By Kathleen
D. Dannemiller, Mary Eggers, and Peter Norlin of Dannemiller
Tyson Associates and Therese Fitzpatrick, Independent Consultant
On the third day of the event,
Craig and some of his leaders grew fearful that we would not
achieve the purpose through the day's current plan. Craig
proposed a significant change in the plan for the day. In
our opinion, that change would have inadvertently sent a message
of "command and control/leader knows best" to the
entire group. This was contrary to the essence of Craig's
beliefs, and certainly contrary to the essence of our beliefs.
We confronted Craig, held up the mirror and said, "You
don't want this. We know you don't." He said, "You
are right. That's why I brought you here to help me "
We returned to the original plan. .. with great results.
We achieved all the proposed,
desired outcomes. The outcomes were magical, according to
the participants. The organization shifted on its foundations
as a result, for those who were there. It has only been three
months so we are probably just at the end of Act I. But one
of the things we know is that they will be winners in the
future. Brio has become a group of winners, indeed.
Why The Magic At Brio?
If you're a leader facing the
kind of challenges that Craig Brennan encountered as a new
leader at Brio, then you're also faced with a choice at every
moment about how to approach these challenges. These choices
force us to confront our assumptions and values about how
people change, how they create and sustain momentum to reach
their best possible future, and what a leader must do to create
conditions for organizational success.
"It was the best of times;
it was the worst of times," as Charles Dickens said so
long ago. Since this is always the case, no matter what era
we're living in, what makes the difference between success
and failure? The key is mindset-the way we think about things.
And a leader's mindset is especially critical, because mindset
drives behavior, and a leader's behavior creates the conditions
for an organization's future. At the moment, most leaders
find themselves pulled between two conflicting mindsets, one
rooted in a long history of assumptions, dating back to the
Industrial Revolution, about the value of command and control.
Too often, in the last decade or so, we've seen "tough"
leaders with command-and-control mindsets doom whole organizations
to mediocrity, whether e-commerce "dot.coms" or
old fashioned bureaucracies.
The other mindset-the one we
saw Craig Brennan using at Brio-is based on a very different
set of assumptions, and it drives a very different set of
leadership behaviors. And because we've seen it with our own
eyes, we also know that when a leader acts out this mindset,
the organization comes alive. It thrives, it moves, it tackles
complex demands and meets them, it identifies the kind of
success it wants and achieves it. This leadership mindset
is grounded in a radical shift in perspective about how living
systems operate and about how human systems change and grow.
As our understanding has expanded (aided with the wisdom in
books such as Meg Wheatley's, Leadership and the New Science)1,
we now see that this mindset suggests some new rules for leaders
of organizations around the globe.
Because we now know that our organizational world is a living
system with new rules for success, we also know that when
leaders use these new rules, they unleash a special kind of
magic and they change their own job descriptions. Here are
three examples of some 'old' and 'new' leadership rules.
SOME NEW RULES FOR
LEADERS
Old Rule #1:
The leader's job is to know, and to serve as a final authority
in important decisions.
New Rule:
The leader's job (in the 21st Century) is to call people together
whom we have typically kept apart, and to find ways to uncover
and connect the collective wisdom of our people. When leaders
follow this rule, we've seen that this shared wisdom emerges
most effectively when people are invited to come together
and create "one-brain, one heart." Here everyone
in the organization, through accepting each others' views,
comes to see that we all know the same thing ("one brain"),
and we are all connected around the same yearnings and vision
of a preferred future for the organization ("one heart").
Old Rule #2:
The leader's job is to control-information, people, risk,
the future. The effective leader is in charge of everything
that's going on, both inside and outside the organization.
The leader's job is to ensure that people in the organization
obey the rules, and people in the organization look to the
leader to keep them safe (e.g., "If I obey, then I'll
have a job, and the company will survive).
New Rule: The
leader's job is to ask questions and facilitate conversations
at ALL levels of the organization. An organization can achieve
its goals quickly and successfully only when people's energy
is aligned and their commitment is focused, and we believe
that this requires a leader to engage people at all levels
of the organization in connected discussion. Under the old
rule, in bureaucratic organizations people or teams are (unknowingly)
often working at cross-purposes from each other and cross-purposes
from their leader's plan for success. When this bifurcation
occurs, it is a signal that our thinking is not "whole"
- each of us needs to know what all of us know in order to
be "whole"…and therefore, wise. In most organizations,
people now ask, "How can I be part of a strong organizational
team when we live in different countries, work in different
time zones, operate at different levels of the organizational
structure, and, literally, live in different worlds?"
When a leader follows this new rule, and finds ways to get
people knowing and talking about the same things, all together,
all the time, they find creative ways to bring themselves
into alignment.
Old Rule #3:
The leader's job is to drive and monitor organization performance
by focusing on what is going wrong, and punishing mistakes.
New Rule:
The leader's job is to build and sustain high performance
by noticing and appreciating when people do things right-especially
when they act with courage, integrity, and accountability.
Reinforcing courageous, right-minded action, especially when
it turns out to be a mistake, is the only way to encourage
people to take risks, and leaders who follow this rule typically
build organizations with spirit and pride.
When leaders follow these rules,
we've seen them guide their organizations successfully through
turbulent times, buoyed by the collective optimism and courage
of people who know that their wisdom and competence is valued.
Unleashing this kind of magic in an organization requires,
of course, that a leader demonstrate similar courage and commitment.
At the core of this shift in leadership mindset is trust-trust
in other people and trust in yourself. We've seen that if
you are willing to trust others, you will survive that old
Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times!"
In fact, the curse transforms itself into a promise.
__________________________________________
DANNEMILLER TYSON ASSOCIATES:
is a virtual consulting company centered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Dannemiller Tyson Associates specializes in rapid, significant
and lasting organizational change. We work from a Whole-ScaleŽ
perspective often involving hundreds of people simultaneously
in getting alignment on key issues. The results of this work
often pervade the entire organization at all levels. You can
contact us at www.dannemillertyson.com.
KATHLEEN D. DANNEMILLER
(Emeritus)
Kathleen Dannemiller is the founding partner in Dannemiller
Tyson Associates and co-inventor of Real Time Strategic Change
and Real-Time Work DesignŽ (now called Whole-ScaleŽ).
Kathie has been a passionate advocate of empowerment, systems
theory and whole system change for more than 30 year s. Kathie
has been a consultant, coach and mentor to countless leaders,
consultants and organizations as they build a better future.
She has been a political organizer at the national, state
and local levels as well as a community organizer. Kathie
is recognized worldwide for her ability to move entire organizations
forward with speed, depth and spirit. Kathie is a member of
the National Training Laboratory and the National Organization
Development Network. To put it in her own words she helps
organizations become "one brain and one heart - we need
to bond, become one in what we know, which is the brain, and
what we feel, which is the heart." She would also say
that engraved on her soul are many of the teachings of Ron
Lippitt, one of her mentors. One of those teachings is to
figure out who needs to be in the room and what conversations
need to take place. As easily as breathing in and breathing
out she believes there is no conversation that is above or
beneath anyone and that everyone needs to have a voice, a
real voice in shaping their future. Her work comes from the
heart and is grounded in the foundation theories of the field
of OD.
MARY EGGERS
Mary Eggers is a designer/facilitator of the Whole-ScaleŽ
change process and of Developing Whole-ScaleŽ Change
Competencies workshops. What excites her most is the opportunity
to work in partnership to tap the spirit of individuals and
organizations. This happens by involving everyone, empowering
them to participate in meaningful ways and giving them a voice
in creating and implementing the organizations preferred future.
Mary has been in the field of organization development since
1985 and has experience in healthcare, education, government,
information technology, not for profits and manufacturing.
She has an MS in Organization Development from the American
University/National Training Laboratories. She is a member
of the National Organization Development Network, the Chesapeake
Bay Organization Development Network, Women in Technology
and the Strategic Leadership Forum Washington DC Chapter.
PETER NORLIN
Peter Norlin, Dannemiller Tyson Associates, has 25 years of
experience as both an internal and external consultant, focusing
on the development and integration of leaders and leadership;
partnerships, teamwork; and collaboration; and whole-system
change.
THERESE FITZPATRICK
Therese Fitzpatrick is an independent organization consultant
with 15 years legal and consulting experience in the East
and Midwest, currently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Dannemiller Tyson Associates
are authors of two new books: Whole-Scale Change: Unleashing
the Magic in Organizations and Whole-Scale Change: The Toolkit,
Berrrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 2000.
The fifteen partners of DTA
worked together to write these books. Using our own Whole
Scale processes, we worked as a community, one brain and one
heart, to bring our best wisdom to the content of these books.
