I do that then I will become as incapacitated as they are - out of control. It's a false assumption of course and it inevitably leads to the insincere empathy where everyone is "understanding" of everyone else’s pain. The false empathy then becomes a defence against our own feelings and ultimately destroys any chance of an authentic encounter. If we can't walk in someone else's shoes for a moment and try and understand what their world view is - then change or any kind of difference becomes academic and not authentic.
I’ve been having computer problems over the last few days. My Fujitsu Lifebook is continually crashing and I’m getting a “2060 System Timer Error” message when I try and boot up. I don’t have a back up computer so it’s fairly serious.
The machine is out of warranty (just) and Fujitsu will “have a look at it” by sending it to the UK – that will take a minimum of 2 weeks. I’ve phoned 10 laptop repair places in Dublin and none of them can help me.
So as an alternative to banging my head against the wall I’m trying to understand what’s going on here. I’m feeling like the problem isn’t serious enough to warrant attention from the fixers. I’m feeling stupid because I don’t have the jargon to understand what the problem is and I haven’t a clue what to do next in terms of having it repaired.
I’m not looking for therapy here – some sympathetic murmerings and a list of who might be in a position to help me solve my problem would be a good starting point. But being left with my problem and the disinterest of people who might potentially be able to help is deeply frustrating.
When I’m working with clients – I don’t get to decide what’s important and what’s not. If they think it’s important then it is – my job is to come up with creative ways of engaging with them and it. I’m rarely disinterested and if I can’t help then I’ll try and steer them in direction of someone who can. In the meantime, I have some phone calls to make to try and salvage my co-dependent relationship with my machinery!
I'm currently in Amsterdam where I'll be attending a symposium at the end of the week. I decided to take a few days off to spend a little time being a tourist and I can safely say right now I'm overwhelmed by ambivalence. This morning as I sat in the garden of the magnificent turn of the (20th) century canal house that I'm staying in, I couldn't say I wanted to move out of my seat to experience all the goodies that the city has to offer. There's a little voice in my head suggesting that this isn't quite what a holiday in Amsterdam has to offer and wouldn't I be better off getting my act together, my walking shoes on, guide book in hand and getting out and about.
I'm not normally stricken by ambivalence, so of course I'm curious about what's going on and it occurred to me that I'm overwhelmed by the choices on offer....There's simply too much to choose from and I don't feel adequately equipped to make the right choice so "hiding" in the back garden seems to me, right now to be the most adequate choice I can make.
It reminds me of working with a coaching client recently who, likewise, was faced with a number of (far more important, it has to be said) choices in her work environment. No matter what kind of work we did together - she kept presenting me with her ambivalence. Nothing was good enough so nothing was acted upon.
After a while I realised (as I did with myself a few hours ago) that ambivalence is the choice not to choose and in circumstances where people are overwhelmed by the choices available, choosing not to choose is the right response. So when we're faced with clients or colleagues who seem to be "stalling" on making a decision there are times when it's appropriate to inquire into how challenged they may be by the projected outcomes of their decisions. In my case I'm faced with "wasting my time in Amsterdam" by choosing the absolute "wrong" way to spend my time or choosing to re-frame the situation as doing myself a favour by sipping another glass of white wine in the garden and refusing to choose how to spend the time outside the front door.
Choosing not to choose is sometimes the last recourse of perfectionists who fear making the wrong choice and having to deal with the attendant fall out. Those of us who are recovering perfectionists re-frame the situation as "any choice is good enough" and we then go to the Rembradt exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, followed by some retail therapy. Oh that life were filled with choices that are that taxing!
One of the lessons I learnt from working as a therapist (and something that this post from The Relaxed Therapist prompted me to think about again) is that it isn't always helpful to be helpful. It's a lesson I have taken into other areas of my work life also. And before you say "Huh?" let me explain.
When a client demands my attention - be that a reasonable or an unreasonable demand I have to ask myself the question - who's pressure is this? and "what is the request contained in the demand?" Sometimes a client can't tolerate an unbearable pressure emanating from without and will seek ways to alleviate that pressure by passing it on to me. I've seen this quite a bit in my coaching practice. The request contained within a demand for a shorter/longer/revised meeting is generally "make what is intolerable go away". Now there are times when it may be appropriate to step in and take action. But more often than not "helping" in this instance isn't helping my client address his or her need to acquiesce to their pressure. If I jump and say "yes of course" then the pressure is just passed down the line and learning leaves with it.
It's really important to hold a boundary when a client is pushing against it. This isn't the same as saying "no" but it's more to do with hovering on the edge of the boundary and trying to use it as a learning experience. Here's what I've learned about being helpful:
- Any request for help from a client that comes with a hidden tinge of pressure should be questioned. The chances are they may be unable to tolerate their own pressure and want you to alleviate it for them.
- Holding the boundary between an immediate "yes"and an immediate "no" is a very uncomfortable place to be. The chances are that uncomfortableness is the same feeling a client wants to get rid of.
- Checking in with our own need to "help" from time to time is a useful way to stay on top of unconsciously colluding with clients.
- When we feel the uncomfortable urge to "help" ask yourself - "what am I trying to get rid of here" the chances are - it's the same thing that the client wants to get rid of.
- If you can tolerate the pressure a client brings to your relationship then you can teach a client how to make sense of their own pressure instead of removing what may be a powerful symptom of a more profound issue.
Psychoanalyst and Management Guru Manfred Kets de Vries was one of the plenary speakers at the ISPSO Symposium in Haarlem and he spoke about the role of the consultant in asking critical questions of clients. At one point he said he now describes himself as an "Insultant" rather than a "Consultant". After I'd finished chuckling at the expression I realised that there's more than a grain of truth in that if we are to be honest sometimes about what we do.
I think what he was really getting at (and this is certainly my interpretation) is that we can't afford to be too compliant. Our role is to stand outside the system while actively contributing to it and to question, question, question. Sometimes we have to challenge and say the unsayable and that can often be "insulting" in so far as we dare to question the status quo or how things are always done around here.
I don't think he (or indeed, I) is advocating being rude or insulting in the traditional sense of the word but there's much to think about in being an "insultant" don't you think?
It's just over three months since I started the interactions blog and last week I penned the last entry in a personal blog I've been writing for three years so it's about time for some review and reflection I think. I suspect that the things I've learned from blogging (reading, writing and commenting) are lessons that will continue to stand me well in all areas of life. But for now, here's what I think I've learned so far:
Find your voice - It takes time to find your voice. It took me the guts of a year to settle into the personal blog - I'd experimented with all kinds of ways of telling my stories and decided at the end of it all that I was writing for myself and if someone else found me interesting then they would listen in and chat back. I'm still struggling with this space in that regard. I guess it's a bit like starting a new job - you know where the desk and water cooler are but you have to sit it out a bit to find out when and where to make a contribution!
Stay connected - I realised that at the end of three years with the personal blog I had said what I wanted to say and I didn't want to continue filling in blanks on a web space just because that's what I'd always done. It was a tough decision to make but ultimately the right one. Likewise with this space - I'll write when the muse strikes and if I find that I've nothing more to say then I'll re-invent myself or move on.
Talking to yourself is a good thing - that's effectively what I did on the personal blog and I guess to a certain extent what I'm doing here. It'll take a while to build a readership (and I'm delighted to say that's growing so thank you to the faithful regulars who stop by). But if I'm not interested in what I'm writing about - how can I expect anyone else to be?
Be yourself - this is connected to all of the others but it's particularly relevant in the world of business blogging. I'm very conscious of audience in this space...much more than I was while writing a personal blog. What happens if I screw up royally in public here? How the heck can you hide? And of course this is precisely why I started a business blog - so I can actually be and show myself (Believe me I have the suit and formidable glasses for the other occasions as well!).
It's all about the space between - regardless of whether I'm consulting, training, coaching, having lunch or reading the newspaper - life happens in the spaces between people and blogging is my way of creating a mechanism for more in-between spaces. For now I'll stuggle on with the other stuff but every time someone comments or takes up something I've said in another forum or offers me the opportunity to do that here I count my blessings.
So that's the current list of learnings...continually being added to of course but not a bad way to start the second trimester of business blogging?
One upon a time there was the “Unqualified Apology” when we could freely say “I’m sorry” and it would be accepted at face value. It was a measure of the person that they could acknowleg wrong doing, accept responsibility and offer some kind of reparation via the expression.
Then we moved into the area of the “Qualified Apology”. In those days we were sorry “IF” someone else felt hurt by some act perpetrated upon them by us. All of that self help stuff really helped us see that we were responsible for our own experiences, and as such, someone else’s hurt was really nothing to do with us.
Now I see a shift into what I call the “General Pre-emptive Apology”. I’ve seen this in a lot in cases of institutional abuse where a spokesperson comes straight out and apologises at the outset for all and everything the instutition did, could do or may do to people.
What’s the point of an apology anyway? I’m not in any way undermining genuine cases of bullying and harrassement – but I see so much hurt in the work I do that appears so simple in comparison and part of me wants to make it safe for us to be able to say those words. We live in a world that is increasingly litigious and those simple words which alleviate hurt, build trust and cement relationships are more often than not, simply not allowed any more. So much inter-personal conflict in organisations could be alleviated if we accepted that in all relationships we bump into each other, we hurt, we love, we can apologise and we can recover. But if I can’t say “I’m sorry for hurting you” what hope is there for meaningful reparation, a letting go and a move to another level? Will it ever be possible to experience the "Genuine Apology" without systems, procedures, policies and lawyers hovering in the background?
I do a lot of work with boards of directors and management committees wanting to take time out to review where they are and where they are going. Sometimes this involves organising and facilitating "retreats" (I use that word advisedly because in Ireland 'retreat' has religious connotations!). But I digress.. A recurring theme is often that of board composition - Who do we need? What skill base are we looking for? Do we need to think of retiring and asking others to step in etc? When it gets down to thinking about real people groups can often get stuck. Loyalties, allegiances, politics and favouritism sometimes get in the way of the task at hand.
Increasingly I'm using other methodologies for getting at what's needed and a favourite technique I use is the fantasy board game. In this, each person in the room gets to pick a person - real or imagined, alive or dead to place on the board. It's a fun brainstorming session and the more it is played the wilder the suggestions get (and you can tell a lot about someone by who they suggest!). It's easier to pick a fantasy person than name someone you might know in a personal capacity. I then do an exercise with people about why they picked the person they did - and the list of attributes and qualities simply flows! We then have a list of all of the skills and qualities needed to populate the board that will look to the future and it's not a difficult task at this point to compare that list with the skill base of people currently sitting on the board. Augmenting, changing or moving around tends to be a much more logical task once the illogical one of picking fantasy people has been completed.
There's a lot to be said for playfullness in consulting - I really enjoy these sessions, and for what it's worth Katharine Hepburn is always on my list (for everything now that I think of it). Why? She's independent, sassy, not afraid to call it as she sees it and can stand up to Humphrey Bogart in a boat while at the time being a four time academy award winner and remaining fabulously feminine. Now I wonder what that says about me eh?
Photo courtesy of rest-in-peace.info
Another great post from
Kathy has sparked my thinking about creative process,
“not knowing” and all that stuff that’s a challenge to certainty and control. This has been particularly relevant for me in a recent project – the overt task was the creation of a strategic plan which went well but the covert task was managing the anxiety of my client about outcomes. Each time we’d take a break of a few days from the process my client would redesign the task and focus on the outcomes and actions to the detriment of the high level thinking we needed to stay with. The images in my head were of me physically pulling her back.
Thankfully we have a great working relationship so I moved into coach mode (with her permission) and we looked at what the gaps and the attention to outcomes was about. A complex political environment, uncertainty about her own position, a distrust of how well the consultation process we had designed was going etc all conspired to make her cautious about trusting her own and my instincts and processes for getting the outcome in the end. The process we designed was based on my rules for dynamic participation and was effectively about listening to the conversations with participants and modifying our consulting approach in response – allowing the process to unfold organically if you will. Cathy talks about this and quotes a section from Getting Real which really speaks to me about the value of holding back:
It's a Problem When It's a Problem
"Don't waste time on problems you don't have yet. Do you really need to worry about scaling to 100,000 users today...?"
Just Wing It
"Bottom Line: Make decisions just in time, when you have access to the real information you need."
"Real things lead to real reactions. And that's how you get to the truth."
Work in iterations
"Let the app grow and speak to you. Let it morph and evolve. Instead of banking on getting everything right upfront, the iterative process lets you continue to make informed decisions as you go along. The result is real feedback and real guidance..."
There's often an assumption that if you're not controlling the outcome it will slip away. I beg to differ - I hold the outcome but I don't attempt to control it because if I do that I miss the evolving processes that make that outcome authentic and rooted in real experience. At the end of the day it's that balance between authenticity and task that gets plans owend and acted upon
Photo credit
I’m a bad blogger and before I go any further I want to issue a generalisation alert – you have been warned.
I have discovered in my travels through cyberspace that my blog is breaking all of the rules…I don’t offer “ultimate” solutions; “rules” for getting things done right (apart from this entry which in fact happens to be they way I do work with groups); I can’t come up with too many bullet pointed “top tips” entries and I rarely spend enough time trying to compose sure fire headlines that work. Is this rush to certainty purely an American phenomenon? I say this because I see stark differences between the ways in which many American and European business bloggers approach their craft. We appear to be less comfortable offering certainty on this side of the pond – it’s a bit more conversational, less hard sell. What happens when you are so used to being offered the ultimate, no holds barred, sure fire, guaranteed solution to every problem? Do you become immune? What does the more conversational – let’s co-create something together approaches evoke? Do we look touchy-feely in a world that demands certainty? I don’t know….I have found it interesting to explore various voices on this blog but ultimately I don’t believe in certainty. I don’t believe there’s a 10 step plan to achieving anything you want to achieve that is simple to execute and follows in a logical progression.
The bit that is always missing in these foul-proof plans is emotion. Emotion is a no go area in business for a good reason – it’s the thing that makes or breaks plans. Our decisions, while they may look on the surface to be rational and planned are fuelled, contextualised and informed by emotion and there’s no 10 step bullet pointed approach to putting manners on how we feel. It requires work, it requires bespoke interventions; it requires listening and storytelling, it requires expertise; it requires process, it requires courage. That’s if you want the solutions to stick.
If emotion didn’t matter then we’d all be fit, slim, non-smoking, world travelling, happy camper workers and family people with not a care in the world and a bullet pointed map to get us there. Does that sound like anyone you know?
I don’t live in a bite sized world and while I would love to believe that there’s a bullet pointed list out there with my name on it I simply don’t buy it….My world is richer, more complex, operates on myriad levels, attends to conscious and unconscious processes, is rational as well as emotional. I assume the worlds of my clients are equally sophisticated. And yes, I do get results and yes I do get asked back to work with clients so something works about an approach that doesn't offer false hope.
So now I need to go away and write a snappy headline for this post that will get me noticed ..any ideas?
I met up with a consultant colleague of mine last week for lunch. We were discussing the dilemmas presented by the initial client encounter and the (sometimes) "impossible" tasks we are asked to perform. In his case he'd been asked to solve a dilemma he knew, and they knew, couldn't be solved. He seemed a bit stressed out by the impossible task and wasn't sure how he was going to proceed.
We kicked around the dilemma for a while until I asked him - what's your dilemma telling you about the client, the client's system and their dilemma? That seemed to be a lightbulb moment for him becuse his experience of dealing with them, was in fact, their own experience transferred on to him. While I'm glad the conversation was useful for my colleage it did get me thinking (apropos a previous post on whether coaches are coachable) as to whether consultants are consultable to (am I still speaking English??). I would love to run some workshops for Consultants - particularly those working on their own, where we could explore our innate intelligence and how working with our emotional reactions to clients tells us more than we imagine. I' not sure of the format right now - online? offline? Or whether consultants would be interested in this kind of intervention. I would love some feedback from those of you who work on your own as to how you reflect on your practice? and whether you would be interested in a workshop designed to help you capitalise on your emotional intelligence about clients?
If you are in the consulting business you are going to do a lot of tendering for work. A good quality Terms of Reference (TOR) from a potential client is a joy to behold. It gives me the opportunity to ask two critical questions (a) Am I the right consultant for the job? and (b) Can I, on the basis of the information provided, compete creatively?
Why, oh why are so many of the TOR documents I see so badly constructed? Isn’t it in the best interests of all parties that the client gets good quality, creative, impressive and comparable tenders so that the right decision can be made? I’ve seen TORs with no information on the scope of the assignment, the duration of the assignment, the context out of which the project is being conceived, little or no information on the desired outcome and the most frequent one – a request for a feasibility study and a development plan for the outcome? So here are my top tips for clients wishing to generate the best quality tendering information on which to base their decision.
• Disclose the budget. Yes, you heard me correctly. If not the full amount then a bandwidth. The reason? If you give all tenderers the budget then you immediately have a benchmark with which to compare like with like. How I spend that budget will give you a clear indication of whether I’ve thought through the assignment thoroughly or not. Competition on price is a very limited way of selecting the best person to work with you.
• If you can’t disclose the budget, disclose the total number of consulting days you reckon this assignment will take – again, you’ll get a better idea of how individual tenderers will address your dilemma and utilise your resources.
• Don’t ask for a feasibility study and a development or action plan. A feasibility study means I can take your money and tell you that this project isn’t feasible. If you want an action plan as well then you’ve already made your mind up that the project is feasible.
• Be clear about the questions you want to ask and allow the tenderer to demonstrate their creativity in coming up with a methodology for tackling them. Too often TORs focus on methodology as distinct from purpose.
• Tell me why you are commissioning this piece of work – what’s the history? What’s the context? Why is this assignment of importance to you?
• Tell me what deliverables you expect.
• What is your desired outcome? Fixed? Flexible? A process? Tell me what you want to be different as a result of undertaking this assignment.
• If you are going to call me for interview give me some idea of when that might be – that way I can mark it in my diary.
The Tony Blair-Gordon Brown drama is such a fine example of the dilemmas facing family businesses – albeit on a much larger canvas. By family business I not only mean a business that is started and operated by a family but also those that are run by close colleagues. In both – the boundaries between what’s personal and what’s professional are very closely aligned. Think for a moment about your own family. Think about the innate ability of your (insert appropriate person here) to push precisely that button that makes you revert to being 10….now think about that person being a work colleague, boss or staff member and you are only scratching the surface of what working in a family business can be like.
The biggest challenge facing family businesses is that of succession. At what point does “Parent” move over and let “Child” take over the operation? Is it when s/he dies? Does s/he have to commit suicide? Can s/he plan that at some point in the future he will step aside and oversee an orderly transition. Unfortunately the latter happens less often than you would think.
In the first instance there’s never a right time – the second generation has to wait until their Parent is dead in order to step into running the operation. It’s a constant waiting role for the “top job”…(another prominent family in the UK springs to mind..)…and the reality is it may never arrive if the second generation departs (either through death, resignation or other). It may also generate fantasies of “murder” – hoping that someone or something else takes out the leader so that the second generation may step in.
In the second scenario the Parent must commit “suicide” – i.e. killing themselves off as head of the family in order that the next generation may live.
Children can find it difficult to leave the family home and build lives of their own - add to this the guilt of any “Child” wanting to avoid it all by not participating in the business (i.e. abandoning the family); how that gets talked (or not talked about) and suddenly there are Shakesperian dramas that sound very pertinent.
Why does this sound so dramatic? Suicide/murder/succession/power/politics/guilt – they all weave a very dramatic context in which identity and role are negotiated and acted out. Parent isn’t only the head of the family – s/he is head of the business. If s/he steps down as the business leader – what does this mean for their role as the leader of the family – will s/he still be respected? Will s/he still maintain a powerful position in the family – will anyone listen to him or her?
How then can a second generation evolve into being who they are if they are waiting to literally and metaphorically step into their parent's shoes? Is it possible to be your “own person” if the role has been already defined? If your Parent always knows better? It’s one thing thinking about the Super-Ego as a psychological concept and another if the Super-Ego is staring at you across the board room table!
Now back to Tony and Gordon for a moment. Tony has said he will leave (some day) he won’t say exactly when so the family is getting anxious. Meanwhile the second generation (Gordon) is waiting, and waiting and waiting. Recent news reports talk of the mounting frustration in the family that Tony won’t roll over. There is talk of “murder” and of wishing Tony would do the “decent thing” and commit “suicide” by stepping down. On the surface there is a desire for an orderly transition, beneath the surface there are dramatic tensions worthy of a Greek tragedy.
I’ve always enjoyed working with family businesses because it is the closest we get to seeing where the personal and professional overlap. It’s not enough to know how business works – you also have to know how families work. Boundary building; core issues of life and death; identity; ownership and leadership are critical issues to be worked with. At the end of the day – it’s about working out what works for the business and what works for the family – sometimes, but not always they are the same thing. But in a family business it’s not possible to say “it’s business, not personal” because it’s always “personal” and sometimes “business.”
A propos of a previous post - Tony and Gordon as Family Business - on the day in which Tony Blair, father of the Labour Party in the UK and current Prime Minister announces he will go (just not yet though so hang on again for a date...), Mary Harney, Mother of the Irish Progressive Democrats, Coalition partner and Minister for Health takes the country by surprise by announcing her resignation as leader of the party. Nominations for a replacement are due next Monday - no waiting, no agonising about naming the date - no scandal, no gossip, she gets to control her departure, the "children" get to plan her replacement, clean, clean, clean...Who says there aren't any life lessons from politics?
Do you have an elevator pitch about your business? I have tried and failed (repeatedly) to invent one. I sometimes think I need to be in a very tall building where the lift occasionally goes to the top floor.
I’ve written here previously about Dynamic Participation – the principles that inform how I facilitate and consult and I’ve refined those 10 points into a 3 point plan for working with groups
1 Keep the process in the room
2 Consult with curiosity
3 Respect the resistence
Will that get me to the top floor?
Sometimes the worst situations offer the best learning. In a gathering of colleagues recently we shared stories of some challenging consulting assignments. Yes, there were difficult clients and some harrowing stories, but each of my colleagues had reflected on their experiences, learned some lessons and allowed the learning to inform how they are in relationship with clients subsequently.
I extrapolated some of my learning from reflecting on my own practice and from participating in the above discussion and here are some of the questions I ask myself when the going seems tough.
• How am I being “used” here?
• In the service of who’s truth and reality?
• How is what’s happening to me relevant to my client’s dilemma?
• In what way is this situation my client’s experience?
• What have I contributed to the situation?
• What problem did my contribution solve for me?
• What’s useful about my dilemma?
What kinds of questions would help you reflect on your practice?
Apologies for the light posting this week - I've been juggling a quite a few different types of work in a variety of locations. I spent today in Castlebar running a workshop for the Mayo County Enterprise Board. Soon to be blogger and Chief Executive Frank Fullard invited me there to meet with artists about the commissioning process and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. 16 artists from a variety of disciplines put me through my paces, the conversations were vibrant, the questions were challenging and I'm hoping at the end of it all it was useful for those who participated. I was amazed at the generosity of the participants in sharing their experience (both good and bad) which really contributed to the success of the day. Frank Fullard is also one set of brains behind Irish Business Women - it's a fantastic resource for female entrepreneurs and I recommend heading over there for some good advice and support.
According to the tenets of DIY psychotherapy, the idea is to re-record the past by repeating "I am a beautiful, creative, successful person" 50 times a day. And no one, except the congenitally malign, would think it remotely appropriate to pipe up: "Actually, you're rather plain and I can absolutely see why you would have been impossible as a child."
Apparently people lie on their cvs because we live in a culture populated by diy psychotherapists and
psychoanalytically derived psychotherapy, when patients are coaxed to produce a more helpful account of how they got to be the person they are. Damaging beliefs that have become internalised ("I was a bad child who made my mother unhappy") are reframed so they become less toxic ("My mother was often depressed, which meant she found it difficult to say she loved me").
So goes the argument from Kathryn Hughes in last Saturday’s Guardian. The piece really irritated me because of the sloppy transitions and casual way in which the genuine art of reframing is now a co-conspiritor with reality tv, makeover programmes and virtually any other media fabrication that makes it possible to avoid work in the hope of an instant makeover.
Interestingly Ms Hughes seems to think that there is only one version of the truth and re-framing is a way of avoiding it. The whole point of reframing is to see a situation from disparate perspectives. When we’re locked into seeing the world in one way our choices disappear and we are immediately disempowered. Most good psychotherapists will encourage clients to not only see their own “stuckness” from a different perspective, but also their own less than useful behaviour. It’s not about avoiding “reality” it’s an acknowledgement that reality looks different depending on who’s shoes your standing in.
Re-framing is one of the most useful interventions I can make as a consultant and if a client is willing to look at their situation differently – well, that means change is already a reality and the work has already begun.
Over at Anecdote there's an interesting post about Organisational Stories and how organisational myths are a great way of understanding the culture of the system.
Finding an organisation’s myths helps you understand the boundaries and constraints for any new interventions you might have planned. I’ve discovered that myth discovery is simply a matter of asking for stories that lots of people know.
I've shaped many of my interventions and consulting assignments on the basis of unheard organisational stories which have been generated in informal contexts. Sometimes it's important to find a way of telling those stories more publicly but in a way that's respectful of the content and context. I've found that working with professional actors - particularly those who are skilled at devising - is a fantastic way to present those stories back to groups in a way that generates very significant conversation.
In presenting a theatre piece, devised by actors, I'm hoping that the group I'm working with will know that their concerns have been heard and as a result we don't have to open up a difficult conversation that may close down the work rather than open it up.
To date the feedback I'm getting is really positive and clients have spoken about how significant it is to have their "reality" reflected back to them in a dramatic way. I'm looking forward to developing this methodology further and creating more bespoke interventions in organisational contexts.
I spent a couple of days last week with a group of highly creative and artistic people assisting them think at a strategic level about their sector. Like many people in the arts they are passionate, committed, enthusiastic and are not afraid of moving between their personal and professional selves in the service of the task. One of the things I noticed from the outset was how long it took some people to “arrive” both physically and psychologically. Some were late for our sessions and others were on time but not on message. I guessed that many mobile phones were on vibrate or silent and not many had been switched off entirely. (As it turned out, I was right).
This was a really experienced group of practitioners who were interested in the dilemma I reflected back to them about being in the room. I wondered what was going on that made it challenging for people to be really connected in the task. We worked through those challenges and emerged at the end of our work with a manifesto of responsibilities each was willing to sign up to in order to work productively in the future. They recognised that there was important information in not turning the phones off and being psychologically “outside the room”.
Physically “showing up” isn’t enough. The key question is – are you present? Being present requires a psychological and spiritual connection to the work that is happening in the moment and to the people with whom you are working. It requires intimacy and connection and it also means dealing with the fear of being connected. Being connected brings responsibilities and commitments and if we’ve left the phone on or are making ourselves available somewhere else it means our sense of commitment is also somewhere else. Agreements about tasks and decisions will then fail to deliver because that bullet pointed list may be a way of avoiding something deeper.
There was a time at the early stages in my consulting career when this kind of dilemma would have bothered me and I would have tried to “fix it”. These days I see it as a rich opportunity to introduce more of the shadow into the room – if people are willing to have their “resistance” seen then it’s a clue that the time may be right to have a look at what’s important about that resistance.. So it’s not only the participants who need to show up, it’s also the consultant or facilitator who needs to pay attention to what’s actually going on in front of them rather than what they think should be going on. In my own case, the less attention I pay to the detail of the discussion and the more I pay to the context and tone of the discussion the better I am able to work between the levels to create a space where everyone can be present. I can’t make them show up but I can wonder out loud about the quality of presence.
Ever wondered why hiring the wrong consultant is very often the right decision for organisations? There may come a point when you know that the task you’ve been hired to do or facilitate simply isn’t the task that needs to be done – what on earth are you going to do? How are you going to manage the mounting pressure to deliver when all around you the signs are telling you that failure is on the horizon?
Change processes evoke anxiety – whether it’s at a personal or professional level – that’s one reason why the change industry is outsourced to consultants. Anxiety is difficult to talk about or deal with at a conscious level but its presence is felt everywhere in what may look like irrational behaviour and illogical decision making.
You’d imagine that choosing a consultant to manage the change process and deliver on the strategic goals would be important? After all, this is an important stage in the organisation’s development isn’t it? All well and good with our rational hats on. Unconsciously it may be more important to choose a consultant who can’t deliver, thereby protecting ourselves from the anxiety of change by blaming the consultant for not being good enough.
Consultants can be “not good enough” in various ways. They may not have the right people skills to work with the emotional issues that change presents. The IT system will be up and running in no time but people won’t have a clue what’s happening and where they may end up next week. A consultant may simply not have the professional experience to engage with the task at a strategic enough level. The project will be micro managed, take enormous amounts of time and may be discontinued due to excessive costs. The consultant may not have the authority in the system to roll out the changes that have been agreed – s/he may be de-authorised by the board from actually delivering on the task.<
