Tag: #questionable

Organizational Quicksand, Part 2: Getting Unstuck

on By 1 Comment

Last week’s blog post introduced differences in the way organizations turn thinking into action. I organized the distinctions by contrasting two attributes of an organization’s culture: The organization’s tolerance for ambiguity and the organization’s preferred influence style. In this post, I want to flesh out the distinctions a bit more and then consider how becoming attentive to your preferred mode of turning thinking into action can help you get unstuck.

The mode of turning thinking into action characterized by a low tolerance for ambiguity and a preference for influence by persuasion, I call “operate” mode. Operate mode moves to action quickly and discussions often feel like competitive sales pitches. Operate mode eschews process and structure. Rule following is seen as time consuming. Operate mode has a bias for trusting the judgment of a passionate, forceful leader who will bend the future to his or her will. Operate mode sees little value in taking the time to build consensus through processes that tap into the organization’s collective wisdom. When in operate mode, introducing nuanced distinctions among options will be judged as unproductive “navel gazing.”

Operate mode serves an organization well when it produces something customer’s value. As long as there is a market for an operate mode organization’s products and services, moving fast and selling hard works. When the value proposition changes because customers’ needs have evolved, operate mode can get an organization stuck.

The mode of turning thinking into action characterized by a low tolerance for ambiguity and a preference for influence by alignment, I call “regulate” mode. Regulate mode is methodical and consistent. Discussions in regulate mode feel formal and predictable. Regulate mode places a high premium on years of experience in the company. If a process or methodology doesn’t dictate how best to handle a situation, the organization will follow a leader who has dealt with the situation in the past. In regulate mode, people want information before they act. In regulate mode, influence takes the form of presentations with a lot of detail about what is happening and how it will happen. New ideas don’t get surfaced casually when in regulate mode. One needs to prepare carefully before suggesting something new, provide evidence that the idea is workable and a business case that demonstrates the idea is worthwhile.

Regulate mode serves an organization well when the customer value proposition includes risk mitigation. As long as a regulate mode business is seen as a trustworthy option, customers will pay a premium for its products and services. When innovations provide customers with faster or cheaper yet equally good alternatives, regulate mode can get an organization stuck.

The mode of turning thinking into action characterized by a high tolerance for ambiguity and a preference for influence by persuasion, I call “debate” mode. In debate mode, skill, expertise and intellect are highly valued. Discussions in debate mode feel stimulating to those who want a rigorous exploration of a topic. Taking action in debate mode feels less important than considering every angle. Authority in debate mode is correlated with expertise. Debate mode embraces ambiguity because it allows every situation to be analyzed and litigated anew.

Debate mode serves an organization well when the customer value proposition is based on superior product quality or service excellence. As long as minor adjustments or extensions to existing products and services continue to be seen as valuable, there will be customers for debate mode businesses. When new market needs require agile responses, debate mode can get an organization stuck.

The mode of turning thinking into action characterized by high tolerance for ambiguity and a preference for influence by alignment, I call “relate” mode. In relate mode, collaboration is highly valued. Discussions are characterized by a desire for shared understanding; leaders seek alternative points of view and include people with diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Opportunities to act emerge when something looks interesting. In relate mode, people put their trust in their colleagues’ ability to marshal resources to get the job done. Because relate mode requires empathy and curiosity, relate mode organizations have long standing affiliations with customers, clients and other strategic partners along their supply chain.

Relate mode serves an organization well when customer loyalty is paramount. As long as customers and business partners value their relationship with the organization, the relate mode business will be presented with new opportunities. When customers and business partners retire, change jobs or otherwise reorient their priorities, relate mode can get an organization stuck.

When your thinking to action mode becomes a trap

Like many overused skills, your organization’s default thinking to action mode can turn counterproductive when you fail to notice that the usual response to challenging situations fails to make things better. For example, if you prefer to work in operate mode and your customers have become disenchanted with your offer, thinking up new ways to persuade your customer to make a purchase signifies being caught in a thinking to action trap.

The Unstuck Minds Compass™ is comprised of four strategies for changing the way you think with others about persistent problem or daunting opportunities. The strategies introduce questions about your situation that you may neglect to ask if you have been trapped by your preferred mode.

  1. Contextual inquiry helps a stuck team zoom out by introducing questions about what is changing in the environment.
  2. Critical inquiry helps a stuck team zoom in by introducing questions about interrelationships within an organizational system.
  3. Collaborative inquiry helps a stuck team by directing their attention to informal social networks and the thoughts and feelings of diverse stakeholders.
  4. Creative inquiry helps a stuck team by questioning assumptions and focusing attention on insights about unmet needs.

Each strategy provides a helping hand when you notice that the usual mode of turning thinking into action has started to feel like being mired in quicksand.

For organizations stuck in operate mode, collaborative inquiry comes to the rescue by providing missing perspectives. To get unstuck, operate mode leaders will have to learn how to be influenced by what they hear when talking with stakeholders and they will need to develop the capacity to remain open to additional input even if it means postponing action.

For organizations stuck in regulate mode, creative inquiry comes to the rescue by providing novel options. To get unstuck, regulate mode leaders will have to get comfortable letting go of the need to see a business case for every idea someone wants to raise. Regulate mode teams will need to spend time openly questioning the assumptions behind existing routines and methods.

For organizations stuck in debate mode, contextual inquiry comes to the rescue by providing a way to prioritize the big picture over getting all the details right. To get unstuck, debate mode stakeholders will have to learn how to question whether settling a point of contention or getting additional input will make a meaningful difference in terms of choosing a course of action.

For organizations stuck in relate mode, critical inquiry comes to the rescue by providing a way to set standards for objectively evaluating opportunities. To get unstuck, relate mode teams will have to learn how to say, “no” even when something looks interesting. To get unstuck, relate mode leaders need to analyze options to determine what makes the most sense for the future and then invest in executing on the strategy better than anyone else.

Organizational Quicksand: Four modes of thinking together they may be holding you back

on By 7 Comments

Getting stuck in the way we are thinking is like finding ourselves in quicksand; applying our habits and routines just makes things worse.

I want to describe four categories of organizational quicksand. Each category represents a routine mode of translating thinking into action. The four modes emerge from comparing and contrasting two dimensions of an organization’s decision-making culture: An organization’s tolerance for ambiguity and an organization’s influence style.

The first dimension describes the organization’s tolerance for ambiguity. An organization has a low tolerance for ambiguity when it sees ambiguous situations as threatening or stressful. An organization with high tolerance for ambiguity prefers situations with multiple and sometimes contradictory interpretations. A low tolerance for ambiguity culture seeks a concrete answer and sticks to it. In a high tolerance for ambiguity culture one often hears people say, “it depends.”

The second dimension describes the organization’s preferred influence style. The influence style dimensions represent a continuum of receptivity to the opinions of others. I refer to low receptivity to the opinions of others as a “persuasive” style. I refer to high receptivity to the opinion of others as an “alignment” style. Exchanges of strongly held viewpoints characterize persuasive cultures. Listening, questions and high involvement characterize alignment cultures.

For the last several years, I have been paying attention to how ambiguity tolerance and influence style characterize the way people in organizations think together. I want to describe four of my client organizations, each one emblematic of one of the four categories. Like many habits that have become traps in times of change, it’s easy to see how the modes of translating thinking into action served each organization well. Now, the modes of thinking have become a type of quicksand making it hard for each organization to adapt.

Org Quicksand Traps

Operate Mode

The “Operate” mode influences by persuasion and has a low tolerance for ambiguity. The operate style describes well a global technology company that I have been working with for over ten years. The company prides itself on having an entrepreneurial culture despite its size and scope. Leaders in the company think fast and act fast; weighing alternatives just slows things down. Leaders in this company don’t engage in dialogue about ideas, they “pitch” ideas to each other and make deals in order to move things forward. The operate mode turns to quicksand when leaders need to question their assumptions and collaborate in new ways with their employees and customers.

Regulate Mode

The “Regulate” mode influences by alignment and has a low tolerance for ambiguity. The regulate style aligns through systems, rules, regulations and procedures. I have a long-standing relationship with a multi-national engineering and construction company. Leaders in this company tend to have backgrounds in civil, mechanical and chemical engineering. There are clearly delineated ways of doing things, which has made the company reliable and a safe bet for customers who are making big investments in complicated projects. The regulate mode turns to quicksand when leaders resist experimenting with innovative ideas.

Relate Mode

The “Relate” mode influences by alignment and has a high tolerance for ambiguity. The relate style values inclusion and involvement, diversity is seen as strength and success often emerges organically by leveraging opportunities. I work with a global retailer that has a distinctive buying model, which mirrors its distinctive culture. Leaders in this company listen to each other and to their customers and suppliers. They avoid codifying procedures preferring to stay attentive to opportunity. The lack of routine makes it hard for relate-mode organizations to develop key talent. The relate mode turns to quicksand when becoming distracted by new possibilities competes with a need for strategic focus.

Debate Mode

The “Debate” mode influences by persuasion and has a high tolerance for ambiguity. Spending time in a debate mode culture often feels like being at an academic conference. I work with a materials science company that manufactures a variety of products, which feature various applications of their proprietary materials. The organization values expertise while rejecting authority as a basis for decision making. The most compelling point-of-view supported by the best logic and data wins the day. The debate mode turns to quicksand when circumstances require a rapid response without making time to consider everyone’s opinion.

Each of these organizations has been successful because of their respective cultures. Today, each of these organizations senses the need to adapt to changing market conditions and an unfamiliar competitive landscape. Applying comfortable modes of translating thinking to action can be counterproductive when the ground that once provided a firm foundation for decision making starts to shift under our feet.

Uncovering Your Client’s Requirements: Four questions for connecting services and solutions to wants and needs

on By

Changing the way we refer to things says a lot about our changing mindsets. For example, our organizations used to “train” people, now we “develop talent” through “blended learning experiences.” Companies that once employed “salespeople” responsible for closing deals, now have “business development teams” that form relationships with customers and clients.

Our changing descriptions of organizational roles and functions signify more than a gentrification of the way we talk about business. In the case of the interactions formerly known as “sales” and “training,” the change in language represents a shift from thinking in terms of transactions to thinking in terms of connections.

Once, we asked for coffee, received it and paid for it. Now we interact with a skilled and knowledgeable barista who assesses how much conversation will be required to meet our coffee needs, including the needs we didn’t realize we had: We can make your cappuccino frothier. Next time order it “dry.”

We no longer transact business. We connect services and solutions to wants and needs.

Our internal and external clients and customers no longer want our prefabricated widgets, our generic training programs, or our one-size-fits-all professional service methodologies. Even health care systems have started personalizing treatment plans to meet individual patient needs.

Sometimes, I have a very specific coffee order and I’m not interested in exploring my options. Similarly, sometimes, a client or customer simply wants to transact business with you. They know what they want and they’re looking for the best value. Before your scoping conversation, ask yourself (or even better, ask the client) about the importance of what Unstuck Minds calls, “The Four Imperatives.”

Find out the extent to which your client needs to…

  • Reduce the risk of missing something important

  • Avoid solving the wrong problem

  • Make it easier for people to take concerted action

  • Increase the novelty of their options

If the imperatives matter, you’ll want to walk into the scoping conversation with better questions. There are four primary questions that will change any scoping conversation from a business transaction into a conversation that connects services and solutions to needs:

What is changing? Start your scoping conversation with a question that demonstrates the importance of context. By the time you have been invited into a scoping conversation, your client has already decided that something needs to change or improve. To avoid being trapped by a discussion of the features and functions of your solutions, find out what has changed in the internal and external environment that triggered the scoping conversation. By asking. “What is changing?” you reduce the risk of missing something important.

What does it mean? After hearing about what is changing, find out how your client has interpreted the changes. Consider other explanations for the identified changes. Why has the client’s current interpretation of the changes become a priority? By finding out what the change means to your client you avoid solving the wrong problem.

How do others see it? You have heard one perspective on the context and rationale for the client’s stated need, now it’s time to find out about the thoughts and feelings of others in the organization. Be suspicious of a client who describes strong alignment on a consistent set of needs. The scoping conversation should include a discussion of what people may end up losing when the client’s needs are met, not just what people stand to gain. Finding out how others think and feel helps make it easier for people to take concerted action to meet the client’s requirements.

How else might we define the challenge? The client engaged you in a scoping conversation by framing a request. If you’ve had a productive dialogue prompted by the first three questions, it’s likely that new information and perhaps some new insights have emerged. In asking the fourth question, you are adding value to the conversation by broadening the solution set. You may even uncover needs that set the stage for future scoping conversations.

Leadership versus Heroism

on By

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns

Driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

the hallowed heights of Troy.1

 

The Trump presidency has raised some difficult questions for some of us who study and teach leadership. Most of my colleagues share values and beliefs that derive from a tradition of humanism, a belief that people have inherent value, goodness and dignity. For the humanist, people have needs and potential, therefore the job of leadership is to uncover needs and help people reach their potential. Consultants and organizational development professionals who operate in the humanist tradition conduct research on collaboration and transformative learning. We write books and teach workshops with names like, Servant Leadership and Facilitative Leadership. We keep encouraging leaders to listen, to learn and to model humility.

There are other schools of thought about leadership. You can find plenty of material on how to be a charismatic leader or an authoritarian leader. I suppose the lowest common denominator of leadership philosophies is that leaders have followers. Trump has followers, and not just on Twitter.

Speaking of twitter, I woke up recently with a nagging fear that my clients would start asking me to lead brainstorming sessions to come up with insulting epithets for competitors in 140 characters or less.

I’ve gotten so confused about what it means to be a leader I decide that I needed to follow my own advice and keep an open mind. I even purchased a copy of Trump’s The Art of the Deal. I should say I downloaded the book to my Kindle. I don’t want to be on the receiving end of side-eyes from my seat-mates on airplanes. By the way, in the section of the book about the importance of gaining leverage during a negotiation, Trump wrote, “My leverage came from confirming an impression they were already predisposed to believe.” Maybe the new workshop should be called, “Leadership as Theater.”

I admit that I’m allowing myself to take elitist potshots at Trump. Perhaps it’s a reaction to having my leadership convictions unmoored by what I’m witnessing. Just because Trump is not my kind of leader, does that mean he’s not an effective leader?

Was Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un in Singapore an act of leadership?

After watching the Hollywood style movie trailer produced by the White House a distinction popped into my head that helped me square my beliefs about leadership with what I witnessed last week. I’m of the opinion that Trump doesn’t want to be a leader; Trump wants to be a hero.

I think it is a particularly American notion to mix up heroism and leadership. In some cases the attributes coexist, Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela come to mind. Heroes are defined by their struggles and achievements. Leaders are defined by their ability to ennoble and inspire others to reach their potential. Heroes have adoring fans. Leaders produce a new generation of leaders.

Contrasting leadership and heroism brought Odysseus to mind. Homer’s epic poem is the story of Odysseus’ kleos. Kleos is a Greek term for “glory” or “renown.” Since it is related to the word “to hear,” kleos translates as, “the great deeds others hear about you.” We don’t yet know whether we should compare Trump’s presidency to the voyage of Odysseus or the voyage of the S.S. Minnow, but there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if you’ll excuse the expression, kleos trumps leadership for our president.

Homer makes Odysseus out to be a hero, but even the Muse could not embellish his questionable leadership capabilities. Recall that Odysseus led a disobedient crew of questionable intelligence who were all eaten, turned into swine and/or (spoiler alert) drowned by an angry Zeus at the end of the journey.

Slide1

And then there’s the bit about Odysseus wanting to hear the song of the Sirens. The Sirens’ song was reputed to be so enchanting that sailors passing close enough to hear the song would be drawn to the Sirens and end up shipwrecked on the coast of their island. Odysseus had his crew lash him to the mast of his ship and then ordered the crew to put beeswax in their ears so they would not hear the singing.

There is one thing Trump has in common with leaders I admire. He forces me to recognize and question my assumptions.

 

 

¹Opening lines of Homer’s The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles (1996)

Question Authority

on By

Thanks in part to Steve Bannon and my fondness for double entendres, the slogan of my youth has become my new job title: Jay Gordon Cone, Question Authority. For the purpose of my job title, “question” is a noun.

I had been resisting business cards for my new venture, Unstuck Minds. I never know what to do with the business cards I receive. The whole idea of business cards seems outdated to me. After all, Unstuck Minds is a company devoted to helping people recognize and avoid thinking traps by asking better questions. Traditional business cards represent a kind of conformity to standard organizational structures that can sometimes be a source of thinking traps.

However, I recently had an opportunity to team up with colleagues to facilitate a practicum session on Unstuck Minds at the 2018 Conscious Capitalism Conference in Dallas. People I respect urged me to have business cards printed so I could hand them out to conference attendees. I relented and got in touch with Jonathan, my talented graphic designer. We quickly agreed on a very simple design for the front of the card. We decided that each card should feature a different question on the back taken from the Unstuck Minds conversation card deck, a minor twist that satisfied my need to be unconventional. Now that we had the design of the card, Jonathan wanted to know what title I wanted under my name. The question touched a nerve and I told him that I would get back to him with an answer. Given the printing deadline, I settled for, “Founder.” I’ve had the cards for almost a month and I’m still not happy with the title, “Founder.”

Last night I watched Fareed Zakaria interview Steve Bannon on CNN. Apart from the substance of the discussion, I was intrigued by the mismatch in communication styles between Zakaria and Bannon. Zakaria wanted to understand and explore. Bannon wanted to confront and persuade. When one person in a conversation seeks the truth and one person in a conversation feels they know the truth, you get a one-sided conversation. Whatever you may think of Steve Bannon or the opinions he holds, he speaks with authority.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to the role of authority in today’s political discourse. Arguments about the appropriate role of authority have been with us since the time humans formed societies. The philosophical tension between faith in evidence and faith in authority came to a head in the Age of Enlightenment. More recently, the topic of “authority” has been studied from the perspectives of cognitive and social psychology. After watching the CNN interview with Bannon, two research programs that shed light on our relationship to authority came to mind.

George Lakoff, the former Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, writes extensively about the central metaphors that distinguish conservative and liberal thought. Lakoff refers to the origins of conservative thought as, “Strict Father Morality.” In strict father morality, the world is a dangerous place; obedience to strict rules is required and the exercise of authority is not just prudent, it’s moral. From the perspective of “Strict Father Morality,” we can begin to understand the rationale for disregarding facts. If the world is threatening, we’re better off putting our faith in those who speak with comforting authority than putting our faith in a world that keeps changing the rules on us.

Arie W. Kruglanski, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland touches on the role of authority through his extensive research on the psychology of closed mindedness. Kruglanski and his colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated that specific traits and specific conditions can heighten our need for closure. Kruglanski defines our need for closure (on topics that don’t have a specific resolution) as a “desire for a definite answer to a question, any firm answer, rather than uncertainty, confusion, or ambiguity” (Kruglanski, 1989). Conditions that create stress or psychological traits that dispose people to feel threatened by too much confusion or ambiguity increase the desire for an answer; again, under certain conditions or for some people authority is comforting.

I’m not interested in passing judgment on people’s relationship to authority. I am interested in how our relationship to authority influences the way we recognize and avoid thinking traps in service of getting unstuck. The next time someone is simplifying a complex problem by framing the situation as a binary choice between opposing views, ask them, “What if we did both, or neither?” The next time someone appeals to authority or states an opinion as the truth, ask them “How did you reach that conclusion?”

How do I know I’m right about this? You can trust me, I’m a question authority.

 

Kruglanski, A. W. (1989). Lay epistemics and human knowledge: Cognitive and motivational bases. New York: Plenum
Lakoff, G. (1996). Moral politics: How liberals and conservatives think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

The Most Important Skill for Leaders Heading into an Uncertain Future

on By

I’ve just returned from a week in Frankfurt Germany. While there, I co-facilitated a strategic leadership workshop for a group of executives at a global technology company with my friend and colleague Nick Noyes. Nick is a partner and co-founder of Insight Experience, the company that designed the business simulation we use in the program.

Nick and I work together a few times a year and I can always count on learning something new when he’s leading the participants through a debrief of the simulation results. In recent years, Nick has been passing along a concept he learned from the business school professor and consultant, Roch Parayre called, “robust capabilities.” For Parayre, a robust capability describes an organizational capability that can be used in a variety of situations. Irrespective of how things change, a robust capability will be useful.

You could argue that learning to play the piano and read music is a robust capability that prepares you for a variety of musical pursuits. Learning to play the banjo limits your options (Is it just me or does anyone else hear their mother saying, “I told you so!”)

Parayre has devoted much of his scholarship and practice to the art and science of strategic decision-making. He is particularly interested in decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. Parayre argues that many of the decision-making tools used by today’s business leaders work best when conditions outside of an organization’s control remain relatively stable. For example, using net present value calculations to help make capital investment decisions assumes that the values we assign to alternatives won’t be affected by disruptive technologies, government regulations or unexpected competition.

In a world characterized by uncertainty, ambiguity and rapid change we should be suspicious of what we accept as immutable knowledge and expertise. Eric Hoffer once said, “In times of change, learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” To be a learner is to be skilled at asking questions.

I would argue that the skill of asking better questions is the most robust capability to be developed for leaders hoping to navigate the complexities of an uncertain future.

Let’s say an organization’s leaders are faced with a decision about which human resource information system to purchase. Consider the difference between the questions we have been trained to ask and questions that might help us reduce the risk of missing something important:

Questions from leaders who assume the future will resemble the present

·    What will be the impacts of each system on productivity?

·    Which system includes better implementation support and more responsive service when things go wrong?

·    What are the costs and timelines associated with the change management required to implement the system?

What leaders trained to ask better questions also want to know

·    Which processes should we stop doing before automation makes them harder to discontinue?

·    How will automating our HR systems impact existing social networks? In other words, what benefits of inefficiency will we be losing?

·    How might we design a low-risk experiment to help us better anticipate the impacts of committing to a full systems implementation?

The saying goes at Interaction Associates that when feeling trapped by the uncertainty of a strategic moment, “It’s not knowing what to do that counts. It’s knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do.” When feeling stuck for an answer because things have changed, the ability to formulate a better question will serve you better than revising the way you answer the wrong question.

Everybody’s Talking at Me

on By

Harry Nilsson’s Grammy award winning song has been stuck in my head all day. I actually met Harry Nilsson years ago when I managed a restaurant in Southern California called Severino’s. Nilsson’s sister and her partner Severino Surace owned the place. Nilsson decided to make a surprise visit to his sister and walked into the restaurant one busy Saturday night. He bypassed the Maitre D’, walked into the bar and started playing the piano. I didn’t recognize him, so I did what any attentive restaurant manager would do; I officiously insisted that a Grammy award winning singer/songwriter get up from the piano and stop disturbing the other patrons. In my defense he wasn’t exactly dressed for a night out at a high-end Italian restaurant. Luckily, Severino intervened before it turned into an argument by walking up to us and giving Harry Nilsson a big bear hug. Severino introduced me to Harry, after which I made some sort of lame apology and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.

As I told the story of my Harry Nilsson encounter to a few of my colleagues, I recognized that I had acted out the song title by “talking at” Nilsson. Now that I can’t shake the song, I find myself thinking a lot about the prevalence of “talking at” as opposed to, for example, “talking with.” When we have a responsibility, work to do and we need the cooperation of others to get it done, influence generally looks like “talking at.” The police officer says, “move along.” The clerk says, “next!” Even a request for information can feel like you’re being talked at, like when a bureaucratic agent at a call center asks with a blend of tyranny and boredom, “name and account number?”

The meeting rooms of our organizations have become arenas for talking at. Meeting participants take turns expressing important ideas in a bulleted list hoping to influence, inspire and/or inform. Recall something you heard that you found influential, informative or inspiring. My guess is that you are recalling a narrative or image not a list. We are wired to take in narrative. Narrative involves us, whereas a list on a slide highlights the separation between the presenter and those being presented to. In a recent letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos reiterated his prohibition against presenting ideas in the form of bullet points. “We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon.”

If you’re not ready to ban PowerPoint at your meetings, you could make one small change that will switch the level of involvement you get when you present.

Next time you have to make a presentation to people whose cooperation or approval you need, consider starting with the question, “What will you be listening for?”

Depending on the number of people in the meeting, you can hear each person’s answer or have them talk it over in small groups and then request a few responses. Giving people the opportunity to tell you what they need to hear not only helps you shape your presentation, it also creates an atmosphere of shared responsibility in the room.

We Don’t Need Artificial Intelligence to Protect Ourselves from Disinformation, We Need Actual Intelligence

on By

In case you missed it, the 2015 Jade Helm military exercises were back in the news this week. While promoting his new book, The Assault on Intelligence: American national security in the age of lies, Retired General and former head of the National Security Agency Michael Hayden suggested that Russia had fomented paranoia in Texas through internet bots, which spread rumors that the Obama administration was using the exercises to impose martial law in Texas. Hayden further speculated that Russia’s experience with Texan’s vulnerability to disinformation emboldened them to employ a similar strategy to interfere with the 2016 Presidential campaign.

While the heads of tech companies try to balance the promise of open exchanges of information with the need to filter out malicious propaganda, others have decided to come at the problem from the opposite direction. In much the same way that one can focus efforts to address a drug epidemic by reducing supply (tighter enforcement) or by reducing demand (just say, “no”), a few educators and activists are pushing for a greater emphasis on critical thinking skills for kids in hopes that they grow up to be more discerning consumers of information (just say, “show me your evidence”). For example, NPR recently featured a story about a French investigative journalist named Thomas Huchon. Huchon has been conducting school assemblies in France to teach kids how to recognize disinformation on the Internet.

We become less vulnerable to disinformation when we become more aware of who produced the information we’re consuming and how it was produced. It’s not really that different from being an educated consumer of food. If dairy products upset your stomach, you would probably check the ingredients before buying untested food at the grocery story or you would have your server ask the chef whether the menu item you’re interested in was made with milk. If discussions of gun laws upset you, you owe it to yourself to find out why stories about guns predominate your Facebook newsfeed.

One way to become a better consumer of information is ask yourself some provocative questions as you read, listen or watch people provide their judgments, assessments and conclusions.

Why am I having an emotional reaction? It’s easy to confuse whom you hate with what you hate (equally true for strong positive emotions like love and admiration). After all, it’s hard to truly hate someone you have no personal experience with. More likely, you are witnessing someone embody values that feel personally threatening. When we feel threatened, we are vulnerable to messages that make us feel safe. When we feel threatened, we seek safety in numbers.

How badly do I want it to be true? If you see or hear a report that is devoid of any evidence or sources, or is laden with tightly edited sound bites, notice whether or not you’ve learned something that you could defend. Did the information convince you, or did the information simply deepen a conviction you already held to be true?

Whose perspective is missing? Be suspicious of reporting that does not include a diversity of perspectives. Quality information should leave you thinking, “I guess I can understand how some people might see it that way.” If the only information being presented impugns the character of a person or group without providing any opportunity to hear directly from that person or group, then you’re not getting information, you’re getting gossip. I understand that we like gossip. Gossip is fun to share and builds relationship (albeit at the expense of others). However, like overindulging in sweets made with processed sugar, a steady intake of gossip can become addictive and diminish your appreciation for subtlety and variety.

Who benefits from my attention and my actions? Social media sites and news media channels make money when they keep you engaged. The more they know about your likes and dislikes, the easier it is for them to package information that appeals to you. We understand when watching commercials that advertisers have designed messages to influence our choices and behaviors on behalf of those who paid for the ad. The same level of scrutiny is warranted when taking in information from any source dependent on advertising for the bulk of its revenue. To learn more about the pernicious strategies employed by tech companies to hold our attention, check out this interview with Tristan Harris, Founder of the non-profit initiative, Time Well Spent.

Information ennobles us when we learn something new or feel more inspired or more connected to others. Be wary of information intended to narrow your view of the world. The more we allow someone to do our thinking for us, the more we abdicate our humanity.

We’re Asking James Comey the Wrong Question

on By 1 Comment

The weather forecast called for a 50% chance of rain showers. A woman named Tracy decided to take her umbrella with her on her commute to the office. The rain never came. After work Tracy met friends at a bar for happy hour. When she left the bar to walk home, she forgot to take her umbrella with her. The next time she needed her umbrella, she couldn’t find it.

Was Tracy’s choice to bring her umbrella to work on the day the weather service predicted a 50% chance of showers a good decision or a bad decision?

Here’s an easier one. Late in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl 49, Pete Carroll the coach of the Seattle Seahawks called for a pass on 2nd and goal. The pass was intercepted and the Seahawks lost the championship.

Was the choice to throw a pass a good decision or a bad decision?

Asking whether a decision was “good” or “bad” (right or wrong, ethical or unethical) by working backwards in time from judgments about the outcomes to judgments about the decision represents a thinking trap. Those who research decision quality recognize that the decision maker has no control over the external consequences resulting from the decision. It may be fun to consider “what if” scenarios, but focusing on outcomes doesn’t help us learn to become better decision makers. What if the railroad industry had reacted differently to the advent of the automobile? Would we be driving around in a Union Pacific sedan or a Reading Lines SUV? If you only consider outcomes when asking about Steve Jobs’s decision to make John Sculley the CEO of Apple in 1983 you might reach different conclusions depending on whether you asked the question when Sculley fired Jobs in 1985 or when Jobs returned to Apple with fresh insights about product design in 1997.

We can’t ‘unknow ‘ the outcomes of a decision when reevaluating the decision maker’s alternatives after the decision has been acted on.

Sometimes the relationship between the decision and an outcome is direct and obvious, in which case it’s more tempting to judge the decision by the outcome. The TV show America’s Funniest Home Videos is a treasure trove of questionable decisions followed immediately by unfortunate and weirdly entertaining outcomes. We have learned from the TV show not to stand next to the blindfolded kid desperately swinging a stick at a piñata, especially if the kid’s shoulders are roughly the same height as your crotch. Still, judging the decision exclusively on outcomes changes if a video of the incident earned you the $25,000 prize.

I’m guessing that evaluating the “umbrella” decision felt differently to you than evaluating the Super Bowl decision, especially if you’re a Seahawks fan. The difference you experience when passing judgment (no pun intended) on Pete Carroll versus passing judgment on Tracy has to do with the fundamental nature of the two activities. Calling football plays is an activity in a finite game. Getting ready to leave the house for work is an activity in an infinite game.

James Carse coined the terms “finite games” and “infinite games” in 1986. Lately, Carse’s distinction between finite and infinite has been gaining popularity thanks to the irrepressible Simon Sinek. Carse succinctly defines his terms in the opening paragraph of his book, Finite and Infinite Games: A vision of life as play and possibility, Carse wrote:

There are at least two types of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.

The distinction is a helpful way to differentiate attitudes regarding much of human activity. As an example, if you play “school” as a finite game, you focus on getting the best test score or the highest class ranking at the end of well-defined periods on an academic calendar. If you play “school” as an infinite game, you focus on learning and discovery; for every subject, there will always be more to learn.

When engaged in a finite game like football, it’s easier to connect a decision to an outcome. Most people consider Pete Carroll’s decision among the worst coaching choices in the history of the sport. However, without the rules and finality of a finite game wherein a winner is unambiguously determined, outcomes don’t help us judge decision quality. If you’re counting on the umbrella and discover that it’s missing, you may feel as though taking it with you on a day when it never rained was a bad choice. If the missing umbrella sets a series of events in motion that result in meeting the love of your life (who remembers Tracy McConnell’s yellow umbrella in the TV series How I Met Your Mother?), the decision to carry the umbrella feels like an act of genius.

To promote the publication of his new book, former FBI director James Comey has been making the rounds of talk shows and has been interviewed by many of today’s best know journalists. At some point in all the interviews I have seen, Comey is asked about a decision he made in the fourth quarter of a different kind of Super Bowl, the Super Bowl of American politics known as the presidential election.

In July of 2016 Comey announced that the FBI would not be prosecuting Hillary Clinton in connection with the use of her personal email server. Three months later, and one month before the election, Comey informed Congress that the FBI had obtained supplemental evidence in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Various media outlets reported on the letter to Congress by characterizing the news as a “reopening” of the Clinton email investigation. In November of 2016 Donald Trump was elected President. Hillary Clinton and her supporters blame Comey’s decision for her defeat.

If you view Comey’s decision in the context of the finite game of a presidential election, you might feel like it’s easy to judge his choice. If as Comey would prefer, you judge his decision in the context of the infinite game of ethical leadership, we will need to understand more about the process Comey employed to reach his decision.

As for me, I would prefer interviewers stop asking Comey whether or not he made the right decision. We don’t need to reinforce our thinking traps by appealing to an inclination to turn infinite games into finite games. I want to hear his answer to a different question: What, Director Comey have you learned about making high stakes decisions?

Rotate!

on By

Two of my daughters played volleyball in high school. They played a significantly more complicated version of the game than the one I remember playing in elementary school gym class. Whether the players are 8 years old or 18 years old, the game still involves six people on each side. When 8-year-olds play, everyone seems glued to a spot on the court until someone wins a point. When 18-year-olds play, everyone moves around the court in choreographed sprints that look fairly chaotic to the untrained eye.

When I played volleyball in elementary school, I remember standing in my designated spot until it was time for our team to serve the ball and then somebody would shout, “Rotate!” The shouter was often the same helpful person who would push you into the next position when you couldn’t remember whether to move left, right, up or back.

Individuals on work teams also need to rotate. Over time, teams can fall into patterns of behavior that create barriers to productive collaboration. David Kantor, a family systems psychologist and consultant uses the term, “structural dynamics” to describe the unseen patterns of interaction that characterize the way teams exchange and process ideas and opinions. Kantor’s original research focused on the structural dynamics at play in family systems. Kantor and his colleague William Lehr detailed their analysis of the structural dynamics underlying interactions among family members in their 1975 book, Inside the Family.

Kantor and Lehr introduced four stances or parts to be played by members of a social system that describe categories of action and reaction. The model, which became known as the Four Player Model gained popularity among organizational development consultants who use the tool to describe and analyze patterns of interaction on work teams. The model is especially helpful for understanding patterns of interaction among members of teams that stay together over time (e.g. an executive team) where the team becomes a sort of second family system complete with all the corresponding benefits and challenges.

Kantor and Lehr identified four basic behavior patterns which teams need in equal measure in order to get the best from an exchange of ideas and opinions. Each of the four action stances can be characterized by the behaviors typically demonstrated:

  • Moving means taking charge, offering ideas or leading the discussion
  • Following means agreeing or going along with what’s being proposed
  • Opposing means disagreeing or challenging what’s being proposed
  • By-standing means paying attention to what’s being discussed and how people are interacting

From the point-of-view of productive teamwork, each of the four stances is simultaneously useful and problematic. For example, when the team can’t seem to get going or loses focus, it’s critical that someone makes a move or takes charge. On the other hand, when the team is engaged in a productive dialogue on a difficult topic, or when the team is brainstorming, team members will resent someone intervening to take charge in order to move things along. Kantor points out that each behavior provides a specific benefit to the team. Moving provides direction, following provides completion, opposing provides correction and by-standing provides perspective.

Teams achieve productive balance in their interactions when individual team members rotate among the stances rather than getting stuck demonstrating the same behavior repeatedly. Over time, a team that lacks one of the behaviors will miss out on the attendant benefit. They might describe their team as “lacking direction,” (in other words, insufficient supply of moving) or “settling for half-baked solutions” (in other words, a deficiency of opposing). The behaviors can also feel out of balance when individuals get stuck taking the same one or two of the four stances.

While each behavior provides a specific benefit, repeated demonstration of the behavior by the same individual creates dysfunction. There is a significant risk that other team members will make less than flattering judgments about individuals who only bring one type of behavior to the team. Team members will use words like, “bossy” or “dictatorial” to describe individuals who only ever move. The individual who always follows and goes along looks “wishy-washy” to the rest of the team. Someone who only ever opposes will quickly develop a reputation as “negative” or “critical.” The by-standing team member who observes without ever sharing their perspective with the team will be viewed as “disengaged” or “aloof.”

When your team becomes sophisticated enough to move in and out of the stances the way players on volleyball teams cover the court, you’ll be sure to get the best each team member has to offer. Until then, you might want to designate someone to shout, “Rotate!” now and again.