Finding out why we do what we do

John J. Scherer, talking at the European Organisation Development Network conference in the UK earlier this month offered what I thought was a profound insight.

He said, for those considering their development and future – “You do not need to change yourself, you need to come home to yourself. That changes everything.”

Or putting it another way, clarify and define the fundamental things that “get you out of bed in the morning”. Why you do what you do. John said our need is to understand “what calls me” in order to fulfill our potential.

John tells a compelling story of his life and his journey to focus on five key questions that we should all answer. John’s site is http://www.the5questions.com/about-johnjscherer

John had a key experience during the war that had helped him understand the answer to his “what calls me” question and he encouraged us to debate this in the room. Later, one brave person piped up with a question maybe half the room was wondering – what if I’ve not had an experience like this and I don’t know the answer to the “what calls me” question?

So I was wondering how other people have found their answers to the question about what calls me. It’s neither easy nor obvious to answer this question. Questions that may help include:

  • What are the high points for me so far at work and home; why are they important to me?
  • When I feel “in the zone” – operating at my best – what factors are present that speak to my underlying purpose?
  • Looking back, what’s made me happy, fulfilled and satisfied?
  • When I have had a “good day at the office” what’s been going on?
  • What am I looking forward to? What things excite and challenge me that appeal to something that’s not about capability but about why I come to work?

I wonder what questions other people have found helpful to address the why question, or what experiences have been instrumental in helping them to address the why question?

 

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The importance of ground rules – bias and better groups

I’ve always found the discussion about Ground Rules in groups frustrating. I think they are important and/but I’ve shared that sense of “come on let’s get on with the real work” that I have seen in others. But I had a bit of an ah-ha moment today when I was re-reading the Skilled Facilitator by Roger Schwarz and thinking about some of the insights from Daniel Kahneman and Matt Lierberman around bias. I think they are connected. They help explain how important ground rules can be, why we don’t always recognise that, and what we can do about it.

Roger Schwarz makes a difference between behavioural and procedural ground rules that govern how groups can work. He suggests that there are specific behaviours that improve a group’s process. These behaviours turn an abstract set of core values (valid information; free and informed choice; internal commitment; compassion) into guidelines for how the group should work together. These “ground rules” are:

  1. Test assumptions and inferences
  2. Share all relevant information
  3. Use specific examples and agree on what important words mean
  4. Explain your reasoning and intent
  5. Focus on interests, not positions
  6. Combine advocacy and inquiry
  7. Jointly design steps and ways to test disagreements
  8. Discuss undiscussable issues
  9. Use a decision-making rule that generates the level of commitment needed.

These rules may help mitigate our unconscious biases. Matt Lieberman, David Rock and Christine Cox suggested a model to categorize biases into COST:

  • Corner-cutting: mental shortcuts that help us make quick decisions; like making decisions based on information that comes to mind most quickly, or only accepting data that confirms our preconceptions
  • Objectivism: the belief that our perceptions, beliefs and understanding are true while others are wrong; like thinking that because they know less than us their perspective has less value, or thinking “I knew that all along” after the event (the 2015 election bias!?)
  • Self-protection: our motivation to feel good about ourselves and our groups; like accepting or rejecting what’s being said on who is saying it not what they say or believing our success is based on character while others is based on luck
  • Time and money: our tendency to value what is easy to reach, and place more emphasis on threats vs. rewards: like valuing smaller short-term rewards against longer-term more valuable rewards, or over valuing sunk costs

I can appreciate that some of the ground rules mitigate against some of the biases. Testing assumptions, sharing information and discussing the discussable helps reduce corner cutting; defining terms and inquiring properly reduces our tendency to lack objectivity, and so on.

The insight for me was that people in groups are biased whether we like it or not and ground rules are a choice we have as a group to increase our awareness of that risk and try to minimize it.

The Ground Rules then become a need not a nice to have and the challenge for the facilitator and the group is how to engage in this discussion in a way that elicits meaningful and helpful ground rules – especially if the group may not be aware of the need because bias is unconscious!

The lesson for me is to come up with approaches to generate more meaningful discussions around ground rules based not just on procedural stuff (keep to time, phones off, etc) but on those things that that can make an essential difference to the way the group works perhaps by providing input on bias and/or using more visual and imaginative ways to generate the list of rules (e.g. remember back to the group best at managing conflict or generating innovative approaches – what did they do?)

Sources: Roger Schwarz – The Skilled Facilitator Approach, Jossey-Bass, 2002; Matthew Lierberman, David Rock and Christine Cox – Breaking Bias, Neuroleadership Journal 2014

 

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Creating the future

I’m interested in large group meetings that help accelerate change and Future Search is an approach in which people from different organisations and communities come together on a difficult issue, or an area of potential growth and change, and develop a way forward together. Marvin Weisbord developed the approach with Sandra Janoff and it’s been used on issues as diverse as addressing affordable housing shortages in North America to child welfare in war torn Somalia.

I went to a 3-day simulation session in Chesterfield run by Sandra earlier this year. It was quite a revelatory experience. I saw first hand what it means to “hold the system up to itself” and the potential power of this approach to change – designed to make a difference in real time. Rather than coming together just to share understanding, the claim for this approach is that it leads to action across communities.

Our simulation involved the NHS and I “played” the part of a doctor – my brother is a consultant for real so I’ve heard him talk a lot about the challenges. It quickly became apparent across the room that different perspectives of staff, educationalists, policy makers and others create some of the problems that the NHS faces. We found ourselves mirroring what we hear and see in the media in the room. Furthermore, within areas of disagreement we found areas of common ground where people can make progress. I found myself getting quite emotional and had that “Aha” moment about how this approach to change could help unlock situations not just in the NHS but also in the corporate and charity sectors. It can help get the whole elephant in the room and help different groups recognize that some problems will never go away – they are just dilemmas that need to be managed and that it requires shifts from all stakeholders to make progress.

This is a good process for when people are stuck and looking for a shared vision and action, particularly if urgency is high. It’s especially useful if the stakeholders do not have other ways to meet and talk.

However, leaders need to be open to potentially creative solutions that may emerge; there is no point in adopting Future Search if one or other party is not open to possibilities.

Here is a link to the Future Search Network if you want to learn more: http://www.futuresearch.net

 

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Brain friendly facilitation

I’ve been doing some research* into the practical value of learning about how our brains work for leaders. We’ve involved different levels from Executive Directors of a global engineering business through to senior regional managers in one of the UK’s High Street Banks. One of the consistent themes in the feedback is the value of David Rock’s SCARF model to help managers plan future projects, mergers, processes and other challenges. It can also be a valuable tool for managers or facilitators planning one off sessions or a series of interventions.

The SCARF model provides a shorthand about stimuli that create toward or away responses in our brains. Toward responses make us more likely to be open to ideas, collaborative, positive, focused, creative and resilient. Away responses (“fight or flight”) make us more anxious, susceptible to distractions, and they reduce our capability to remember things and perform at our best. If we want good meetings we want people in Toward states.

SCARF stands for:

  • Status: feeling important relative to others, improving oneself, responding to challenges, getting better
  • Certainty: predicting the future, knowing what is going to happen
  • Autonomy: controlling how things get done
  • Relatedness: feeling connected, safe with others
  • Fairness: fair exchanges, equal treatment.

Meetings often can put people into situations where many of these work in a negative direction (e.g. senior people holding court, unclear objectives and agendas, lack of control, mixed with people we do not know and some people getting disproportionate amounts of air space).

Using SCARF provides a scientific basis for planning how to establish a more productive working climate in the group quickly. We could:

  • Invite people to share past successes and achievements (status)
  • Provide extensive up front information about attendees and desired outcomes (certainty)
  • Work together to confirm agendas and establish the decision making processes we will apply (autonomy)
  • Provide extensive opportunities to connect, minimize input and maximize discussion (relatedness)
  • Ensure equal air space and use techniques to draw out quieter participants in safe ways (anonymous voting, gradients of agreement, etc.) (fairness)

Some of this appears common sense and affirms what we may instinctively do anyway. Some provides useful ideas and challenge into the planning process. This really just scratches the surface into ways we can achieve full participation, mutual understanding, inclusive solutions and shared responsibility.

*Working with Hilary Scarlett we analyzed the impact of learning about Neuroscience in BAE Systems, Lloyds Banking Group, BIS and Orbit Housing Group. David Rock developed the SCARF model and Sam Kaner et al defined key facilitation goals in the Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making.

 

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Measurable learning from Neuroscience

Hilary Scarlett and Mike Pounsford have provided evidence that learning about Neuroscience can generate change. They spoke this May at the Organisation Development Network conference and Melcrum has just published their work. See the download of their presentation at Roffey Park and the link for the article.

The difference Neuroscience can make.pdf

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