Rethinking Complexity

What Are You Willing to Let Go—to Grow?

Years ago, I taught an undergraduate course in the humanities.

In that course, I’d customarily begin with a discussion about the evolution of human endeavors, concentrating unsurprisingly in the humanities, which inevitably required scene-setter discussions explaining just what “humanities” means.

After the “define humanities” talk, I would proceed to “evolution” as a term in its sense as progressive change.  In that discussion, I usually presented a rather rudimentary algebraic equation:

Nature and all things natural are inherently good. Change as part of human experience is ultimately natural. Therefore, change is good.

In achieving this ultimate good, I offer the familiar concept that we need to let go of what makes us comfortable, of those mindsets and assumptions that have set us in our ways.  If we can let go, perhaps we can ascend to new levels of understanding and being; we can learn to transform; and transform through learning.

Building Cultures of Partnership and Peace: Four Cornerstones

How can we end the cycles of violence and injustice that cause so much suffering and misery? Is a more peaceful and equitable world really possible? If so, what would it actually look like?

My research over several decades has focused on these questions. They are questions deeply rooted in my own early life experiences, when my parents and I narrowly escaped from Nazi Europe. Had we not been able to flee, like most of my relatives, we would almost certainly have been killed in the Holocaust.

As I grew up, I looked for answers to these questions in books and universities. But I never found satisfactory ones.

I wasn’t aware at that time that studying social systems would become my life’s work. By the time I did, like many of us, I saw that our present course is not sustainable. In our time of nuclear and biological weapons, violence to settle international disputes could be disastrous for us all. So also could our once hallowed “conquest of nature” in an era when advanced technologies are causing environmental damage of unprecedented magnitude.

I saw that a grim future awaits my children—and all of us—unless there are transformative social changes. But transformation from what to what?

The Collective Voice of a Leaderless Group

As leaderless mobs of angry, unemployed 20-somethings continue to march on Wall Street this week picketing against big business and the federal government, my thoughts can't help but drift back to the pages of Marvin R. Weisbord's 2004 book, Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st Century.

They return specifically to the chapters of the book that discuss the work of Eric Trist, Fred Emery, and the Tavistock Institute in 1950s London.

At the time, Tavistock's study of groups in organizational settings had picked up where Kurt Lewin and the National Training Laboratories (or NTL) had left off a decade earlier, following Lewin's death in 1947. Unlike the researchers at NTL, Tavistock researchers weren't interested in becoming active members of the groups they studied—a method that Lewin called action research.

Oh, no.

At Tavistock, researchers were more interested in stepping back and letting a leaderless group find its collective voice all on its own.

Rethinking the Complexity of Learning Organizations

Today’s educational system is wrought with complexity—from the work of educating students to the lack of financing in heated political climates.

Working in the educational system can be complex, but it can also be rewarding.

The challenge is finding the right people with the right passion who are able to view the world from a systemic view—people who are willing to fearlessly delve into the chaos of the current system and make sense of it.

I work in an office that focuses on career and technical education programs. Even though our role is limited to vocational education, we try to keep a whole-student view of the educational system—a view that makes student success the primary focus supported by a system that encourages this success.

Earlier this year, I had a long conversation at work with two of my colleagues for a Saybrook class paper concerning complexity in the workplace. Our discussion helped me see that a lack of clarity seems to be fueling the complexity issues affecting the current educational system.

Some employees don't have a clear understanding of the expectations they're required to meet while others find themselves struggling to figure out how to move the system forward holistically rather than just focusing on individual pieces.

A Leadership Challenge, Part 2: Lessons from Action, Surrender, and Vulnerability

The first part of this leadership challenge explored the concept of “unveiling the illusions of the true professional.”

The concept behind the exploration came from Margaret Wheatley's poem "The True Professional," where she challenges the reader to seek a “reliable truth” that will “let the human heart rest.” I would now like to focus on the “action” and “surrender” sections of the same poem.

In "The True Professional," Wheatley wrote: "Action like a sacrament/is the visible form of an invisible spirit/outward manifestation of/an inward power.” Is she saying that a leader's actions should be religiously executed as sacraments are and perhaps driven from within, anchored in values that are or can be operationalized?

In his 1994 book, A Higher Standard of Leadership: Lessons from the Life of Gandhi, Keshavan Nair asserts that “operationalizing values transforms them into action… and ... by operationalizing our values we take personal responsibility and are willing to be held accountable.”

The type of action Wheatley speaks of in her poem is action realized from values as opposed to action based on a reaction to external elements. It is action birthed from within, as Wheatley wrote: "An expressive act is not to achieve a goal outside myself/but to express a conviction/a leading, a truth that is within me."

The Leadership Moment

There are probably as many ideas about leadership as there are leaders.

Leadership is a subject that has been explored and documented by academia and practitioners alike.

Numerous models have emerged and are taught at colleges and organizations across the world. Most aim at identifying the actions of good leaders so that new ones can replicate them.

Leadership is viewed as a necessary commodity across every organization. Without it, we feel our organizations could not be successful.

In our culture, the hero and the leader are very closely tied. Our leaders—the ones we want to emulate—have accomplished great feats often times undergoing significant personal sacrifice. For the most part, this hero-leader relationship yields the leader image to be one of a male—a warrior. Someone with a strong personality—a visionary with charisma, and yes, one with a few flaws that we are willing to overlook. This image of the hero-leader limits the many other possibilities in which leadership can take place.

Let’s look at leadership from the perspective of leader, leading, and leadership.

Shocking the System

I tuned into CNN this morning the way I typically do before breakfast when a quotation on the screen immediately grabbed my attention: "shock to the system."

The quote belonged to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman who was discussing how he believes that a third-party, presidential candidate could deliver the systemic jolt—the "shock to the system"—America needs to make the country a global leader once again.

Friedman's quote struck me more than his theory did. Having only caught the tail end of his interview, I decided to research his "shock to the system" theory further after breakfast, like any good [former] journalist would do.

I found that Friedman's been kicking the idea of national shock therapy around for some time. He's pushing it harder now that he's in the midst of promoting a new book—That Used to Be Us with co-author Michael Mandelbaum—which formally birthed the "shock to the system" quote.

A review of the book published today by the British newspaper The Independent noted that "few could fundamentally disagree with the authors' diagnosis. The U.S. has a political system generating only small responses to big problems. American schoolchildren have fallen behind and the country risks falling behind in innovation. Meanwhile, it is perilously dependent on deficit funding from China and oil from the Middle East."

But, according to the review, Friedman and Mandelbaum's prescriptions to fix the U.S. system "range from the already consensus to the hopelessly naive."

One in 30,000

Imagine walking into work every morning wondering if it'll be your last day there.

That's how thousands of Bank of America employees probably felt this morning after the company publicly announced its plans yesterday to slash 30,000 jobs over the next few years.

The massive downsizing is part of a cost-cutting measure crafted by Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan in an effort to “bolster profit and the company’s stock,” according to media reports.

So for the sake of profit, the proverbial axe will fall on the company’s people—an organization’s most valuable asset, according to many business writers and theorists. It's just unknown who will receive the mortal blow and when.

Wondering whether you’ll be one in 30,000 employees who may or may not get a pink slip can't be easy. And it's not. Over time, this uncertainty can create all sorts of inner tensions, anxieties, and negative responses that hamper morale and productivity.

I’m sure many Bank of America employees have already started looking for new jobs as a precautionary measure—the let's jump off this ship before it sinks strategy. That move’s understandable when you have a mortgage to pay, children to feed, and any other expense that can chew away at your livelihood when you don't have a steady paycheck. The state of our economy promises no immediate chance to bounce back into the workforce soon after a layoff—another reason to begin the job search before the inevitable happens.

Those who aren't actively looking are at the mercy of what may or may not happen.

Getting booted from any job wounds the psyche on a very subtle level. It cuts deep into the worse aspect of ourselves—our egos. And the pain is unbearable.

Rethinking Change: Why change is simpler than you think... or is it?

I smiled with delight after having welcomed five new teaching staffers to our University Professional Development Center community. At the same time, I could not help reflecting on the courage required to begin the process of adding these five new people.

Was it really that difficult to expand our class offerings? Was it that surprising that we needed to respond to the business community at large to fill a “gap”?  Our community needed more business courses with a “humanistic spirit,” so how was this a challenge if the need was there?

Starting a process of change may seem overbearing, but often the work is not so exhaustive—au contraire, it becomes the tie that binds us.

Then, I wondered: Is it the system that fails us or do we fail to be a system? Blame is a lovely yet blinding reality as we live our lives. So which is it:  Do systems fail or do we fail to organize systemically to address issues? If we do actually fail, why is it that we opt out of being the very solution to the issues at hand that plague companies, families and communities?

In the case of University Professional Development Center, did we need an off-the-shelf system from days of organizational change? If so, how many would we need to study prior to making our initiative happen?

A Leadership Challenge, Part 1: Unveiling the Illusions of the True Professional

Writer Margaret Wheatley's poem, "The True Professional," isn't entirely original and she lets everyone know this.

It's a "found poem," Wheatley explained on her website. All of the lines of "The True Professional" are phrases "found" in Parker J. Palmer’s book The Active Life.

After taking these lines, Wheatley "played with them and extended them beyond Parker’s original prose" as a tribute to the author for "the profound influence he’s had on my work."

According to Palmer, a true professional, or leader, “is a person whose action points beyond his or herself to that underlying reality, that hidden wholeness, on which we all can rely.” Wheatley constructed her poem around this definition.

In my view, Wheatley's poem provokes inquiry and critical reflection for all leaders.

Using Palmer's words, Wheatley wrote: "The true professional is one/who does not obscure grace/with illusions of technical prowess,/the true professional is one/who strips away all illusions to reveal a reliable truth/a reliable truth in which/the human heart can rest. Unveil the illusions/unveil the illusions that masquerade/the illusions that masquerade/as reality and reveal the reality/behind the masks."

In part one of this leadership challenge, I would like to focus on Wheatley’s call to “unveil the illusions.” Many of us might have been schooled and socialized to believe that true professionalism lies in our technical prowess—our ability to deliver results, to perform, to contribute to the bottom line—to make profit. Have we focused way too much and too long on the ends and given little attention to the means? Do we only define the means within the boundaries of leader-making—pushing, commmanding, controlling, manipulating and even coercing others to do things in order to produce results?