Apprentice week 8 analysis, RWA: Effective Collaboration

Summary: We know collaboration often brings greater benefits than competing or working alone. So how come we don't do it more often? The answer is simple: fear. This post reviews the combined episodes 8/9 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) in how to overcome fearful states and promote effective collaboration.


Review of episodes 8 & 9
Taking both episodes together, we saw the remaining candidates exhibit many of their habitual behaviour patterns - with effects both good and ill.

Sabrina was fired in the first half of the episode for her poor conflict management ability and for the cardinal sin of fence-sitting. Faced with Mary-Anne and Heather's respective versions of self-assertion and the sparks that resulted, Sabrina seemed to just step back and keep herself out of the fray. Sabrina called them a pair of "bossy-boots" and stated that she found Heather "forceful" (with strong negative connotation) yet while the clear conflict and tension between her teammates had a negative effect on performance, she did nothing. Her response in the Boardroom on the conflict was: "I'm in the middle." To which Mark Bouris replied, "That's not a good place to be" and Sabrina exclaimed, "Oh!" in a small voice, unaware that her withdrawal and conflict avoidance would be her downfall.

This was a missed opportunity for her to engage with the other two authentically, perhaps to admit that she frankly didn't know what to do but that something needed to be done to address the conflict. It's hard to say what the result would have been, but often an honest admission and willingness to name the elephant in the room is enough to get people thinking differently. That Sabrina felt out of her depth was clear when in the Boardroom she added: "I think it takes character to step up and admit that you are not qualified to do something." She's right, and here I think we finally got a glimpse of the authentic Sabrina...but the timing was tragically too late and she paid the price.

Mary-Anne was this week's second departure, fired for a lack of collaboration and "mateship" with Morello on the Shopping Channel challenge. Having fair bowled Morello over to be Project Leader, her style as leader demonstrated poor judgement in product choice for him to sell and in failing to do for him as he had done for her: support a team member in a moment of difficulty.

Mary-Anne's strong focus on competence has in past weeks prompted her to put her hand up and take reponsibility straightaway when things have gone wrong (particularly on the Mudgee Pub Night challenge). This is to her credit, an example of her Pacesetting leadership style at work, with an expectation of competence and very high standards for performance. Where it falls down for her was shown this week, as Morello fell afoul of those same high standards by making a simple mistake, and was punished with laughter, isolation and embarrassment. For her intolerance, she got fired.

Heather was very assertive about how to do the band makeover in the first challenge in the all-girls team, then not assertive enough about how to run the teleprompting when paired with Gavin on second challenge, which invites consideration of just how well she works with female colleagues (from my recollection, most of her head-butting in past episodes has been in all- or majority-female teams). As I'd said in the week 8 preview, her take-charge, my-way-or-the-highway style produced conflict, which she showed she still has to learn how to manage. In the first challenge, having appointing herself the lead for two of the tasks, Heather once again overextended herself: she initiated a last-minute remix of the band's demo tape (the quality of which came in for harsh criticism by the music industry execs) and running dangerously behind schedule with the band's styling appointment.

Meanwhile in the Boardroom it took Heather a long time to back herself on the subject of her conflict with Mary-Anne. She practically needed to receive permission from Mark Bouris before stating her opinion on the matter. Based on the music execs' reaction to her presentation, I think she gets easily triggered by hearing advice and feedback (however constructive) and responds emotionally by trying to explain herself. In the final episode I think she'll place second; what costs her the victory will be inflexibly expecting things to be done her way, lack of awareness of her effect on others, and the combination of timidity at making a case for her value-add/reactivity towards advice that is actually meant to help her to develop and grow.

I looked to Gavin for some real changes this week and to my delight we were treated to a very different side of him in both of this week's challenges. After my plea last week for him let people in and be more genuine, I think he has shown us some authenticity. As with all new behaviours, it doubtless felt pretty strange for him and from the outside it looked a bit awkward, but full credit to him for stepping outside his comfort zone. The question for him in the final will be whether the pressure and the presence of previously-fired candidates will rekindle the old interpersonal dynamics and cause him to revert to game-playing. Even if he continues with his new-found authentic behaviour, it may be too little, too late to win the trust of the Boss and win the competition. A respectable third place and some invaluable and insightful life lessons will be his reward.

Throughout this competition it's been easy to think of Morello as the kind of guy you could easily work with: friendly, ethical, creative, practical and a cool head under pressure. Sure he's really high-energy and (as Gavin quipped this week) always needs to be the centre of attention, but for a guy his age those are unsurprising and not insurmountable traits. More to the point, we haven't seen from him either the shameless ego-tripping or the egoless "shrinking violet" behaviour that's been the downfall of other candidates.

To quote the saying again, people are most often hired on experience, fired on personality. I think Morello will be Australia's first Apprentice in what could be a case of someone hired for their personality in order to develop the needed experience. If so, well done to him for his perseverance and to his Boss for making a choice that's most likely to reap great developmental and performance results for them both.


Why it's so Hard to Collaborate: Three Kinds of Personal Fear

"We know the good...but do not do it."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche (attributed)

Throughout The Apprentice Australia series we've seen so-called "teams" tearing themselves apart during the challenges and particularly in the Boardroom. I've previously characterized this as a little more than a corporate dogfight pit.

In a recent post, Charles H. Green talked about Why it's so hard to collaborate, concluding that personal fear undermines collaboration. When you think about it, this makes sense and in this way The Apprentice rings true: with a format designed to foster infighting and trigger candidates into fearful, limbic responses, it reminds us in the audience of behaviour we've all experienced before in organizational setting. With this twinge of recognition (and the safe distance of impersonally watching it happen to someone else) the program hooks its viewers.

I want to suggest there are three main kinds of fear at work here:

1. Knowledge is power - triggered by strong feelings and emotions, intrusive/demanding people or situations, being surprised, broken confidences, dishonesty, out-of-control situations, and feeling inadequate or powerless, one fear response is, "I'll keep all the cards to myself, then I'll be the expert and everyone will have to rely on me." An example of this behaviour in the series was Lynton - nonemotional, positioning himself as the expert and being unwilling to collaborate with others. There were moments when Carmen displayed this behaviour ("I'm in it for me," power's all that matters, no team focus) and Mary-Anne too, for example when she was hard on herself for lacking the knowledge she thought she needed and displayed intolerance and impatience toward Sabrina and Morello when she thought they were incompetent.
   
   
2. Distrustful/What if...? - triggered by feeling helpless, out of control, in danger or potential harm, subject to pressure, and/or experiencing a lack of commitment, this second fear response is to constantly ask oneself "What if this happens? What if that happens?" while trying to keep oneself safe from entanglements or commitments - which looks from the outside like hanging back, being guarded and disconnected from others. We saw this behaviour primarily from Blake, totally hanging back and seeming noncommittal about most tasks, getting fired in the end because he was unable or unwilling to come forward. As discussed last week, Gavin and Sabrina have also at times hidden their genuine selves behind masks and game-playing.
   
   
3. Difficult/painful situations - triggered by frustrations, restraints, limitations, painful situations or feelings, boredom or routine, feeling dismissed, not taken seriously or unjustly criticized, this fear response seeks to avoid the situation entirely by shifting focus or substituting some other topic. Heather has demonstrated this by consistently avoiding feedback, by being unaware to come to grips with the negative effect her assertive (forceful) behaviour has on others and being unable to deal constructively with conflict. Similarly, Morello's laughing/joking personable style has the benefit of helping him avoid hardship, steering clear of tough situations.
   

Real-World Application (RWA): Effective collaboration

Charles Green's piece on collaboration ends with the following observation:

There are two simple approaches to lowering fear. One is to mitigate risk. The other is to stop being so fearful. The first one is getting most of the press; we need more of the second. [emphasis added]

To address each of the three most common fear reactions listed above, here are a few pointers:

1. Offer well-researched and detailed content, specific and fact-based; strive to reduce the emotional charge of content and depersonalize/be objective; conduct meetings and make announcements in appropriate, agreed-upon venues; make sure you include an open Q&A session for people to request clarification and details.
   
   
2. Build rapport before moving into content, then use clear statements of goals and intent with concrete specifics; give reassurance about the exact magnitude of problem to help people avoid catastrophizing/assuming the worst; create opportunities for people to play devil's advocate and challenge authority (don't dismiss this as "resistance" because there's often useful information to be gained from differing perspectives); communicate the underlying motives and reasons for changes; provide assurances of support and ongoing communication; where possible offer people options from which to choose; give suggestions early on to help people foresee positive outcomes.
   
   
3. Offer executive summaries and "quick overviews"; allow for expression of people's creative input (even if not strictly-speaking on track with the subject matter at hand); affirm people's competence and use a strengths-based approach to any training/developmental requirements; offer a variety of communication modes/channels (fast-paced, visual, interactive); validate people's experiences and perspectives; don't "pull rank" and try to enforce a change through command-and-control.
   

Building Bridges of Collaboration

People in organizations must continually deal with change. As a leader/manager, your challenge is two-fold: to face your own feelings and reactions to change and then to effectively lead your team through their own reactions (fear, anger, etc.)...and all this while doing your "day job" and delivering the tangible results that you're paid to make happen.

Managing fear and promoting collaboration requires you to know what to say and how to say it. When leaders add this to their already long list of tasks, it can seem a bit overwhelming.

That's where tmc can help.

As you build the bridge that will take you and your team from where you are to where you need to be, tmc can act as an invaluable support. You'll gain peace of mind knowing that structures and processes are in place to address the people issues associated with your change project. With this assurance, you'll be free to concentrate on delivering the work required of you, benefitting from the high performance and increased productivity that comes from a positive team environment.

To find out more contact me directly. We can have a conversation to explore your particular situation and context, helping you achieve clarity on where you are, where you need to be, and how to build the bridges that will get you there.


Note: For those of you outside Australia who wish to view the episodes of The Apprentice Australia that I'm discussing in this series of posts, you can find them on YouTube here. Meanwhile if you're in Australia you can see not only the episodes to date but also post-episode video diaries on the Nine website here.


Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture
Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance
Apprentice week 5 analysis, RWA: "The Relationship is the Customer"
Apprentice week 6 analysis, RWA: The FIT model
Apprentice week 7 analysis, RWA: Authentic Emotional Intelligence
Apprentice episode 8 preview: double trouble


Photo credit: Bridge

Apprentice week 4 analysis, RWA: Coaching for high performance

Summary: Today's post reviews episode 4 of The Apprentice Australia and offers a Real-World Application (RWA) on "Coaching individuals for high performance," in organizations and on their own.

To learn more about how tmc coaching can help you and your organization, read this 2-page overview on tmc coaching, learn about the Solution-Focused coaching style, or simply email Todd.


Review of episode 4: Pub Nights in Mudgee

The Boss: Mark Bouris
In the time between last week's episode and this one it seems Mark Bouris has reflected upon and/or received good counsel about his decision making in the Boardroom. I suspect this week we're starting to see more of the good judgment that's made him an Australian business success story.

This time in the Boardroom when both Heather and MaryAnn took full responsibility for aspects of their team's shortcomings - with MaryAnn even offering to forfeit Team Pinnacle's clear victory on ethical grounds - Mr Bouris praised rather than punished their displays of accountability. In addition he came down much harder on potentially misleading advertising and in so doing remedied the errors in judgement that I thought he made last week.

Another development in the Mark Bouris' style this week was what I think is a useful shift in perspective. Rather than pressing each team's Project Lead to talk about the "weakest link" in their team, Mr Bouris made several comments on the positive traits he saw in team members - which recalls the ideas offered in the analysis of episode 2 on giving feedback using the Affirm technique.

Offering someone positive feedback doesn't mean you close the door on pointing out his/her areas of development (which we've all got!). On the contrary, it's a highly effective way to help the person stay on top of his/her emotional reactions and win the Battle inside their Brain.

Neuroscience is beginning to offer hard evidence to help explain what we implicitly know from lived experience. In particular, it suggests that the "Command and Control" approach isn't an effective way to motivate, develop or lead people. When we feel threatened and get defensive our capacity to pay attention, take in new information and process it creatively essentially disappears.

In The Apprentice format, the people who get the most feedback in the Boardroom on their performance (and especially areas for development) are typically the three who are up for elimination. True, this ensures they will pay close attention to what's said, but for one of them the feedback will come too late to be effectively applied in further weeks. This week's trio on the hotseat were from Team Eventus.

This week in the Boardroom

As Team Eventus Project Lead, Heather again exhibited the sort of controlling behaviour that she did in episode 2 when she was put in charge of designing the cereal box graphics. This week did not use a consultative decision-making style and instead quickly arrived at what she thought was the "right" decision on the price for the evening. This was followed by a lot of positive talk (e.g. This is going to be great! It's going to be awesome! Why wouldn't anyone come to a night like this?! etc.) to convince herself and presumably her team that this was the right decision, but this positivity had the effect of making it hard for her team to tell her that they all thought the price was too high.

What ended up happening was the team fell victim to the psychological error of confirmation bias. They saw only the information that confirmed Heather's pre-existing decision about the price - information that ultimately proved inaccurate, since on the night people were unwilling to pay such a high price for the product on offer. Despite a last-minute inspiration to raise more money with a raffle in the bar, her team lost by over $1,000 ($2,814 vs. $3,930).

In the Boardroom Heather was credited with being "passionate and optimistic" but this loss caused her to "eat humble pie". Asked why she should stay, Heather could muster little more than, "I have so much more to give". She was advised by Mr Bouris to improve her management skills, which I'd suggest would among other things involve her learning to hear other people out rather than jumping prematurely to the one, "right" decision. This is a team member with great potential but as Mr Bouris suggested, could definitely benefit from some coaching to frankly assess her own strengths and weaknesses and clearly identify what she has to offer.

This week smooth-talking charmer Gavin missed a trick by failing to think of the table sponsorships idea - a financial blunder that cost his team the victory. Though in the Boardroom he made much of "putting his hand in" and actively participate in every project, and though he was credited with confidence and persuasiveness, he was faulted for seeming unwilling to take accountability when things fail to work out as planned.

As before, Gavin needs to do more than look good and speak well. Mr Bouris pointed out that he is "the guy the team looks toward" when they need leadership and stated, "You've been too measured...I want to see the real Gavin, I want to see the best come out of you from now on." While he is clearly strong at the intangible areas of relationship development and team building, a development area for Gavin continues to be producing tangible practical results - in this case, setting a course of action and sticking to it, not getting distracted by the dancing girls, costumes, making friends and doing deals. While clearly adept at playing to this strengths, Gavin could usefully be coached to become aware of his blindspots and formulate a course of action that addresses them.

It was hard not to feel for Blake this week, whose halting performance in the Boardroom exhibited a clear lack of confidence, even a bewilderment at what was happening around him, and a lack of energy to fight for his own survival. He was faulted by Mr Bouris for not stepping up on decisions and for flying under the radar, which Blake said he "does not do on purpose." Yet when asked why he should stay could only muster: "I don't have the background [in marketing]...I have skills but not experience. [...] I'm here to work for an organization I can build a career out of" - hardly a compelling case of value-add to Mr Bouris' organization.

Self-doubt of this sort is normal and we all experience it occasionally (otherwise we'd risk becoming thoughtless automatons or egomaniacs). The time and place to express it, however, is not the kill-or-be-killed Boardroom setting. This is a clear case of someone whose performance is slipping and could benefit from coaching. A coach could help Blake to a) identify what he wants and b) develop an practical action plan that plays to his strengths, to help him focus less on apologizing for what he can't do and get the best results from those things that he does well.


Real-World Application (RWA): Coaching for high performance

I liked the moment when Mark Bouris mused aloud, "there's some positives there, we've got to try to figure out how we get the best out of them." Above I've suggested some ways that coaching could help develop these three people. Similarly, in previous reviews I've highlighted personality and character traits that would be useful to explore and develop in a coaching conversation.

When I speak to people about coaching, however, I notice there's a lot of confusion about the subject. Since coaching came into vogue in the business world some years ago there's been an explosion in both the different kinds of coaching on offer (executive-, business-, skills-, team-, behavioural-, personal-, life-, sports-, health-, and even dating-coaching!) and the sheer number of people who now call what they do "coaching"...with widely varying degrees of expertise. There seem to be a lot of misconceptions these days about what a coach does and how the coaching process works.

Here are my views on coaching - what it is, what it isn't, and what it can do for you and your organization.

"Hey, I don't need therapy!!"
Some people shy away from coaching because they think it's going to get all soupy, emotional or just too personal...like some kind of therapy or counselling. Broadly speaking, while therapy tends to focus on feelings and experiences related to past events, coaching is oriented towards goal setting and encourages you to move forward. So you don't have to be sick to get better: while therapy aims at helping a dysfunctional person to become functional, coaching helps a functional person to achieve high performance and is action-oriented. The focus is on where your are right now, where you want to be, and how you can get yourself there.

"How's that different from having a mentor?"
Mentoring differs from coaching in both the type of expertise on offer and the nature of the relationship. A mentor typically has years of experience in the field, someone who is able to offer advice from the perspective of "been there, done that." The means the mentor is usually older and more experienced than the person being mentored and the relationship is more teacher-pupil. An important difference from coaching, then, is that a coach does not need any expertise in the client's field of work, while a mentor provides the perspective of "when I was in your shoes and facing the same situation, here's what I did...."

Coaching for high performance
A coach works in side-by-side with you to explore your current situation with the objective of identifying what you want to achieve and creating a plan of action to help you get there. In this process the coach does not have to be an expert in the client’s business - the client is the expert. The coach's expertise in this partnership is to serve as a sounding board and to occasionally reflect back certain information (like recurring themes or patterns).

Note, however, that the coach does not have the answers. The coach's role is to ask useful, thought-provoking questions - ones that encourage you to find your own answers and clarify your own thinking. The real value of a coach is to help you draw on your own wisdom and insight, arriving at your own conclusions and resolve to address the situation with practical action.

In this way a great coach is a little bit like Lao Tzu's definition of a great leader: "...he who the people barely know exists and, when his work is done and his aim fulfilled, people will say: we did it ourselves." Or as renowned psychologist Carl Rogers is credited with saying, "in order to truly help someone we must be able to enter their lives, help them resolve their issues and then exit their lives without them ever knowing we were there."

How can organizations and individuals benefit from coaching?
While it's tricky to put a precise ROI on an intangible service like coaching, here are a few stats that have been compiled over time:

• A study of Fortune 100 executives found that coaching resulted in an ROI of almost six times the program cost as well as a 77% improvement in relationships, 67% improvement in teamwork, 61% improvement in job satisfaction, 48% improvement in quality. (Manchester Consulting Group)
• Productivity increased by 88 percent when coaching was combined with training, as compared to a 22 percent increase with training alone. (International Personnel Management Association)
• A study of a Fortune 500 telecommunications company found that executive coaching resulted in a 529 percent ROI. (MetrixGlobal)
• Productivity among salespeople who had participated in an intensive coaching program rose by an average of 35 percent (Metropolitan Life Insurance Company)

Related previous posts:
Analysis of episode 1, RWA: Foundation & Force
Preview of episode 2, RWA: Conflict Management
Apprentice week 2 analysis, RWA: Giving/Receiving Feedback using Head & Heart
Apprentice week 3 analysis, RWAs: Team Leadership and Setting a Team Culture

Credits: I gained useful insight and the ROI stats, from Dutchcoach. Photo of Heather by Richard Polden.

Does Charisma matter? Find your leadership style

Charisma is difficult to define, though it is often used to describe those with a personality that lends them the uncanny ability to lead, charm, persuade, inspire, and influence people. At base charisma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, which means that charismatic people's power is largely dependent on the perception of others.

It is also greatly influenced by situational factors, since what might seem charismatic in one setting can be abhorrent in another (e.g. Hitlerian charisma inspired hope for national renewal among desperate Germans in the tumultuous Weimar era, even as its evil messages of hate provoked fear and revulsion in more stable democracies).

Expressed practically, charisma manifests as a sense of attraction. And ultimately we are attracted to those leaders who - sometimes for better, sometimes worse - achieve results through the application of the best leadership style for the situation.


What's the "best" leadership style?

When it comes to leadership, "best" is what is perceived to be most effective as related both to the particular situation and to the desired outcome. Research* shows that the most effective leaders use a combination of distinct leadership styles - each in the right measure, at just the right time.

Each of us is inclined toward at least one (and often two) of the eight leadership styles described in detail below. The key to dramatically improved performance and interpersonal effectiveness is to incorporate all eight - if not in one person, then by ensuring they are all represented across the makeup of groups of people and are each consulted for input at the appropriate time.


Eight Leadership Styles

Leadership style - Mentoring

Two representatives of this style are British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the character of William Wallace as portrayed in the film Braveheart.

What leadership traits could this unlikely duo possibly share?

A mentoring leadership style works best when change is driven by a moral crusade for justice and there is a need for integrity. It excels at setting a clear mission and creating a sense of urgency through effective motivation. What it looks like in practice is close and steady guidance to set high standards in the pursuit of excellence: in a phrase, "Do it again until you get it right." When well done, the style of these Explorer/Motivators encourages honest dealing with others and promotes a sense of commitment in the team culture.

When this leadership style is not present in the team there is no clear vision, no sense of purpose or common understanding, no honour and no team commitment. If a leader uses only the mentoring style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be medium positive - team members will have a clear sense of the mission, will interact honourably and with a clear sense of purpose, but will lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles as described below.

Leadership style - Coaching

Here it is helpful to think of "coaching" in its broadest sense. As examples, what US Vice-President Al Gore and motivational speaker Tony Robbins both do well exceedingly well is inspire and empower people, ensuring that people have the skills and information they will need for the future and fostering an environment in which they can excel and succeed. The style in a phrase is, "Try this!"

The coaching style works best when there is a need to help an employee improve performance or develop long-term strengths. To be clear, it is not about empowerment for empowerment's sake - it is paired with the need to develop vision and strategy for the future. It can also be confronting (as with alarming details of the environmental threat our planet is facing in Gore's documentary film An Inconvenient Truth) but with the intent of producing positive change.

Done well, the style of these Inspirational Coach/Facilitators encourages honest dealing with others and promotes a sense of hopefulness in the team culture. When this leadership style is not present in the team the physical environment and culture become hostile and the team loses hope as the future looks bleak, like a perpetual repetition of past disasters.

If a leader makes exclusive use of only the coaching style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - team members will play to their strengths and be highly self-directed in an environment of hopefulness and empowerment but again will lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Affliative

This leadership style is the one most often associated with "charismatic leadership" and there are abundant examples: US Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to name just a few.

These leaders create harmony and build emotional bonds with a style that aims to put people first. The affiliative style works best to heal rifts in a team or motivate people during stressful circumstances, fostering espirt de corps and effectively communicating vision and strategy ("Yes we can") to promote team engagement. By embodying diplomacy and inclusiveness, the leader brings out tolerance in others and enables effective teamwork through the respectful negotiation of differences (of cultures, worldviews, politics, etc.).

Done well, the contribution of these Promoter/Strategists to the team culture is widespread confidence, cheerfulness, discipline, and a willingness to perform assigned tasks in the interest of the common/greater good. When this style is absent, team members become self-righteous, intolerant and blaming, which splits the team into factions.

If a leader uses only the affiliative style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - the team will act in a cohesive fashion, communication will be open and morale will be quite high, but again the team will lack the full advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Democratic

This style can be hard to spot because although it's all around us, it's a quieter and more self-controlled style. To get a sense of it, think of stories in which ordinary people do courageous, even heroic things in extreme circumstances - but who when interviewed afterwards say that it was nothing special and that it was obvious they should have done what they did.

Two well-known examples of the democratic style are Bruce Willis' character John McClane in the Die Hard movies and the character Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

These courageous individuals see what needs to happen to move a project forward and just get on with it, through ingenious broad-based action to produce the necessary short-term wins. In a team, they forge consensus through participation and will frequently ask, "What do you think...?"

The talent of these Practical Problem Solvers is to break down bureaucracy, fostering innovation and confidence while building buy-in and consensus by seeking valuable input from team members. When this style is not represented in the team, everything becomes bogged down at key bottlenecks, there is no courage, no heroes and no decisions.

If a leader uses only the democratic style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - the team will act in a cohesive fashion and morale will be quite high as people feel enabled to act with courage to do what needs to be done, but again the team will lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Pacesetting

The pacesetting leadership style, as the name suggests, is about getting quick results from a highly motivated and competent team. There is an expectation of competence and a keen eye for turning abstract theories into real and tangible outcomes.

US President Abraham Lincoln and South African President Nelson Mandela are both exemplars of this style, setting high standards for performance and leading by example: "Do as I do, and do it now."

In a team setting, these independent and capable Creative Change Agents excel at applying discernment in the review of systems and practices, as well as consolidating gains in order to produce more change. This process of effective strategic analysis helps to ensure that the changes that take place are based on suitable and sustainable systems and practices. When this style is absent, the leadership has no credibility and the team focuses on the wrong actions.

If a leader uses the pacesetting style exclusive of any other, the overall impact on organizational climate will actually be negative. This is the case because, although the team will benefit from tangible systems and practices, the style can be experienced as quite confronting.

Pacesetters are often described as having a highly-advanced "bullshit detector" and are not at all averse to pointing out incongruence and inconsistencies, particularly if they detect what they think are instances of incompetence. It is therefore particularly important that the pacesetting style be tempered by elements of the other seven leadership styles in order to afford a balanced environment for team members.

Leadership style - Authoritative/Visionary

The authoritative leadership style mobilizes people toward a final destination. Note, however, that the authoritative style is not autocratic or dictatorial. It is more like a ship's captain navigating a course through the ever-shifting seas of change and inviting the team: "Come with me."

New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen embodied this style. Their vision and planning capacity enabled them to navigate a successful course even to what were the earth's most inaccessible realms at the time (Mount Everest's summit and the South Pole, respectively).

Authoritative leadership works best when changes require a new vision and a clear sense of direction in the pursuit of the vision's end goal. This leadership style manifests the quality of responsibility to creating certainty of cause, purpose and role:

"...we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

~ British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

"...today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. [...] universal human decency demands that the nation now step forward to right an historical wrong. [...] The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. ...for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."

~ Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Whether in pursuit of high-minded principles, seeking to protect their charges, or maintaining steady faith in achievement of the desired outcome, the leadership of these Visionary Planners fosters stability and security even in the face of widespread and disruptive change. In their absence, there is fear and uncertainty as everyone is out for him- or herself.

If a leader uses only the democratic style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be most strongly positive in that the team will possess a calm certainty about the ultimate aim of their actions and the secure confidence to handle the hardships and unexpected course changes that will be required along the way. Nevertheless, as with all these styles there are considerable advantages to be gained by balancing of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership Style - Tactical

The tactical leadership style is one of acting dispassionately based on accurate, verifiable information; the style in a phrase is "Prove it to me." The style works best in highly technical and specialized situations requiring self-control and measured action - so think James Bond and, well, pretty much every character Clint Eastwood has ever played.

In a team setting the tactical leadership of these Auditor/Organizers promotes understanding through objective, rational inquiry and action. Their disciplined presence brings out calmness and clarity in others. In the absence of tactical leaders, the team will fail to keep adequate records of meetings and decisions and will lack an effective audit trail; group learning does not happen and ignorance prevails.

If a leader uses only the tactical style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - the team will be clear on the learning captured from previous successes and will focus on the competent delivery of tasks and will act with objectivity, but will nevertheless lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Commanding/Coercive

The coercive leadership style is best in a crisis, to kick start a turnaround, to capitalize quickly on entrepreneurial opportunities or to sort out "problem" employees. As the name suggests, the style demands immediate compliance: "Do what I tell you to do."

The two British entrepreneurs Sir Richard Branson and Sir Alan Sugar (of The Apprentice UK television fame) come readily to mind as examplars of this style.

What these Driver/Completer leaders enable is the application of vast amounts of energy to tackle large workloads and, at the end of the day, to celebrate successes in preparation for the next round of change and transformation. This "work hard, play hard" sense of drive taps into the passions of those around them and ultimately compels the team to engage in healthy debate in the pursuit of practical action. When this style is not present in the team, there is no energy or enthusiasm - everyone is exhausted and dispirited.

If a leader always and only uses only the coercive style, however, the overall impact on organizational climate will be negative. While the team will feel the pressure and drive to complete tasks, there is a risk they will ultimately feel alienated and uninvolved by the coercive leader's tendency to create the entire plan without any input from others, then expect others to follow and not ask questions. Here it is therefore particularly important that once the period of urgency and reinvention has passed, elements of the other seven leadership styles are reintroduced in order to afford a balanced environment for team members.


Eight Leadership Styles and you

Whether or not you agree with their ideology and beliefs, even whether they are real people or fictional characters, each of the people whose photos appear above are certainly leaders in their own way. What the Eight Leadership Styles model helps to make clear is that there are identifiably distinct leadership styles, each "charismatic" in its own way and in the right circumstance.

To find out more about how to identify your own preferred leadership style, as well as how to effectively interact with other styles and successfully cultivate a balance of all eight styles in your team or organization, send me an email.


*Daniel Goleman, "Leadership that gets results," Harvard Business Review (Mar-Apr 2000) pp 79-90; Peter Burow, NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008); Dennis Turner & Michael Crawford, Change Power: Capabilities that Drive Corporate Renewal, (1998).

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Following tmconsultancy on twitter

Thanks for clicking! Here’s what’s on offer.

What you can expect as a tmconsultancy follower on twitter are posts with:

• links to practical and interesting articles and blog posts on (among others) the following topics:

• Positive Change
• human behaviour and interaction
• neuroscience & brain research
• limbic responses
• emotional reactivity
• psychology, philosophy, anthropology
• employee engagement
• negotiation, mediation, facilitation
• persuasion & influence
• creativity & innovation
• coaching
• strategy development & execution
• cross-cultural business
• marketing
• communications
• adult learning principles

• personal status/location updates – esp. while travelling to neat new places
• my own occasional musings, observations, insights or outbursts
• info about worthwhile causes – esp. animal welfare/rehabilitation, habitat protection and educational programs
• retweets, kudos and thanks – to show the love
• and, of course, questions to tap the collective knowledge/wisdom of the twitterverse

Who's Todd anyway?
I’m a Canadian living in Manly, Australia (part of Sydney’s “Northern Beaches”) and I divide my time among Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and Canada.

Ich spreche sehr gerne Deutsch, je parle pas mal le français, ik spreek wel Nederlands, estoy aprendiendo lentamente español, och jag förstår lite svensk - so I enjoy connecting with people all over the world.

My non-work interests include surfing, scuba diving, sailing, wildlife, travel, photography, design, film, cooking and learning about wine (especially big Aussie reds...the "hard" way, glass by glass).

What I do
I consult, write and speak about the many aspects of human behaviour and interaction that can help (or hinder) organizations seeking practical business results. For my professional bio check out my LinkedIn profile and, if we share interests, send me an invitation to connect.

Thanks!
tm

What makes you stronger? Resilience & meaning-making

Traditional Western psychology suggests that the cause of people’s psychological problems lies in what happened to them in the past. According to this view, at some point early in each person’s childhood something “bad” happens (a trauma or an unfulfilled need). As a result, that person will spend the rest of his or her life repressing, compensating, avoiding or exhibiting any number of other problematic behaviour patterns based on reaction to that initial “bad” thing.

And so we get the simplistic and linear equation:

difficult childhood = problems as an adult

and the corollary:

adult with problems = adult must have had a difficult childhood.

Yet there are countless examples all over the world of people who have had terrible experiences as children – including those displaced by war, famine, poverty and other extreme situations – and yet they have managed to develop into well-adjusted and even happy people. Meanwhile, sadly, there are people who struggle with serious problems as adults who had relatively happy childhoods.

So the linear equation does not hold true – there seems to be something else at work here.


Resilience and meaning-making

Resilience describes the human being’s ability to survive, recover and persevere against various obstacles and threats.

Some people are made stronger rather than weaker by their past life experiences – how does this happen? Interestingly, much of it has to do with the story that you tell yourself about what happened.

Our brains are meaning-making machines. It’s a process that happens automatically and continually. What this means is that we constantly create narratives to make sense of our lives and the world.

The good news is that since we each write our own narrative or story about the world, it is entirely within our ability to change that narrative to create one that serves us better as we grow and develop through life.

You can create a narrative that promotes self-respect and hope without distorting the facts. This is a more comforting and optimistic view than the problem-focused approach most often used in traditional psychology – but is this just being a Pollyanna slapping a happy face on tragic situations?

No it’s not.


Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich staerker

“What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche


In his excellent book It’s Never too late to have a Happy Childhood, Ben Furman cites research on how people recover from catastrophe and crisis which suggests the key factor in recovery is how people choose to make meaning of what happened.

After a bank robbery, for example, it is important that the staff has a chance to talk about what happened immediately and that everyone present during the robbery receives positive feedback. Everyone should be able to think that their reactions were meaningful, or at least understanding and normal in the circumstances. They should realize that each of them acted the best they could in that situation. [p52]

Taking this example to the wider context of how people make sense of childhood traumas and past problems in life, Furman continues:

The past is a story we can tell ourselves in many different ways. By paying attention to the methods that have helped us survive, we can start respecting ourselves and reminiscing about our difficult past with feelings of pride rather than regret. [p56]

You’re not “broken”

Admittedly, “bad” things do happen to people. The view offered in traditional Western psychology is that people are somehow “broken” or “defective” as a result and their life’s task is therefore to overcome past traumas.

What if it’s the case that people are capable of all things, but circumstances and “bad” events cause them to play to certain of their talents and abilities more than others? This is quite a different view, which suggests: people are not broken, they’re just not accessing everything that they were born capable of doing. So faced with life’s challenges, people develop “strong suits,” their default, habitual mode of behaviour - but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that they cannot develop their full potential and diversify across the full range of human abilities.

Viewed in this way, our past difficulties become a rich source of evidence for our own coping abilities and resilience in the face of adversity. We can rewrite our narrative to describe how the things that did not destroy us have in fact made us stronger and better able to withstand adversity. Furthermore, we can explore the full range of our talents and how they can help us to grow into well-adjusted and fully-functioning human beings.

We can come to view our past hardships as something of a gift. I heard a proverb once that is, I think, of Chinese origin:

One disease, long life; no disease, short life.

I take this to mean: if you never face adversity, you will be more likely to succumb to the first major problem you encounter; whereas, if you have been strengthened by the things that have challenged but not destroyed you, your resilience is much greater.

The thought I like best from Furman’s book is that everyone is due a certain amount of happiness in life. If you didn’t have that happiness in your childhood and early life, imagine how much more you can expect to find later in your life!

Wishing the world were other than it is gives you nothing more than a potent recipe for unhappiness...acting to make it what you want is a step toward happiness and satisfaction. So – get started on rewriting your narrative today!
TM

SFC Day Two, plus: "Lord of the Skies"

It's struck me over the two days I spent at the Singapore Facilitators Conference (SFC) 2008 that the theme neuroscience everywhere continues.

Several of the sessions talked about tapping into people's different functional styles in order to facilitate the energy of divergent worldviews and perspectives in (sometimes quite large) group settings - helping to achieve strength from diversity and a rich tapestry of thought and opinion rather then a shouting match of adversarial position-defending. Two of the process tools - Open Space Technology (OST) and the World Cafe - are designed in particular to foster the cross-pollination of ideas across large numbers of people in a moderately structured format.

A few sessions spoke specifically about brain function and how the rich interplay of nurture/nature shapes how our minds make meaning and sense of the world around us. The focus was largely on getting people into a functional, rational space (their NeuroRational Type as I would term it) so they can access the best in themselves and be more open to the opinions of others. Interestingly, I gained further insight into human emotional, limbic responses from quite another quarter on my trip home.


Social Behaviour under Stress

On my way back to Sydney I was unexpectedly part of what I thought was an interesting experiment in social behaviour under stress.

My 7.5 hour flight from Singapore was on board the Qantas "flying art" aircraft Wunala Dreaming, a beautifully decorated 747 with Aboriginal depictions of Australia's best-known icon, the kangaroo.

The flight was tracking for early arrival in Sydney, but due to bad weather was diverted to land in Canberra. There for a variety of reasons we proceeded to spend a further 7 hours sitting on the plane parked next to a disused RAAF hangar, finally being evacuated to hotels at 3AM.

To say the process was chaotic would be to engage in mild understatement, but that's not what I found most interesting. First, some context: there were people on the plane who had come from various places in Europe, which meant flying via London-Singapore and had already been in planes and airports for upwards of 30+ hours before finding themselves locked in a 747 in Canberra.

Nerves were on edge.


Lord of the Skies

What ensued was a small-scale version of Lord of the Flies...in an airplane setting. By this I mean that an already long journey, made longer and more stressful by this diversion, provoked a variety of responses from people.

Stripped of comforting social and cultural conventions and further stressed by fatigue and environmental factors, people's behaviour began to revert to quite an emotional (limbic), even primitive state of being.

While our lives were cleary not in jeopardy - quite the opposite - our brains could not tell that was the case. For tired people in a harrowing situation, the limbic reaction was one of life-or-death. The focus was on survival and people's behaviours began increasingly to reflect their Core Belief Types.

As I've written previously, there are nine Core Belief Types, or basic survival strategies. They consist of three different groups; each group includes the three modes: fight-flight-freeze. So that as the night wore on to become early morning and different versions of a solution were mooted, only to be found impractial, I watched with fascination as people in the plane (including yours truly!) freely shifted gears between the three modes of fight-flight-freeze or, to put it another way, their forward-reverse-neutral gears.


Spiralling down, climbing back up again

Within each of our Core Belief triads, each of us has a default mode. On the plane, some people's initial response was flight (reverse gear) not in that they tried to break out of the plane, but they simply put in their headphones, nodded off or passively watched the situation unfold. Others were in freeze (neutral gear) or compliant mode: although they may have been increasingly annoyed by the mounting inconvenience, they did not act - choosing instead to have a whinge about it to their neighbours or sigh heavily in frustration. Still others were in fight mode quite early on, taking action by using their mobiles to inform local journalists about the situation, speaking directly the the chef de cabine, even demanding answers from the beleaguered cabin crew members.

So what kept us from savaging the crew and one another like the ill-fated boys on Golding's island? A couple of things.

We were given semi-regular updates on the progress that had been made thus far, which lessened the sense of helplessness that we felt in a situation whose solution lay quite outside our control. This, in turn, helped people to better manage the things that were in their control and develop a useful explanatory style based less on emotionally-reactive views and more on a rational (cognitive) view of the situation.

As often in these situations, I observed a sense of community form within the plane. There is nothing like a shared crisis to get strangers talking to one another. People shared stories of the destinations they had hoped to reach, the obligations or opportunities that await them when they finally arrived and generally expressed themselves. A sense of "making the best of a bad situation" arose which I think people found quite hopeful and suggested that there was a way through, it remain just to get it identified and carried out.

After a nosedive (or two) into survival-based and reactive Core Belief (or NeuroLimbic) types of the so-called "lizard brain," I credit the majority of people on that flight with climbing back up into their more powerful rational brain and accessing the particular gifts and talents of their NeuroRational profiles to foster a sense of community and personal connection that saw us all through. It also beats being emotionally jangled and miserable for 7 hours - with negative long-term effects on your health in the that entails.

And so it was that this Dreamtime journey on the Flying Kangaroo had many lessons for us all...

TM

Global outbreaks of Framework Fatigue and Model Mania

In my recent travels across Australia, the UK, Canada and Asia, I've been talking to businesspeople and consultants about what tools and consulting approaches help them to achieve practical and sustained results - in their lives and in their businesses. In these conversations I have noticed two trends: framework fatigue and model mania.

Framework Fatigue

There are many, many models, personality profiling tools, psychometric assessments, systems and frameworks in the marketplace today. You've doubtless heard of them, possibly used them, possibly been subjected to them. To name just a handful:

• MBTI - Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• JTI - Jung Type Indicator
  
• KTS - Keirsey Temperament Sorter
• FIRO - Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation
  
• DISC - four quadrant behavioural model
  
• NLP - Neuro-Linguistic Programming
• EI - Emotional Intelligence
  
• AI - Appreciative Inquiry
• SF - the Solutions Focus
• CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• BT - Brief Therapy
• NVC - Non-Violent Communication
• VIA Signature Strengths Survey
  
• MBS - Management by Strengths
• Strengthsfinder by Marcus Buckingham (Gallup)
• SDI - Strengths Deployment Inventory
  
• HBDI - Herrmann Brain Dominance Indicator
• Systems thinking (e.g. Senge's Learning Organization)
  
• ICP - InterCultural Competence Profiler
• ILA - InterCultural Leadership Assessment
• Belbin Team (Roles) Inventory, a.k.a. Self-perception Inventory
• LSI/OCI - Life Styles Inventory/Organizational Culture Index (Human Synergistics)
  
• LGAT - Large Group Awareness Training (Landmark Forum, Goldzone)
  
• (...and the list goes on...)
  

Are you starting to get a case of information overload? Well that's what framework fatigue feels like. So that you can find your way out of this maze, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I'll give my view.

I have used some of the frameworks listed above in my own consulting practice to good effect with clients, notably Solutions Focus, Strengthsfinder, NVC, some systems thinking and some of the ones based on Jungian psychology. Of the others I can say that most are sound, useful and provide some insight to certain areas of human behaviour and performance. Then there are the bad apples; a few have decidedly poor reputations.

Model Mania

You may have had the experience where, despite their better natures and good intentions, enthusiastic people skilled in a given framework, system or method will claim for it explanatory powers far beyond what the thing was ever built to do.

This is model mania: the belief that the entire world can be understood through a particular lens, often to the exclusion of most (if not all) others.

In the famous turn of phrase offered by the American financier and Presidential advisor Bernard Baruch: "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I've always been partial to a 'toolkit' approach, and in my consulting engagements always look to 'make it fresh' for each new client, using the tools appropriate to the context and issues present each time.

For those of you faced with so many available options and with so many of those options claiming to be all things to all people, how do you know which one does what, let alone which one works? I offer the following checklists, the first one what to beware of, and the second what to look for.

Checklist: what to watch out for

If you observe the following, it's time to ask some hard questions. If the framework, model or system:

• Actively fosters long-term dependence on the consultant or service providers
• Features a lot of hard-sell and constant expectations of signing up for more 'advanced classes'
• Uses processes that are done 'to' you rather than 'with' you
• Keeps materials, tools and mechanics of the actual processes a tightly-guarded secret from you
  
• Categorically condemns certain forms of human behaviour while others are lauded in an unqualified manner (i.e. stop all 'red' and 'green' behaviours in favour of doing only 'blue' ones)
• Encourages you to recruit others (family, friends, colleagues) in an ever-widening, Borg-like assimilation process
• Makes far-reaching explanatory claims across all aspects of human behaviour, as seen through a single keyhole view
  

Checklist: what to look for

To get the best long-term value and real results from your time and money invested, you should reasonably expect the following from an explanatory framework focused on human behaviour:

• Transparent - the tools are put in your hands for you to use for yourself with guided tuition
• Holistic - it has language that works 'from the boardroom to the boilerroom' and all the moving parts work well together
• Integrated - the framework features both internal consistency and an ability to coexist harmoniously with other explanatory models in your existing 'toolkit'
• Humanistic - its tenets line up with what the great traditions and civilizations of the past have had to say about human behaviour, personality and group interaction
• Scientific - uses the latest neuroscientific insights on brain function in a practical applicable way
• Empowering - offers insights to identify blind spots and reactive behaviours, in order to break repetitive patterns of unhelpful behaviour and help you achieve what you want for yourself
• Positive - is based on the belief you are not 'broken' and focuses on helping people achieve all they are capable of being by accessing their particular gifts and talents
• Developmental - describes the process toward personal integration and realization of one's full potential
• Interactive - more than a model for self-awareness, it gives you the tools to better interact with others and relate to them emotionally, cognitively and behaviourally
• Versatile - has application to the fields of self development, effective communication, management skills, fostering better leadership, transformational change in organizations, interpersonal relations, negotiation, sales skills, persuasion and influencing, difficult conversations...
• Practical - results-focused and applicable from the very first day of training

Having used and studied most of the frameworks on the long list at the top of this post, I can say that I have yet to see one that ticks all the boxes of the list immediately as well as the NeuroPower framework.

What is most positive about it is that I have not needed to 'unlearn' any of my previous training. The NeuroPower framework (as developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) is an integrated toolkit of useful and practical tools based on neuroscience and brain function. There is plenty of room for other tools and methods that you are already using and that work - because if they work, they must by definition line up in significant ways with brain function.

In this way NeuroPower happily coexists along with other methods and systems...though it's possible that once you have experienced its holistic nature and powerful explanatory insights into human behaviour, it may become your preferred toolkit for any number of applications!

As always, to find out more you can email me to talk about how I am using NeuroPower in my work with clients around the world.
TM