Tag: #bequestionable

What to Ask your Relative who Voted for the Other Guy

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Those of us in the United States are now moving from election season to dispute season. Tens of millions of Americans will be distressed, maybe even enraged. And some of them will soon be sitting down to a Thanksgiving meal with you.

The holidays are approaching. A time for friends and family to reunite. Does the idea of reuniting feel quaint and naive? It might be more likely that you are dreading an inevitable interaction with the outspoken lefty or righty at the table. After all, you can only talk about the kids and the weather for so long.

Here’s an early holiday gift from Unstuck Minds. There are two sets of questions below. One set of questions for progressives to ask conservatives. One set of questions for conservatives to ask progressives. The questions are designed to build shared understanding and surface insights.

Before attempting to use the conversation starters, a word of warning. There’s a big difference between an inquisitive, “What were you thinking?” and an exasperated, “What were you thinking?!” A question lives up to its potential when the person asking it learns something from the answer.

A question lives up to its potential when the person asking it learns something from the answer.

Maybe it would help if you imagine you’re a journalist from an alien world. Your species is highly intelligent and confused about reports that Earthlings aren’t getting along with each other. Your job is to explain the disparities in values and world-views among humans by interviewing a few of them. Your job is not to win an argument or score points with snarky retorts.

If you decide to “go there,” proceed with compassion and curiosity. I suggest showing people the list of questions and letting them answer the ones they find interesting.

Questions Progressives Should Ask Conservatives

  • Trump’s slogan has been, “Make America Great Again.” What are some of the great things you want America to hold on to or return to?
  • What is important to you about patriotism? What happens if people in our country become less patriotic?
  • What are some things that a federal government should and should not be in charge of?
  • What role should religion play in the decisions made by our political leaders?
  • What should citizens be free to do and where should we draw the line so that we don’t cause harm? How about businesses?
  • How do you feel about people born in other countries coming to live in the United States?
  • What should we teach our children about competitiveness and the desire to win?
  • What should we teach our children about loyalty and respect for authority?

Questions Conservatives Should Ask Progressives

  • What should those with society’s favored traits (race, gender, sexual identity, age, physical and mental attributes, etc.) understand about the experiences of those in the minority?
  • What is important to you about fairness? What happens when the rules of society or the behavior of people in power create inequities?
  • What are some things that a federal government should be and should not be involved in?
  • What are our obligations to each other as citizens of the United States?
  • How do you feel about people born in other countries coming to live in the United States?
  • What should we teach our children about fair play and making sacrifices for less fortunate people?
  • What should we teach our children about becoming independent thinkers?

If the thought of having a discussion about any of the above topics feels daunting and potentially upsetting, stick to comments about the kids and the weather. Perhaps just reading the questions might help us see others as reasonable.

A toast: Here’s to reuniting the states of America!

The Surprising Power of Not Knowing What to Do

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During a family vacation in 1943 Edwin Land, inventor of the instant camera and co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation took a picture of his three-year-old daughter Jennifer. He explained to Jennifer that she could see the picture after it was developed, which at the time had to be done in a darkroom or processing lab. Jennifer objected asking, “why do we have to wait?” According to Land, Jennifer’s question sparked the notion that camera film could be invented that did not require time-consuming processing. In 1947, Land introduced the instant camera at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. A couple of years later, the camera was available to the public.

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.

Shunryu suzuki

The image above is the Japanese Kanji for Shoshin, which means, beginner’s mind. In his book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Zen monk and teacher Shunryu Suzuki opens with, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few.” Land’s daughter Jennifer demonstrated a beginner’s mind by asking what some would describe as a naïve question. Land too demonstrated a beginner’s mind by allowing his assumptions to be altered by his daughter’s question. A beginner’s mind can circumvent constraints and expertise because it is not burdened by assumptions about how the world works or what should or should not be done.

The Beginner’s Mind Versus the Stuck Mind

To engage with a beginner’s mind is to take a leap of faith. The beginner’s mind is not waiting for an opening to insert a point of view. The beginner’s mind does not seek to absorb someone else’s expertise. The beginner’s mind trusts that what attracts its attention in the moment will illuminate a path forward. Like the mind of an improviser, the beginner’s mind builds on what is offered.

By contrast, the stuck mind is most attentive to its own assumptions and biases. The stuck mind fears uncertainty and indiscriminately eliminates complexity. The stuck mind fears uncertainty because uncertainty introduces the risk of upending the status quo. The stuck mind eliminates complexity because complexity feels overwhelming.

It’s hard to imagine a time of greater uncertainty and complexity than the current moment. The twin viruses of Covid-19 and racism have infected us with a malaise. The governing principles of civil society that anchor our identities and our aspirations have come unmoored. When our bedrock assumptions are threatened, we become susceptible to simplistic answers, arrogant leaders and snake-oil salesmen. We are grateful for any port in a storm. More than ever we need to adopt a beginner’s mind.

How to Cultivate a Beginner’s Mind

Those paralyzed by the uncertainty and complexity of our chaotic times have hunkered down. They wait for the storm to pass. Those approaching our challenging times with a beginner’s mind have begun to notice and get curious about long held assumptions. Some people are asking what would have seemed like naïve questions before the world turned topsy-turvy:

  • Why does it matter where my work gets done?
  • What is the purpose of a classroom?
  • What is the relationship between law enforcement and public safety for all citizens?

You can practice cultivating a beginner’s mind by giving yourself permission to think, “I don’t know,” when someone asks, “what should we do?” Even if you believe you do know what to do, set your solution aside temporarily and imagine the response of someone who has no expertise or experience to draw on. If you truly had no ideas, you would start with a question. The question would likely be naïve and potentially as potent as Jennifer’s question to her inventor dad.

Here are few all-purpose, beginner’s mind questions to use when someone asks, “what should we do?”

  • What is going on that makes it important for us to take action?
  • What would you like to have happen?
  • Who will benefit from taking action and what are their needs?
  • What are we assuming about the way things work that might be limiting our options?

The beginner’s mind sees abundant possibilities because it is not captivated by assumptions the world has left behind. If you’re feeling stuck, here’s my advice…

Don’t know what to do? Don’t know what to do!

Scenario Un-Planning; How to get Unstuck by Starting from Where you Aren’t

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When a team of strategists conducts a scenario planning exercise, they imagine, in great detail possible futures. Exploring alternative scenarios about the future can help an organization get unstuck. The problem however, might not be a lack of imagination about the future, but rather an inability to shed current, unproductive norms and routines. If dismantling the status quo feels both necessary and hopeless, a kind of reverse scenario planning might help.

In 1997 I worked as a director in the operations department of Pizza Hut. That year, Mike Rawlings became the President of Pizza Hut. In 2011, Rawlings went on to become the Mayor of Dallas, Texas. Before joining Pizza Hut, he had been an executive in an advertising agency.

Rawlings got the top job at Pizza Hut by having demonstrated his capability as a leader, what he lacked was specific experience running a global restaurant company. Like many businesses, restaurant companies rarely put individuals into senior leadership roles who have not had years of industry experience. Rawlings needed to establish credibility with an executive team of restaurant industry veterans and at the same time oversee the transition of Pizza Hut from a division of PepsiCo to a division of the newly formed Yum! Brands restaurant company. Rawlings had not been in his role long when the new parent company asked the heads of each of its three divisions, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC to reduce overhead spending by 10%.

Rawlings may not have known much about running a pizza company, but he knew a lot about the potential traps associated with restructuring an organization to reduce cost. He understood that if he had asked his department heads to recommend cuts, they would likely protect their own departments and propose that the 10% reduction come from someone else’s budget. To get a more balanced perspective, Rawlings formed a team of middle managers, each from a different corporate department. I was asked to represent the operations department. While the executive team prepared their cost cutting recommendations, we prepared our own analysis. Before the Pizza Hut executives finalized the specific overhead reduction changes, Rawlings asked us to make a presentation of our analysis and recommendations to the executives.

Our team decided to reframe the assignment. Instead of taking the existing organizational structure as a given and then looking for ways to trim overhead, the team changed the question. First, we asked ourselves, “Which role at Pizza Hut has the greatest impact on the value our customers get from doing business with us?” The answer to the first question was easy. Under the leadership of David Novak, Yum! Brands had built a culture focused on ensuring each restaurant had what it needed to create customer loyalty. The company went so far as to officially change the name of their corporate offices to “Restaurant Support Centers.” At least in theory, each restaurant general manager played the pivotal role in ensuring customer value and customer loyalty. We then posed a new question, “What would the organization look like if the only corporate jobs that existed were the ones needed by the restaurant managers?”

We’ve started to move past the shock and denial of a deadly virus, quarantines, and an economy in limbo. The good new? It is easier for us to separate in our minds what’s essential from what’s merely traditional.

We conducted the following thought experiment as an approach to answering the second question. Imagine that tomorrow, the restaurant support center disappeared, and the restaurants and their staff were the only thing left of the Pizza Hut organization. What would a restaurant general manager, who behaved like a savvy business owner, need in order to continue building customer value and customer loyalty?

The task team then redesigned the Pizza Hut organization from the ground up based on the roles and functions a restaurant general manager couldn’t operate without. In the end, the approach created a company that, on paper looked and functioned like a franchisor. We concluded that if Pizza Hut wanted restaurant general managers to behave like business owners, maybe the company should structure itself accordingly. We proposed an aggressive shift in the balance of company-owned versus franchised Pizza Huts, reducing the need for a significant number of operations, marketing and accounting roles. We estimated that our plan would lower overhead by almost 30%.

The executives were unwilling to approve such a dramatic transformation of Pizza Hut, but Rawlings had achieved his goal of challenging the thinking of his department heads with ideas from leaders within their own functions. Notably, Nation’s Restaurant News reported in October of 2016, nearly 20 years after we made our recommendation, that Yum! Brands decided to sell about 2,000 of its company-owned restaurants in order to cut $300 million in overhead by 2019.

The idea behind “scenario un-planning” is to imagine that none of the current structures and systems exist. Start by choosing a guiding mission around which to build. Next, have a brutally honest conversation about the structures, systems and processes that would be required to accomplish the mission. The point of the exercise is not to restructure the organization. The point of the exercise is to identify areas of alignment around what is essential to the mission, areas of disagreement about what may or may not be needed, and areas of opportunity for reprioritizing resources and investments.

Coming to terms with the current pandemic is a bit like having the “scenario un-planning” exercise get a bit too real. We don’t have to imagine life without status quo systems; we’re living it. We’ve started to move past the shock and denial of a deadly virus, quarantines, and an economy in limbo. The good new? It is easier for us to separate in our minds what’s essential from what’s merely traditional.

I won’t be Attending our Virtual Happy Hour

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Dear Colleagues,

I love you. I miss you. I completely understand the impulse to find creative ways for us to sustain close ties. Nevertheless, I regret to inform you that I will not be attending this week’s virtual happy hour.

I could invent an excuse (I’m looking at you Marty) about having to take a client call; but honestly, the virtual happy hours wear me out. At least as far as I’m concerned, they are achieving the opposite of the intended goal. I feel less connected to each of you when I click the “Leave Meeting” button. Instead of feeling reinvigorated by warm interactions with people I care about, I just feel like taking a nap.

Boss, I know we may be discussing my absence during our next virtual performance conversation. Feel free to put a note in my permanent record about not being a team player. Also, I would follow up with Marty about the so called “client call” that excused him from last week’s happy hour.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I know that the pandemic is temporary, but I fear that its influence on how we work will be permanent. No doubt conversations are going on about how remote work is turning out to be a blessing in disguise. I can almost hear the number crunching going on in the finance department. Productivity is up. Our need for office space is down. Win-Win!

I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy my new commute from master bedroom to spare bedroom. I’m also grateful that I don’t have to label the food in my refrigerator, and I don’t need permission to be home waiting for the plumber. Of course, I wouldn’t need to label my food in the break room refrigerator if some people had more respect for other people’s personal property! Sorry, where was I? I have been more productive. I’ve been exercising more regularly, and my partner and I have the time and energy for an after-dinner walk most nights.

Here’s the thing, working from home is not just about a change of address. I appreciate all the webinars about effective virtual collaboration and how to set up my home office space. It’s just that all these efforts to make my new circumstances look, feel, and operate like my old circumstances miss the point. We’re not just relocating where the work gets done, we’re reinventing the way the work gets done.

Work is not just my productive output. For me, work was also the place where I noticed when someone bought a new pair of shoes or more importantly, the place where someone noticed when I bought a new pair of shoes. I realize that I could upload a photo of my new shoes to our team Slack Channel, but then everybody would feel obliged to respond with some digital simulacrum of an actual smile. Now I don’t even bother putting on shoes.

If this new arrangement is going to stick, we should have a conversation about how we’re all doing. Or, if that’s too touchy-feely for you, we could talk about dismantling some of our most painful routines instead of figuring out ways to keep them going virtually. How about we come up with a way to use technology to make our status update meetings less monotonous? They were bad enough when we met in person.

Some of you, dear colleagues, seem to be having an easier time adjusting. Maybe those of you who have always connected with friends through technology love the virtual happy hours. Do you? Really?

I’m sure we’ll figure all this out. Meanwhile, please excuse my absence this Friday. I’m not trying to be insubordinate. It’s just that I now realize that some things about “going in” to work are probably gone forever. Recreating an artificial version of them just reminds me of what I’ve lost.

How to Question our Future

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A stuck mind is disabled by complexity and uncertainty. In the face of our pandemic, stuck minds are yearning for a return to normal, as if the state of the world before the virus shut things down represented some ideal. Grieving the loss of our routines and interactions makes sense. I don’t want to minimize or dismiss the impact of what we’ve lost, what we continue to lose. On the other hand, focusing on getting back what we’ve lost misses the opportunity to consider what we might bring forth.

The author William Bridges built a consulting practice around his theory of “transitions,” which describes the human experience of confronting change. Bridges points out that the way we speak about change is very different from the way we experience change. We talk about change as an event with a before and an after. However, when humans are involved in change, we don’t simply adapt to a new set of circumstances. Humans, according to Bridges move through a three-stage transition as we become familiar with and learn to accept what is different.

Ironically, the first phase of the transitions process is “the ending.” In the ending phase, we focus on what is being lost or going away. We can’t give our attention to what is changing until we’ve made peace with what’s ending. I’ll come back to the second phase in a moment.

The third and final phase of a transition, according to Bridges is the “new beginning.” In a new beginning, we tentatively accept the post-change reality. We start to alter our habits and routines and give our attention to making things work given the conditions we find ourselves in.

Bridges calls the second phase of the transition process, “the neutral zone.” The neutral zone is a time of anxiety and ambiguity. In the neutral zone, people become polarized. Some are impatient to move into a new reality while some are unwilling to accept that a former reality has ended for good.

Surprisingly, the neutral zone also provides an opportunity for creativity. When you are not stuck in the past and you are not yet habituated to a new reality, possibilities present themselves. In describing the neutral zone, Bridges (1991) wrote, “When everything is going smoothly, it’s often hard to change things… People who are sure they have the answers stop asking questions. And people who stop asking questions never challenge the status quo” (p. 36).

The Unstuck Minds Compass Model is a good source of questions in times of uncertainty and complexity. The Compass Model suggests posing questions from four different directions or dimensions:

  1. Explore the context by asking, What’s changing?
  2. Analyze current structures by asking, What’s keeping things in place?
  3. Consider social networks by asking, Who needs what?
  4. Reorient your thinking by asking, How might we reframe our challenge?

Let me provide some responses to each of the Compass Questions and invite you to add your own answers in the comments section below:

What’s Changing?

  • We’re developing a deep appreciation for essential service providers and healthcare workers.
  • We’re learning the depth of our interconnectedness in terms of social systems and infrastructure.
  • Disparities in access to services, opportunities, and basic needs are becoming even more evident.

What’s keeping things in place?

  • A false dichotomy between economic health and physical health.
  • Territorial approaches to solutions rather than collaborating across boundaries.
  • Politicizing problem-solving by only agreeing to solutions that help you maintain control and power.

Who needs what?

  • Leaders need to project competence and trustworthiness.
  • Healthcare workers need to feel safe, well-equipped, and effective.
  • Vulnerable populations need to feel protected, empowered, and able to safely access necessities.

How might we reframe our challenge?

Given what’s changing, what’s keeping things in place, and in consideration of people’s needs, the final question of the Compass Model invites us to change our questions. People with stuck minds are asking, “When can we return to normal?” People with unstuck minds recognize an opportunity to ask questions that create new futures. Here are some of my favorites:

  • What will we miss about sheltering in place that we can include in our future routines?
  • From an article in The Atlantic by Ed Yong: How might the society we return to be fairer and less vulnerable?
  • What role do we want and not want technology to play in the way we work, learn, interact, and entertain ourselves?
  • How do we make empathy and compassion a way of life when we’re not facing an emergency?

What are the questions worth asking during this time of transition for your organization?

Bridges, W. (1991). Managing Transitions, Making the most of change. New York, NY: Harper Collins

The Four Disciplines of an Unstuck Mind

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Why did Blockbuster and Kodak, once undisputed leaders in their respective industries, both file for bankruptcy? You might think that each business ignored the innovations that eventually led to their downfall, but the story is a bit more complicated.

With hindsight, it would be easy to conclude that Blockbuster didn’t see the digital and streaming entertainment business coming. In fact, Blockbuster had an opportunity to purchase Netflix in 2000 and passed. Not only that, Blockbuster developed an online DVD subscription business in 2004.

With hindsight, it would be easy to conclude that The Eastman Kodak Company didn’t see the digital camera business coming. You might be surprised to learn that a Kodak engineer invented the first digital camera and Kodak held the first patent for digital cameras. Even more surprising, Kodak had an online photo storage and sharing platform as early as 1999.

Stuck Happens

The leaders of Blockbuster and Kodak at the turn of this century were smart, strategic and experienced. They noticed emerging trends. They just underestimated the threat in the same way that railroad executives at the turn of 20th century disregarded the potential of the automobile.

Getting stuck is not only about missing something important. Sometimes we want to change, but we can’t figure out how to let go of our habits and routines. In the first case, being stuck has to do with how we process information. In the second case, being stuck has to do with the way we process our emotions.

We can use the framework below to characterize four mindsets that keep us stuck. The left-hand column describes elements related to people, including ourselves. In the lower-left quadrant we find the human elements that we can influence (e.g. our own behaviors and those of our core relationships). The upper-left quadrant includes human elements that we cannot influence (e.g. society and social movements).

The right-hand column describes elements related to structures. Structures are arrangements of interrelated elements. Structures include everything from our workspaces and tools (things we can influence) to large scale systems like public schools or research programs that study emerging technologies.

If we lack the ability to recognize the influence of our emotions, we succumb to the human element mindsets that keep us stuck:

  • We conserve our assumptions without pausing to ask if they still serve us.
  • We fear and reject social movements instead of reflecting on how they emerged and what they might mean for the future.

If we lack the ability to recognize biases and limitations in the way we process information, we succumb to the structural elements that keep us stuck.

  • We maintain our processes and routines without questioning whether they still make sense.
  • We misinterpret the significance of innovations.

What Unstuck Minds do Differently

We can use the same framework to identify how each of the four disciplines of an unstuck mind combats each of the mindsets that prevent us from changing our situations. Of course, if you don’t feel stuck, you may not feel motivated to contemplate your situation. I refer to the four strategies as disciplines precisely because I suggest you apply them even when you don’t feel the need. It’s like disciplining yourself to eat well and exercise rather than waiting to be dissatisfied with your health before taking action.

Develop

People with unstuck minds regularly reflect on their own assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors. They ask: How might I be getting in my own way?

Accept

People with unstuck minds get curious about shifts in societal attitudes and norms. They don’t necessarily buy-in to the latest trend, but they want to know: What does this trend say about our social norms?

Design

People with unstuck minds tinker and improve their surroundings. They ask: Why do we do it that way?

Adapt

People with unstuck minds are agile and respond to environmental changes. They ask: What opportunities become possible if this innovation catches on?

The Neural Pathway Less Travelled

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Here’s a puzzle to play with. Look at the picture below. Logically, what image belongs in the empty space? In my experience, most people struggle to solve it by simply concentrating on the images until an answer emerges. Work at it a bit and then walk away, let your mind wander, don’t become overly attached to your first few guesses about the pattern. When you come back to it, you may experience an insight that brings to mind the missing image in a way that suddenly makes the solution feel obvious. When you’re ready to see the answer, follow this link.

While sheltering in place, I’ve been reading up on the neuroscience of the feeling we experience as being stuck. In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve also been binge-watching a lot of TV shows. My ability to concentrate has its limits, which as it turns out, is precisely the point of what I have been learning about our brains. Let me sum it up for you. It turns out that our brains are lazy. Our brains take shortcuts. Decades of research by psychologists bolstered by more recent studies from neuroscientists and behavioral economists demonstrate that sometimes our neural pathways become cognitive ruts. It’s worth noting that our brains have evolved to take shortcuts. Our brains take shortcuts because shortcuts are efficient and require less effort. It’s helpful for example, that we don’t have to relearn how the world works every time we wake up in the morning. Sometimes, however our brains apply shortcuts that predispose us to getting stuck, often without us realizing that we’re stuck. The beneficial feature of our brain circuitry that helps us learn from experience can become a programming bug we refer to as a bias.

            Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky introduced the concept of cognitive bias in the early 1970’s. The term cognitive bias refers to a broad array of mistakes in human perception that lead to irrational conclusions and poor judgement. Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for applying his research into the psychology of decision making to economic theory. Much of Kahneman and Tversky’s research conclusions support the idea that our brains are designed to reduce mental effort. About a decade later, in related research, the Australian educational psychologist John Sweller coined the term, “cognitive load” to describe the impacts of mental effort on our ability to solve problems.

            To reduce cognitive load, our brains take mental shortcuts. Psychologists refer to these mental shortcuts as heuristics. A heuristic (from the Ancient Greek: “find” or “discover”) is a rule-of-thumb that we substitute for the more cognitively demanding work of figuring something out from scratch. For example, if you have a method for fitting suitcases into the trunk of a car (e.g. put the largest cases in first), you’re applying a heuristic. I described a heuristic when I taught my daughters to estimate a 20% tip at restaurants by moving the decimal one place to the left on the total charge and then doubling the number to the left of the decimal.

            Neural pathways in the prefrontal cortex become the literal shortcuts for the electrical currents we recognize as habits of thought. We are wired to interpret current situations according to the rules developed from prior experience. To our brains, the familiarity of prior experience amounts to following a well-traveled neural pathway. Being stuck in a rut may not get us where we want to go, but it feels safer than making a change. Creative solutions and insights often require getting out of neural ruts to break a pattern of thought, which is why a new solution often emerges from going for a walk or taking a shower instead of concentrating on the problem at hand.

As we age, it takes more effort to form new neural pathways. Perhaps we feel as though we have all the cognitive capability required to make our way in the world and so we stick to the comfortable neural pathways already in place. Whatever the cause, it just feels harder to learn new things (how to play a musical instrument, how to speak a new language, how to listen to people we disagree with etc.) as adults. The research suggests that reducing mental effort is a priority for our brains. The more complex and stressful our environment, the more our thoughts seek the refuge of our neural ruts.

Here’s the good news. According to research on neuroplasticity, we can continue to develop neural pathways as we age by challenging our brains. One way to challenge your brain is to reframe the questions you’re asking about a situation that you want to change. In his 2017 book, Tinker Dabble Doodle Try, Harvard psychiatrist and brain-image researcher Srini Pillay recommends changing your questions as a way to shift focus and get unstuck (p. 128). Pillay tells the story of Serena Williams’ comeback against Victoria Azarenka during the 2012 U.S. Open tennis tournament. Williams described her thinking in an interview after the match. When asked about the moment when she was down by two games in the last set, Williams explained that instead of wondering about her probability of losing, she focused on the question, “What will it take to win?” She calculated that she would need twelve more points and made it her mission to achieve her goal one point at a time.

The Hierarchy of Inclusivity

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Efforts to help organizations become places that welcome differences – in who we are and how we like to work – have shifted from an emphasis on diversity to an emphasis on inclusivity. An emphasis on diversity, which can be thought of as an outcome, leads to conversations about representation that often devolve into a focus on demographics. An emphasis on inclusivity, which can be thought of as a practice, leads to conversations about human needs that create opportunities to focus on structures that create and sustain unfair advantages and oppressive disadvantages.

Abraham Maslow famously represented human needs as a pyramid suggesting that we won’t be motivated to meet some needs until more foundational needs have been satisfied. For example, in Maslow’s hierarchy, we cannot work to meet our need for “love and belonging” until our physiological and safety needs have been met. I won’t seek out companionship if I’m living in fear of being harmed or being left without a livelihood.

At Unstuck Minds we have been dabbling with a framework that borrows the notion of a hierarchy of needs with a focus on inclusivity. We want to acknowledge recent conversations with our colleagues Tracy Rickard and Ford Hatamiya who have both contributed their experience with the topic to the current expression of the model. We view this post as an invitation to continue the conversation about how best to provide a simple, memorable, and powerful way for organizational leaders to explore how they practice inclusivity.

Hierarchy of Inclusion Needs

The Need to be Seen

The first section of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook (Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross, and Smith, 1994) introduced many of us in the West to the African philosophy of Ubuntu. Senge, et al. shared the Zulu phrase, Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu, which translates as: “A person is a person because of other people” (1994, p. 3). In a sense, your acknowledgement of me brings me into existence.

The Ubuntu philosophy explains the significance of the Zulu greeting, Sawubona, which literally translates as: “I see you.” Each encounter with someone becomes a reaffirmation of our coexistence and interdependence. In writing and directing the 2009 movie Avatar, James Cameron imbues the Na’vi, the native population of the fictional planet Pandora, with a version of the Ubuntu philosophy. In Na’vi, the greeting, Oel ngati kame, also means, “I see you.”

If I don’t feel seen at work, I will not identify with my organization. I will see my workplace as a foreign territory I periodically visit. It will feel risky to reveal myself to others.

The Need to Belong

David McClelland, an American psychologist most noted for his work on motivation theory, popularized the concept of affiliation needs. McClelland thought of affiliation as a fundamental need to feel a sense of involvement and belonging with a social group.

Researcher, author, and world-renown speaker Brené Brown has made “belonging” a centerpiece of her message about the power of vulnerability. Brown, like McClelland describes belonging as an innate human desire. For Brown our need to belong sometimes manifests as a desire to “fit in” that ironically separates us from others because we are hiding our authentic, imperfect selves.

If I don’t feel like I belong at work, I will not support my organization. I will see work as a marketplace where I trade my effort for pay. I play a role at work the same way that a car-engine part plays a role in making the car move. When my capacity to serve my function is diminished, I expect to be replaced.

The Need to Matter

Following the rubric of a hierarchy, until I feel seen, I won’t try to belong. Until I feel like I belong, I won’t work to establish my distinctiveness; a distinctiveness that demonstrates how I matter. When I no longer question whether or not I’m a recognized and accepted part of my organization, I can seek out ways to be significant to my organization.

Will Schutz, an American Psychologist, author, and creator of the psychometric instrument known as the FIRO-B® described “significance” as the primary feeling associated with our need for inclusion. For Schutz, to feel significance is to “…know that I make a difference, am an important person, am meaningful and worthwhile” (1994, p. 31).

If I don’t feel that I matter at work, I will not contribute my creativity, ingenuity, or discretionary effort. My organization has become a comfortable place where I understand the routines and people count on me to do my part. I might embellish the odd assignment with a personal touch in order to express myself, but eventually my yearning for meaning and for being consequential will alienate me from my organization and I will seek self-esteem elsewhere.

Applying the Framework

If you are a target of the “isms” that undermine social cohesion and human development (racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, etc.), it makes sense that you would feel worn out and angry by a daily struggle to be seen, to belong, and to matter. If you have the good fortune to fit your society’s preferred identities, your world has been set up to facilitate your requirements for being seen, belonging, and feeling like you matter.

Frameworks can help us see invisible structures. If we can’t see how structures cause harm, we can’t talk about them. If we can’t talk about them, we can’t dismantle them. Over the course of your day, how much energy do you expend trying to be seen, trying to belong, and trying to matter? Now pose that question to someone who experiences society as inhospitable.

Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R.B., & Smith, B.S. (1994). The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. New York, NY: Doubleday

Schutz, W. (1994). The Human Element: Productivity, self-esteem, and the bottom line. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Be Questionable!

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I’m on a mission to expand what it means to describe someone as questionable. You might say I’m on a quest. By the way, both ‘quest’ and ‘questionable’ have their roots in the Latin, quaerere, to ask, or seek, and the ability to ask or seek has never been more important.

First, we are overwhelmed by the amount of information coming at us. Without the ability to question what we read, hear, and watch, we settle for the information that’s most easily digested, whether or not it’s accurate or relevant. To be more questionable is to be a more discerning consumer of information. Secondly, in times of volatility and uncertainty we need the ability to question our own assumptions. To be more questionable is to recognize that assumptions rooted in past experience may no longer serve us.

The customary use of questionable comes along with negative connotations. If, for example people describe you as being of questionable character, they don’t mean that your character deserves further investigation, they mean you are not to be trusted. My goal is to turn the accusation that you are questionable (at least in certain contexts) into a compliment. Maybe I’ll invent an award for the year’s most questionable leader. An award you’d be honored to receive.

It’s not too much of a stretch to destigmatize “questionable.” Note that the first definition of questionable in Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary carries no inherently pejorative connotation:

1 obsolete : inviting inquiry

Obsolete? Sure. Extinct? Not if I have anything to say about it!

To be adaptable is to have the ability to adapt. To be questionable (in the near future and with the help of the internet) is to have the ability to question. Being questionable is a job requirement for philosophers, scientists, and journalists, why not leaders? As Professor Michael J. Marquardt noted in his 2104 book, Leading with Questions, “most of us are simply unaware of how important or pervasive our questions are to our way of thinking and acting.”

My own practice over the last several years backs up Professor Marquardt’s observation about the relationship between the questions we ask and the way we are thinking about the situations we want to change. In fact, I have been keeping a catalogue of questions leaders bring into Unstuck Minds working sessions. I like to compare the original questions leaders pose to the challenge definitions they develop as part of learning how to be more questionable.Certain habits of thought cause leaders to frame questions that unintentionally, but predictably undermine their desire for new insights and options. Often, the very question itself limits creativity, misdirects attention and resources, or places blame. I use the term, “quicksand questions” to refer to the ineffectual questions that leaders ask. A quicksand question is a challenge definition the asking of which gets you more stuck rather than less stuck.

For example, I worked with an HR leader responsible for changing her organization’s approach to performance management. The leader and her team felt stuck because they focused their efforts on answering the question, “how do we get our managers to conduct regular coaching conversations?” The team felt that regular coaching conversations would do more to shift the performance management culture than any other single behavior change. The strategy made sense, but the question put managers on the defensive and narrowed the focus to transactional interactions.

After applying the Unstuck Minds inquiry strategies to the dilemma, the HR leader began to consider the bigger picture of performance management. In the end, her team chose to focus on a different question: How do we help our employees realize their potential? It’s not that one question is more appropriate than the other question. The point is that if you feel stuck, altering your question might unlock new insights and options. The ability to alter your questions may be the most important leadership skill of the next decade.

Questionable people are skilled at improving their questions when they’re stuck for an answer.

Be Questionable; The Antidote to Expertise Addiction

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Hi, my name is Jay and I’m an expertise addict. It’s been 30 minutes since I acted like a know-it-all.

I was raised to value intelligence, but somewhere along the way I confused intelligence with having a ready answer for any situation. I see now that aspiring to be the foremost authority on anything is a fool’s errand.

Knowing things is becoming an obsolete advantage

in 2011, IBM’s artificial intelligence platform Watson famously beat the best human players at Jeopardy. Ken Jennings, one of the humans who lost to Watson delivered a TED Talk about the experience in which he refers to himself as an “obsolete know-it-all.” Watson has redefined what it means to be a know-it-all, but it has not yet figured out how to parlay its vast stores of information into world-changing outcomes and predictions. For example, Watson already has consumed everything published on the subject of cancer but hasn’t yet improved patient outcomes.

Watson may have an answer for any question about cancer, but Watson still can’t tell the difference between a useful question about cancer and an unproductive question about cancer. I suggest that we cede knowing things to artificial intelligence (AI) and instead stake our future on developing our questionable intelligence (QI). Of course, I’m playing with the word, “questionable,” but my use of the word is consistent with its original meaning. Before “questionable” connoted something deprecatory, it simply meant something that may be interrogated or something open to dispute.

How do we create readiness for key roles in our organizations?

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to share my work at Unstuck Minds with the Leadership Development Council of the Conference Board at a meeting in New York. Eliška Meyers, The Program Director and I agreed that we would have the group fast cycle through the methodology on a relevant topic as a way of learning by doing. I asked Eliška for a headline question that council members would immediately recognize as a shared dilemma. We chose to focus on the question: How do we accelerate readiness for key roles in our organizations? Are you already thinking about how you would respond to the question? You may be addicted to expertise too. Let me suggest that we first probe the question for thinking traps.

First, the idea of “accelerating readiness” seems to suggest that we know what “readiness” looks like. If we know what it takes to be ready for key roles, then the question is ultimately about getting the right people into that future state faster. If we don’t know what it takes to be ready, then asking how to accelerate readiness doesn’t seem like the place to start.

It’s as if we’ve been preparing our future leaders in a conventional oven and now, we’re looking for the microwave. We get trapped by the question when we successfully find ways to speed up the process only to discover that we no longer have a taste for what we’ve prepared.

Another subtle trap in the question has to do with the idea of “key roles.” For the most part, our current organizational structures remain hierarchical and role specific. We tend to organize around highly experienced individuals who have tremendous authority to set direction and make investment decisions. One of the reasons people in Human Resources and Talent Development feel pressured is that in many cases our most highly tenured senior leaders are retiring and taking with them decades of accumulated expertise and experience that those left to fill their roles lack.

At the end of the session with the council, we considered a different question: How do we make our organizations less dependent on an individual’s talent and experience?

Counterproductive Expertise

If we can’t accumulate expertise through tenure on the job, what’s the next best substitute? Maybe we should start by questioning the value of accumulating expertise in the first place. Consider Jerry Useem’s July 2019 article for The Atlantic, At Work, Expertise Is Falling Out of Favor. Useem described the U.S. Navy’s “Minimal Manning” experiment in which a large number of specialized workers are being replaced with fewer problem-solving generalists. After describing several conversations with organizational leaders about the pitfalls of mastering a narrow specialization, Useem mused, “It would be supremely ironic if the advance of the knowledge economy had the effect of devaluing knowledge.”

David Epstein in his 2019 bestseller, Range; Why Generalists Triumph in A Specialized World, also makes the case that expertise can be counterproductive. Epstein offers examples and research that seem to fly in the face of recent advice based on Angela Duckworth’s work on Grit or Malcolm Gladwell’s writings on mastering a skill through 10,000 hours of dedicated practice. For example, Epstein writes about the work of Erik Dane of Rice University who coined the term, “cognitive entrenchment” to describe the downsides of domain expertise. Dane conducted research to demonstrate that accumulated domain expertise is associated with a loss of flexibility in problem-solving, adaptation and creative idea generation.

Be Questionable

Apply Questionable Intelligence to make sure you are asking better questions. Anyone who has been frustrated by the volume of useless options returned from a poorly worded Google search inquiry understands the importance of thinking clearly about what you want to ask. When experts frame questions, they inevitably infect the question with their world-views. If you go to an ear, nose, and throat Doctor (ENT) with a complaint about pressure behind your cheeks, you’ll be asked very different questions than if you went to a dentist with the same complaint. Unless that is, the dentist and the ENT had enough QI to set their expertise aside long enough to pose a few broad, open-ended questions.

If our future depends on leaders who can be effective under conditions of uncertainty and complexity, maybe it’s time society deemphasized knowing and expertise in favor of discovering and inquisitiveness.