New Year is an interesting time if you are a researcher with an interest in disappointment. All around me, I see people creating New Year’s resolution lists – many of those people know in their hearts that it is an academic exercise. Others are determined to stick to their guns and make real and lasting changes.
The academic and scholarly world is full of research on “change” – how to do it, how to manage it, how to avoid it, how to surrender to it. New Year is the time when we’re all confronted (in a cultural sense) with the opportunity to opt in or opt out. Like many people, I have a never-changing list of things I want to do differently each year. The ritual of (again) putting down familiar projects (must get fit … must….) is good for a laugh if nothing else – but what happens that those lists get recycled? Why is it in our personal or work lives so difficult to be different?
We don’t like change…unconsciously we do our best to avoid it. Change means difference, difference means unfamiliarity and unfamiliarity means anxiety, therefore staying the same is the safest bet. We’re sophisticated animals when it comes to sabotaging change. Ultimately we’re afraid … and taking any kind of leap in the dark with that kind of anxiety is sometimes too much to ask.
One of the ways in which we sabotage change is to create an image so idealised that it’s impossible to reach. Those New Year lists with a new you – fit, healthy and all in under six months may look fantastic – but they probably aren’t achievable in that time frame, so before we start we’ve undermined our chances of success. But keeping that perfect picture perfect is also important. If we keep the image perfect then we always have it…we can protect it by never trying to reach it – if we did try and subsequently failed then the image would be lost – we’d be confronted with reality. We can’t bear to disappoint ourselves so we create sophisticated ruses to maintain the idealisation and avoid the disappointment.
Many change agents create the picture perfect ideal of what the organisation will look like in its new form. Their task is to substitute what is known (and may or may not be working) with an idealised image of how it could be. Like New Year resolutions – the intention is worthy but the attempts to get there may be rocky because results don’t come as quickly or as packaged as we imagine them. Being idealistic as distinct from realistic only increases the gap between both and raises the level of disappointment. Idealisation is a way of avoiding consequences. Those consequences are relational – it may be easier to have a fictionalised idea of ourselves and others rather than enter into reality checked relationships with real people, in real situations with real flaws.
So my New Year resolutions have an “ideal” column and a “real” column – there’s a gap between them and I’ll navigate and negotiate my way between both. I’m not willing to let go of the ideal but neither am I willing to sabotage my chances of getting it by not trying – it’s going to be an interesting 12 months!
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.
In all of these scenarios the consultant will absorb the organisation’s anxiety by feeling unwelcome, not good enough, set up to fail, disappointed, confused and angry etc. Very often, the consultant will be scapegoated for failing to deliver while not knowing that they were hand picked to fail.
When the wrong consultant is picked it may be the right decision for an organisation not ready to deal with change. A ritual sacrifice is often required and on many occasions the consultant is that offering. In this instance failure isn’t failure it’s a strong signal that there is other work to be accomplished before change is actioned. Very often that other work is finding a safe way to address the underlying anxiety that all change evokes. If a company is brave enough it may look to its “failures” as rich learning about the need to connect with the very real and very human fear of change.
The following is the short paper I prepared for the Irish Business Women's Conference in Mayo last week called "Anyone for Pizza?". As it turned out the paper wasn't presented because I offered the time slot for an extended Q & A with delegates It is available as a PDF download by clicking here. (The paper has also been added to the Library on the main site).
Do any of these sound familiar?
You’ve a business idea that’s been cooking away in your head for years..you have an opportunity to make it happen but can’t seem to take the leap…it just doesn’t seem to be the “right time”.
You’ve decided to go it alone as a self-employed person after years of thinking about it .. there’s more work than you can handle and you need to employ someone .. just before you hire that assistant all that work seems to dry up and suddenly there’s no need for anyone else.
You’ve worked hard on the diet, cross-trained, spinned, walked miles and cut back on the carbs…you’re 5 pounds from your goal and you decide to celebrate – anyone for pizza?
If any of these sound familiar then meet your inner saboteur. Self-sabotage is more common than you think and most of us have a familiar set of fears in our head that steps in right at the moment when we want to make a change, take a risk or do something different and very often sends us off track.
But if we’ve worked so hard, harboured those dreams and really want to be different – why on earth do we stop at the last hurdle? What possible function could an inner saboteur have? There’s a long answer and a short answer (let’s look at both). The short answer is – we decide that the saboteur’s voice is the more sensible view - the long answer is – well … let’s meet the F Words.
Continue reading "Sabotage - loving and leaving your inner critic" »
Some people who are ambitious and want your job will never say they are ambitious and want your job. They will say your hair looks nice today.
And then when she has become your boss and you ask for a raise, she says your hair looks nice today but she liked it a little better when it was longer, didn't you, and she'd love to give you a raise and you certainly deserve it but ... those darned penny pinchers in accounting! Maybe you'd be happier somewhere where you can get paid what you're worth ... and thanks for coming in, I'm glad we could have this little chat!
Oh how in the blink of an eye our fortunes can change!
Interesting insights from the personals page over at Salon
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.
In all of these scenarios the consultant will absorb the organisation’s anxiety by feeling unwelcome, not good enough, set up to fail, disappointed, confused and angry etc. Very often, the consultant will be scapegoated for failing to deliver while not knowing that they were hand picked to fail.
When the wrong consultant is picked it may be the right decision for an organisation not ready to deal with change. A ritual sacrifice is often required and on many occasions the consultant is that offering. In this instance failure isn’t failure it’s a strong signal that there is other work to be accomplished before change is actioned. Very often that other work is finding a safe way to address the underlying anxiety that all change evokes. If a company is brave enough it may look to its “failures” as rich learning about the need to connect with the very real and very human fear of change.
Every problem is a solution to a set of circumstances – so you could say that the problem is both the problem and the solution.
One of the things I try to do with clients is help them “appreciate” the problem they are having. No, that’s not some new age methodology that doesn’t deal with the issues. It’s more a case of asking them – is there any way in which this problem has truth to it? Most particularly if it’s a problem person we’re talking about. I try to encourage my clients to look at the “job” this person is doing for the organisation first before we talk about what to do about it.
Here are some examples of the work problem people have done in organisations I have been invited to consult to.
- A technical director in an engineering company made the working life of the sales department “hell” (their words) by refusing to co-operate with them. He withheld his staff, demanded more appropriate briefing, took the sales requests back to his department and sat on them for days holding up the closing of business. When we actually looked at what was going on here, this technical director was seen to be protecting his division and team from an increasing set of demands by all departments that were impossible for his technical team to meet. The technical director was, in fact, offering leadership to his team by protecting them from being overwhelmed by demand. By helping the sales team appreciate the problem they were able to articulate the real problem which was an unrealistic set of sales targets that had been imposed by senior management on both the sales and technical teams and not negotiated with them.
- The manager of a cultural organisation was increasingly vilified by her board of directors as being “useless” and having “terrible” communication skills. The board never knew what was going on and more to the point this manager wouldn’t take their calls when they phoned. On closer examination it emerged that the way of communicating in this company was informal. The 10 directors on the board would frequently phone the manager at all hours of the day and night sometimes requesting the same information. The manager was in 10 different relationships and each director was comparing notes with the other. It was a fact that she was “useless” and had “terrible” communication skills when you looked at it from this perspective – who wouldn’t be? The organisation had transitioned being a voluntary organisation to a company limited by guarantee with a board of directors. While they had hired a professional manager, the board themselves were still operating like a voluntary group – which meant that the company business was done informally and out of traditional business hours. The director was trying to run the business during the business day and the directors hadn’t settled in to their new roles. By helping them look at the “problem” as the “solution” they were able to openly negotiate a way of working that resolved the tension and achieve what they really wanted.
More often than not, problem people are articulating something in organisational life that others refuse to do. When you’re on your own you sometimes have to shout louder to make yourself heard – the louder you shout, the more problematic you are and the more isolated you become. “Problem” people can emerge for lots of reasons and the person who carries this role may have a personal back story that makes them the perfect candidate for the job. A person’s back story may also be where the intervention is required so knowing when to refer someone on for more personal work is a key part of any consulting in this area. The working environment and context for the issue is of course an essential part of the story as well.
Building a good working alliance with a client is essential if we are going to have that kind of conversation. Organisations have an unconscious life. Because it’s unconscious it’s unseen and difficult and very often threatening to look at and my clients have to trust in my skill that I have some idea of what I’m talking about. But if you can have an appreciative relationship with the problem, then that’s a really great place to start the conversation.
Part two of my conversation on the shadow side of organisations with Johnnie Moore and Matt Moore has now been posted by Johnnie - you can download it or listen to it here. Johnnie has also complied some great show notes which I am re-publishing I'm curious to know how long it took Johnnie to edit and prepare the audio and show notes...looks like lots of work to me (thanks Johnnie).
Here are the show notes with the same caveat as for part one: The timings are approximate and this is my paraphrasing of what was said. Don't take them it too literally. This was a conversation and not as linear as even these rough notes might suggest.
0.00 Annette asks Matt, with what I’d say is a slight sense of irony in her voice, what knowledge management really is. Is it a gatekeeper? It sounds like a very powerful position…
1.00 Matt says knowledge managers don’t wield a lot of power but they do wield influence. It’s about linking people together. Matt toys with the alternative label of “knowledge courtesan”. Some of the best knowledge managers were those women who ran the salons in eighteenth century France, who created environments for others to have conversations in.
2.50 It struggles with issues of control and secrecy.
3.05 Johnnie and Annette banter before Johnnie slips into Dr Rant mode. (So that’s the connection to the shadow, then.) What’s the problem with these knowledge management people? Are they just trying to raise their status with fancy language? Johnnie drags HR into the fight too.
5.15 Annette asks if Johnnie’s feeling better now.
5.25 Matt talks about how some professions are marginalised, and adds communications/PR to the list. In organisations some divisions have the power and everyone else wants a piece of the action and get into the limelight.
6.25 Annette: how did we end up vilyfying HR etc?
6.35 Johnnie tries to put his rant in context. (Nice try.)
7.10 How could the put-upon divisions be more in their power? Annette asks (great question): what’s useful about having a department to bully? How does that contibute to the established power systems in an organisation?
Annette talks about how HR can get stuck with giving out the bad news for others. Maybe HR, marketing and KM are saddled with trying to manage the mucky stuff of relationships that others don’t want to deal with.
8.55 What role does knowledge manager take up as a gate keeper? Matt responds. Problems of managing intangibles. How KM gets saddled with document management.
10.25 Annette: so there’s some truth to my idea of knowledge managers as gatekeepers.
11.15 There’s anxiety about control of information.. is it about controlling identity?
12.00 We can create the conditions in which stuff is produced but we can’t control what happens. It’s easy to blame the gatekeeper/scapegoat than look at what’s really going on. How do you get out of being the whipping boy? Looking at both sides of this – what’s the “problem department” doing to put itself in this role, and what’s the organisation’s investment in keeping it there?
14.20 Bringing conversation to a close and marking the anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s death.
16.15 End