Chapter Eleven – Creating Sustainable Change

As the last chapter of the book, the focus here is on making sure the leader’s organizational changes are maintained over the long haul. They open with a very sensible acknowledgement that every organization will have pockets of resonance and pockets of dissonance. It is the ratio of resonance to dissonance that serves as a marker for its overall health. The key to moving that ratio in the right direction is distributing emotionally intelligent leaders throughout the organization. To this end, they say that true leadership development (not just a class or workshop here and there) needs to be “the strategic priority” for every company, which of course requires full buy in from the top. While I completely agree that leadership development should be among the top priorities for any organization to stay healthy, vibrant, and growing, I’m sure most organizations could find a few others that rank as high.

Some key elements they mention in making this training ‘stick’ are:

·     - It must be approached from a systems perspective, permeating every level of the organization.

·      -It must address emotionally intelligent systems at the individual, team, and organizational level.

·      -To learn something truly new, it must be both relevant and ‘frame-breaking.’

·      -You must manage the ‘weirdness index.’ In other words, it must be unique and thought-provoking, but it can’t be so far outside the norm of the culture that it scares people away.

·      -The learning should build on active, participatory work. It should involve experiential and action-based components.

They went through a case study at Unilever, where they built a change strategy over a several year period. It was a fairly comprehensive picture of the beginning to end journey they planned and executed. It involved multiple layers of involvement (retreats for the top 100 execs, then seminars for the top 500 leaders, then similar seminars for all leaders throughout the organization, followed by front line engagement with the new culture once the leadership had gotten a handle on how it worked and how they would incorporate it into their daily work lives). The process was collaborative and exploratory in nature so that it helped each person explore their own behavior, their own values, and find ways to emotionally connect with the new culture being developed. It also mentions having created learning communities so none of this was happening in a vacuum. These communities would support and challenge each other during and after the initial roll out. The most important element was getting everyone emotionally engaged. As they say, “people change when they are emotionally engaged and committed” (p 239). As ethereal as some of this soft skill work may sound, none of it was unplanned. They had a very strategic approach to how they would do it and who would be involved at which entry points into the culture shift process.

In a section referred to as maximizing the half-life of learning, the authors list a few key features of any successful plan to change a culture. The process must have:

·     - A tie in to the culture that exists in the organization

·     - Seminars built around individual change

·      -Learning about emotional intelligence competencies, not just business acumen

·      -Creative and potent learning experiences with a purpose

·      -Learning teams that support the learning during and after the initial roll out

After a quick review of what they covered in the book, they mention the idea that the need for this kind of learning and change is more important today than it has ever been. Knowledge and access to it is growing more rapidly than ever before in the history of human civilization. The speed of business is increasing. E commerce, diversification of the work place, and globalization of the economy are all factors that contribute to the need for companies to be dynamic, collaborative, and emotionally intelligent if they want to survive and hopefully thrive. Truly resonant leaders understand when to be collaborative, when to coach, when to be visionary, when to listen, and even when to command. They have the ability to articulate a mission and vision, and to attune it to the values and behaviors of the workforce they lead.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found numerous places where it aligned with what I currently do at work. That alignment allowed me to assimilate a very large amount of new information and research, which I will incorporate into my programs. The only thing I would have liked to see more of were actionable tools to put these practices into place (workshop ideas, activity outlines, etc.). However, I can find these resources on my own elsewhere. Like most books or experiences that stimulate new thought, it has pointed me toward the next stop on my learning journey.

Chapter Ten – Reality and the Ideal Vision

This chapter focuses on the long term sustainability of change in an organization. They give the example of a hospital. In this culture, nurses are not generally given autonomy to question the decisions of doctors. In many hospital environments, a nurse would be severely chastised for doing so. They generally don’t have a formal training class in nursing school that tells them this. Instead, they learn it for themselves in watching the behaviors all around them. It is part of the culture. In truly toxic cultures, people often just give up trying to do the right thing, but simply keep their head down and do their job to get through the day. If it gets bad enough, they may even leave.

Changing the culture of an organization certainly involves modifying systems and processes, but all the tactical changes in the world can’t affect a change in the way people feel about their job and the way they behave. The process the authors suggest for beginning true organizational culture change is called “Dynamic Inquiry.” This process was developed by one of the authors, Annie McKee. Again, the explanation of the process is extremely vague. They talk about avoiding the trap of asking survey questions that only lead to a narrow set of answers, by asking open-ended questions and conducting interviews. These interviews which are conducted at all levels of the organization will typically result in themes which become apparent. These themes give the organization an idea of where to begin. They emphasize focusing on what’s right, as well as what’s wrong with the organization. This helps people get motivated to go along for the change ride, as they hopefully see their personal visions align with those of the organization.

The next case study they use is that of Lucasfilm CEO, Gordon Radley. He worked for a few years in Malawi with the peace corps and became so connected to the tribe he worked with that he ended up getting a Malawi tribal tattoo on his cheek. In running Lucasfilm, he realized that the strong sense of family that exists in a tribe was completely absent in his organization. He took steps to correct this. Most of these steps revolved around getting the employees to be as excited about how they feel about their job as they are about what they do each day in their job. “Working together for something bigger than just ourselves,” is of paramount importance here. In the end, Radley says that a groups “tribal feel” is a good measure of how well they have identified their ideal vision and aligned people around their “common purpose. “ Again, very similar to the organizational culture-building tool I use at work and, in this case, Radley even refers to it by the same name. To create a common purpose, it’s important to connect with employees at all levels of the organization to hear their thoughts and feelings about what’s going on and what they’d like to see. In this, way, the common purpose will align with many of their personal visions, and create resonance and buy-in within the organization.

They go into a case study here of a company in India that had a very emotionally intelligent leader at its helm. He went through a structured process to gain the results he was looking for. First, he “centrifuged” decision-making, allowing it to happen at all levels of the organization. In fact, he encouraged the front line folks to come up with creative ideas and problem solve on their own without having to consult leadership. The second step happened with middle management. Once they saw how this change was affecting the organization and the attitudes, the managers began to emulate the CEO (and now front line) behaviors and got engaged in the process. As relationships continued to build, an atmosphere of mutual support began to grow. People took more risks and became more efficient and effective. Lastly, the CEO insisted on accountability to ensure these changes stuck. Front line employees were so engaged with the new work environment that they began taking up the mantle of sustaining and reinforcing the culture on their own.

A more specific example of this process in action revolved around UNICEF. When an executive leader recognized that many people were not engaged with the powerful work that the organization did. She decided to have all the support staff scheduled to go out “in the field” and see the work they do with local people in person. The entire support staff became highly engaged and were suddenly much more passionate about their jobs. One ‘driver’ in particular started to interact with the locals while waiting for the volunteers to finish giving out vaccinations in the village. He conducted mini-classes, speaking to the mothers of the children in particular about why the immunizations were so important, what some possible side effects could be and about how they could calm the nervous children down. On one occasion, the shipment of vaccines had ‘t arrived at a particular village. In the past, he might have simply driven the volunteers back home. Instead, he got in his vehicle and drove off to a larger and distant village to pick up more of the vaccine and bring it back to the small village. He was unwilling to disappoint his most recent class of mothers. He was acting under the new cultural norms. This kind of engagement at every level of the organization creates resonance and hence productivity in ways that no amount of top down directive can.

The chapter ended with a summary of their three key steps in creating a sustainable culture of emotionally charged people who resonate with the work they do.

1.   1) Discovering the emotional reality. The group’s values and the organization’s integrity must be respected.  Of necessity, visions change from time to time but they must remain attuned to the organization’s “sacred center” or values. The leadership must truly listen to what the employees have to say about the culture emotional reality of the organization.

22)   Visualizing the Ideal. If the front line people are involved in creating the new vision, they will connect with it on a much deeper, personal level.

33)   Sustaining Emotional Intelligence. Among other things here, they mention that leaders must not only hold people accountable but also hold themselves accountable as models for the proper behavior.

A great example of number 3 occurred at my work recently. We had rolled out a new safety initiative which involved getting people to use the cross walks in the parking lot, rather than taking the shortest distance between two points. This was a culture shift. Our company's President was leaving a building and heading to her car in the parking lot. She got halfway through the parking lot when she realized she was not using the cross walk. She turned around, went back to the sidewalk, moved over toward the proper crosswalk and re-crossed the parking lot, this time using the crosswalk. What she didn’t know was that people were watching her from a window in the building. That sent a very clear message that no one in the organization is above these new cultural norms, not even the president of the business unit.

Chapter Nine – The Emotional Reality of Teams

This section of the book begins to focus on how organizations can, themselves, transform and become more emotionally intelligent from a systems perspective.  The first key difference they point out between team transformation and individual transformation is that steps one and two are reversed. A team must first identify their own reality (challenges, strengths, etc.) before they can think about their ideal vision. The reason for this has to do with motivation. An emotional connection to a vision works very well to get people energized, however the collective vision of a team is often not quite personal enough to serve that function. To illustrate this, they talk about a company’s mission statement. It’s often very lofty and emotional but not specific enough to be operationalized in an individual employee’s role. This ties directly to what I do at work. We help companies develop what we call a “Common Purpose.” The common purpose is basically a mission statement in street clothes. It’s simplified language that has two key elements: It is actionable and it helps to create an emotional tie to the company they work for.

You often hear that a team is more effective than an individual (sum is greater than it’s parts, two heads are better than one, etc.). The authors make what I found to be an insightful statement, “groups are smarter than individuals only when they exhibit the qualities of emotional intelligence.” (p. 174). An emotionally unintelligent leader (and other team members) can wreak havoc in a group dynamic, making them less effective than an individual.

Though the order of the five discoveries are different for teams vs individuals, the four elements of emotionally intelligent people are the same as those for teams: Self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, and relationship management. The development of emotionally intelligent teams has a cumulative effect. The more people on the team exhibit the behaviors, the more the ‘norm’ of the team shifts, so more people begin to exhibit these behaviors. They give a couple of examples of teams that have exhibited these behaviors. In one example, the executive hands out a sheet of norms and expectations at the beginning of each meeting. This makes things clear for people (explicit) and gives the leader (and all attendees) the ability to shut down negative behavior by referring back to the printed norms. Another example involved an R&D team who established a policy called the “angel’s advocate.” Whenever someone at a meeting proposed a new idea, the next person to speak would have to demonstrate support for the idea. This created an environment where ideas were less risky and a supportive environment was created (or at least some support existed).

This chapter wraps up by talking about the importance of the leader in helping the team discover their emotional reality (strengths and weaknesses). Things like modeling transparency and self-reflection are important tools. But when digging into the team’s dynamics, they warn against sticking to the safe topics. They encourage stepping outside the comfort zone and working on the difficult items. They identify three benefits to working through the tough conversations. First, a “healthy legitimacy” develops around the change process. Second, the act of engaging in these conversations begins to create new habits. Lastly, when team members see this type of truth-seeking coming from the top, they are more willing to engage in the behaviors themselves. The effect of the leader’s own emotional intelligence on the team’s EI cannot be underestimated in creating organizational change. I see this often in my consulting work. When the executive team brings us in to create change but they are unwilling to do so themselves, the initiative rarely succeeds. 

Chapter Eight – Metamorphosis

The Third Discovery: A Learning Agenda

This discovery is about creating a specific learning plan that will move you from your real self to your ideal self. They talk about the difference between performance objectives at work and learning objectives. Most companies require the former. Performance objectives focus on achieving specific successes, so we are put in a position of having to prove ourselves. This can make people defensive. A learning objective focuses on the path to change that will ultimately result in success. This is not only results in less defensiveness, but it is intrinsically motivating because success at work comes and goes, but learning is something no one can ever take from you.

They discuss the involvement of the pre-frontal cortex in mental preparation for a task. When we have time to prepare, this area is engaged and our performance is generally higher. When we are given a task without any prep time, this area does not register any engagement and performance is generally lower. So, when learning a new skill, taking time to mentally prepare for how you will accomplish it (rehearsing a board meeting presentation, etc.) generally helps in the execution.

They give a good case study/example of a leader who had a good approach to “practicing” his new way to leading. He was the CEO of a consulting firm and decided to look at his own company as one of his clients. Each day, he would write a consulting memo to himself as he would for a client, identifying what he’s seen and what needs to happen.

They spend a couple of pages talking about creating an outline of specific, measurable goals and they refer to social science research which tells us that objectives are met more often when the goals are laid out this way. I know that I personally do much better with a to-do list. It helps motivate me to break my day or week down into smaller, more manageable chunks and there’s a real sense of accomplishment each time you check something off (which provides mental and emotional motivation to keep going down the list).

They also talk about practicality. You need to either actively carve out time in your week to work on these specific measurable goals, or find ways to incorporate them into your existing schedule. They gave one example of someone who was a command style leader and wanted to be more of a coach. He decided he would coach his daughters soccer team, since spending time with her was already a time commitment/priority that existed in his life. Another leader wanted to be a more engaging speaker so she decided that all future team meetings would be venues for her to get up in front of the group an deliver work items in a presentation format.

Lastly, with this step they talk about the way people learn differently. Specifically, they reference Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory. Most people learn best by either concrete experience, reflecting, model building, or trial and error. While most people are better at one of these, a truly successful leader can master at least a couple.

The Fourth Discovery: Reconfiguring the Brain

This step is about enacting your learning plan by reconfiguring your brain (ie practicing). They talk about the fact that we are subtly programmed early in life to (in this example) lead a certain way. The scaffolding of what know to be effective leadership is provided for us by our teachers, our parents and our early career bosses. They lay down the brain circuitry for leadership habits. Each time we see such an example it helps to further cement the brain circuitry in that pattern. We call this implicit learning, as opposed to explicit learning which is more typical of classroom or text book learning. To change this brain circuitry takes time and practice. The more varied settings you can practice it in, the more ‘sticky’ the learning will be. They bring up a great example of the importance of practice. World class athletes spend A LOT more time practicing than they do actually performing. Executives often spend no time practicing behaviors, instead spending all their time performing.

Some of the high level tools they suggest are stealth learning (engaging in activities that allow you the opportunity to learn, but are not focused on the learning…such as the soccer dad example). Another is the idea of mental rehearsal, referred to in the third discovery. They talk about people who are able to move beyond changing brain chemistry to the point of changing their physiology through rehearsal (lowering your blood pressure, heart rate, slow your breathing, etc.).

The Fifth Discovery: The Power of Relationships

The focus here is on the importance of building a network of support to sustain the learning and change. They bring up the notion that learning (for leadership or anything else) works best in an environment where people feel safe, but not safe enough that they don’t feel challenged. When this optimal level of brain arousal between relaxation and stimulation is reaching, transformative change can occur.

They suggest a number of support networks, but they spend a little time discussing the value of having an executive coach. Executive coaches help provide a sounding board for senior leaders. Since many suffer from the aforementioned CEO disease, they often rely on these coaches to give them honest, objective feedback about their performance. Truly effective coaches look at your performance on three levels: 1) Individual (what’s going on with you?) 2) Team level (what’s going on with your direct team?) and 3) the Organizational level (how the organization either benefitting or hurting from your behaviors.

They give an example of one CEO who shared his objectives and learning plan with the entire organization so they could watch his progress and help to keep him accountable. This worked very well and his division of the company grew by record numbers. This, according to the authors, was due to the fact that not only did others hold him accountable, but they began to emulate his behavior, enacting changes in themselves at all levels of the organization.