Joe's Jottings
Jottings Number 53, by Joe Podolsky:
From: uunet!HP-PaloAlto-om4.om.hp.com!JOE_PODOLSKY
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 96 12:28:21 -0700
Subject: Hierarchy Is Not the Right Way to Manage Ambiguities
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As both a systems and a quality person, I, of course, am also a
student of change. One of the key factors in change, of course,
is leadership. Therefore, as the syllogism says, I am
interested in leadership.
But, as we all know, leadership is hard to define and even
harder to do. But, (maybe, therefore) pundits love to write
about it. Me too.
Tom Stewart writes for _Fortune_ magazine. In his March 18,
1996 column, he discusses "The Nine Dilemmas Leaders Face."
He
describes a survey done by Hubert Saint-Onge, who was setting up
a leadership center for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Saint-Onge interviewed CIBC's 27 most senior executives. He was
looking for direction and instead found these dilemmas.
The executives wanted:
- Broad-based leaders who also provide high-visibility,
charismatic leadership on specific issues.
- Leaders who encourage both independence and interdependent
team play.
- Focus on both the long and the short term.
- Leaders who encourage creativity but within a disciplined
environment.
- An atmosphere of trust while relationships are sundered by
change.
- Bureaucracy busting while getting the benefits of economies
of scale.
- Concern about the welfare of people while still achieving
maximum personal productive work results.
- The vision that comes from leadership along with the results
that come from capable management.
- Revenue growth while containing costs.
No surprises. The taker of this survey, Saint-Onge, says that
he can summarize these nine dilemmas into one juggling act:
empowerment versus alignment.
(Stewart also suggests that we can better manage these
ambiguities by using the trick of charting them. For example,
we can put creativity on the Y axis and discipline on the x
axis. We can draw a 45 degree angle line to show the
usually-ineffective middle road. For given situations, we can
plot points showing where we think we are and others showing
where we want to be, and we can devise plans to get from here to
there. Who needs consultants!)
Peter Senge, Director of MIT's Organization Learning Center,
wrote the lead article, "Rethinking Leadership in the Learning
Organization," in the February 1996 issue of _The Systems
Thinker_. Senge quotes the CEOs of Shell Oil and of
Harley-Davidson who say that, contrary to popular opinion,
leadership from the top to drive change doesn't work.
Senge offers two reasons for their "humility." First,
pronouncements from top management are often cynically resisted
as being merely management fads. Sometimes, as in the case of
downsizing, top-management initiatives are viewed as
self-serving, creating more harm than help to the bulk of the
organizational stakeholders.
Second, while CEOs can perhaps create compliance, they rarely
can motivate commitment. Perhaps a CEO can create fear, but
hierarchical position alone does not create collaboration.
But organization is important. Senge says that meaningful
organizational learning and change comes from the interaction of
leaders who are in three structural positions.
First are the "local line leaders" who have specific business
responsibilities and are focused on improving specific business
results. These people are needed to sanction and actively
participate in experiments. Without these experiments, no
meaningful learning can occur, and, as important, the proposed
changes can never achieve credibility.
The second type of leader defines a role the CEOs can fill,
although others in the organization may serve as well. This
role is the "executive leader." This position is not one of
giving orders or even of giving permission. Instead, executive
leaders are the protectors of fragile experiments, and of
mentors and thinking partners to those involved in
organizational learning. They can be especially useful in
offering coaching about organizational politics and how best to
deal with complex communication alternatives.
Senge suggests, however, that the third type of leader, the
"internal networker," is perhaps the most effective. Senge says
that, "oftentimes, no power is power...the only authority
possessed by internal networkers comes from the strength of
their convictions and the clarity of their ideas...they are able
to move around the organization freely, with high accessibility
to many parts of the organization. They understand the informal
networks through which information and stories flow..." Among
their many tasks, they must identify and enlist the appropriate
line and executive leaders. (Note: the internal networker
recruits the executives, not the other way around!)
As systems and quality people, we are most often in the role of
the internal networker leader. Because of our organizational
mobility and the breadth of our organizational responsibilities
and tools, we are well-positioned for this task. We are used to
steering between the dilemmas that Saint-Onge proposed.
To fulfill this potential requires from us one major mindset:
we must have the courage to take responsibility for experiments
that may fail. We have to drop our shields of technical
righteousness and staff servility. We need to approach issues
with business understanding and customer commitment. We need to
sharpen our spears of communication, facilitation, and
persuasion and use them as the tools to earn us positions in the
front of the leadership fray.
What examples can you think of in and out of HP where systems
and quality people have led business change? What are the
barriers I'm ignoring?
Regards,
Joe