Beyond Management Taking Charge at Work_8 potx

Conversations for aligning:openness, commitments, and accountability Aligning Organizing is often hard work.. Three domains of conversations When people are making meaning together—shari

unorthodox the practices sound, for others the only acceptable change isgradual, “managed change,” with them in charge Perhaps you see why it is

so desirable for activists to be able to read people and why it is importantfor them to possess a quality like emotional intelligence and to developclose working relationships, so they know how their co-workers think andwhat they do and don’t like about the way they work

To tell my story about the work of organizing I’ve deliberately steppedquite far to the right To distance myself from management-speak, I’veinvented a few words like “social spaces” when I couldn’t find any thatfit, borrowing others, like “making meaning,” “networks,” and “align-ing,” some associated with organizing and fairly familiar, while othersare not I chose them to paint a picture of knowledge-work, manage-ment, and organizing as I see it and wanted to tell it But, there is morethan one way of telling a story and it might be more sensible to craftnew work language around words like “networks” and “aligning,” whichprobably resonate with anyone accustomed to the technical language ofmanagement There is then the risk, however, of them losing sight of thehumanness of organizing In short, it’s the risk that we’ll soon be rightback in management-speak.17

Three words that must go: management, organization,

leadership

It’s clear to me that management-speak has to go and it is clear why ithas to go Words like “efficiency,” “performance,” “productivity,” “train-ing,” and “capital” are factory-talk, devised to make meaning of “factorymanagement” and “factory-work.” Factory-talk legitimizes the view fromthe top and perpetuates practices that treat work as physical and mindless,which, in factories, turned workers, the subordinates, into largely help-less, hopeless extensions of machines When you walk factory-talk, albeitunconsciously, you are either a factory manager who holds the key to mak-ing workers more productive, or you’re a factory worker waiting to be toldwhat to do, when, and how In the age of knowledge-work, neither of these

is acceptable

Language allows us to make distinctions When we have them, see theymatter, and change the way we talk about people or events, we’re inclined

to do things differently So, to evolve new practices, we need the words,

or a new language, to distinguish factory-work from knowledge-work andold from new management, not only to see that they are different but also

to understand how they are different and appreciate why this matters.18

In this vein, there are three words in particular that need to be jettisoned:

“management,” “organization,” and “leadership”

“Management” has to go because every time anyone speaks it theybreathe high control into the conversation It is impossible to separatethis word from industrial-age practices and doing things the MBA way,because this is what everyone associates with management What should

we put in its place? I propose that “organizing” becomes the new agement.” Organizing is what knowledge workers do and it makes sense touse it, at least until another one comes along Anyone who does this work,irrespective of their official title or role, is an organizer, as we all are.Moving “organization” from centerstage to backstage is another prior-ity Its prominence in work talk is a combination of high control and theview from the top: people’s desire to be in control; the mistaken belief thatthere is something to control; and the equally spurious idea that everyoneought to be doing in lock-step fashion, whatever is going on (e.g buyinginto the same “vision” or “mission”) Everywhere you turn, people claim

“man-to be doing something because the organization needs it (e.g a strategicplan, an integrated IT system, or a mission statement) or because it’s in theorganization’s interests (e.g to give executives exorbitant remunerationpackages, to seal a merger, or to have a uniform culture) An organiza-tion is abstract and definitely inanimate Organizations don’t have needs

or interests and paying all this attention to the organization distracts us from thinking about how and how well people are organizing to get things done It’s the zing not the zation that really counts, so, here again is a case

for having the word “organizing” centerstage in the new language of newmanagement.19

“Leadership,” unfortunately, perpetuates the idea that organizationshave tops and bottoms The word doesn’t have to mean this, but, by con-vention, leaders are at the top Reuniting work and organizing meansshaking off the old “top-and-bottom” mindset and jettisoning leadership

in the process In the new work stories, the answer to “Who leads?” has

to become: “It depends on circumstances and on matters such as people’sexperience, their support, and cooperation, but not on their positions ortitles.”

The kind of leading I’m describing isn’t from the top, the bottom, or themiddle, as these are all view-from-the-top images, which tell us there is aset structure to work and that organizing and leading is more like base-ball than rugby or football Think of what I’m describing as leading from

“inside,” from action, or from practice, or as stewardship.20 The essence

of stewardship is that it speaks of a relationship between a leader and ers: a relationship of responsibility and care You are responsible for your

oth-actions and are committed to taking care of their interests ity and accountability, which describe people’s willingness to meet theircommitments to one another and to hold each other to these, are watch-words of stewards, and it is useful, in this context, to recall a traditionalmeaning of the word “Stewardship” has to do with the responsibilities

Responsibil-of all humans, because they are human, for taking care Responsibil-of the world theyinhabit For animists, responsibility is reciprocal in that the earth will takecare of good stewards, providing them with everything that sustains them

So, whether it’s a simple task or a major undertaking, anyone withsuitable experience, who is responsible, capable, and shows insight andforesight, who is in a position to make sensible decisions and take practi-cal action, could and should guide what the group does, with the supportand encouragement of those he or she is working with As it’s his or herjob to find support and his or her colleagues’ job to give it to whoever

is in a good position to lead, everyone needs emotional intelligence, withthe savvy to appraise people and situations and, seeing what is possible,assess whether to step into the role of leading or to encourage a colleague

to “take the lead” and then support them

Activists, willing to take on the work of organizing, put themselves

in the role of stewards, leading from inside and committed to ing others—everyone else—to do the same In hierarchical organizations,what I’ve described is completely unnatural, which means you need avariety of out-of-the-ordinary skills, as well as conviction, courage, andcunning to win through Besides thinking and acting cooperatively, whichmay take some getting used to, your job is also to dismantle the pyramid

encourag-of management from the inside, while working with people whose tions, power, incomes, and identities are tied to this structure Some will

posi-be amenable to taking a new direction, others skeptical, and still otherspassionately opposed to anything that appears to threaten the status quo

As stewards, activists also have to learn to recognize when to put or toleave the ball in someone else’s court, because he or she either is betterplaced to offer advice, give guidance, and make decisions, or can help you

to do all this In the spirit of cooperation which is so important for goodorganizing, they have to learn to be generous about allowing others to helpthem, too, by putting their colleagues—their partners—in the best position

to provide guidance or offer help And they need to be skilled in rhetoric,because the work of organizing begins with new conversations

Conversations for aligning:

openness, commitments,

and accountability

Aligning

Organizing is often hard work Aligning, which I’ve called the

“bottom-line of organizing,” takes experience, ingenuity, and, sometimes,tough bargaining Assignments that seem perfectly straightforward turnout to hide wicked problems that reveal themselves only when you aretrying to clarify something or when you are looking for agreement fromthe team about what still needs to be done Reaching agreement may takeall kinds of compromises and could depend on knowing: which rules andprocedures to follow, which you can bend, and how to circumvent oth-ers entirely; when to sidestep long-winded procedures even though you’vebeen told “this is the way we do things here”; what you can do to free upfunds, yet stay within budget

When a diverse group of stakeholders is trying to align, however, technical matters like these are not usually the toughest nuts to crack.Some of the really taxing ones include: reaching consensus about theproblems you are dealing with and how to tackle them; settling on whoseposition to support; obtaining permission or approval; ensuring that asso-ciates in diverse locations, with different affiliations and interests, followthrough with the commitment to their work and one another required to do

semi-a good job Even when their semi-activities semi-and roles intersect semi-and they need tocollaborate, the chances are that participants aren’t all on the same page.Perhaps, it is those varied interests One or two just don’t seem particu-larly involved It is hard to get their attention and, when you do, they havetheir own ideas about what needs to be done There are more headacheswhen something goes wrong in the middle of an assignment or project andyou have to reorganize to put things right Who is responsible? What do

we do about them and the breakdown, and prevent this from happening

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again? When they hit one of these problems, in order to move forward, theparticipants have to work at realigning.

Aligning has to do with attitudes, motives, values, and interpersonalrelationships It is adaptive, not technical, work Besides a willingness tocompromise, or, if the going gets particularly tough, to accept some form

of mediation or arbitration, working through issues like these takes mitment, patience, and determination, which are just some of the qualitiesactivists may need to take on the work of organizing The practical route

com-to aligning is always for participants com-to engage and talk things through, com-tofind out what the others think, to look for common ground, to test eachother’s suppositions and resolve, and to see where colleagues dig in theirheels and where they are accommodating Wouldn’t it be nice if, whenever

we found ourselves floundering, we could turn to a repertoire of tions to help us move ahead—conversations that would help us negotiatethrough the thicket of tough problems, get unstuck, and align?

conversa-Perhaps the idea of a repertoire of conversations sounds to you piciously like turning talk—the discussions in which people align foraction—into a set of tools Didn’t I warn against relying on tools, empha-sizing a number of times that talk and tools, though complementary, mustnever be confused (Chapter 5)? Having criticized standard managementpractices for doing just this (Chapter 8) I must avoid falling into the same

sus-trap I am going to describe a set of conversations for aligning that will

help you and the groups or teams you work with to align My aim isnothing more, nor less, than to encourage organizers to keep talking, butproductively Reminding everyone that conversations are the heart of thework of organizing, conversations for aligning constitute a framework thatidentifies and explains the kinds of conversations you ought to have whenyou are organizing How will this help you? Once you know what they areand why they matter, you should be able tell whether you’re paying enoughattention to particular issues and, if not, what you and your colleaguesought to be talking about

Three domains of conversations

When people are making meaning together—sharing knowledge to getsomething done—three types of conversations make up their organizing

talk Each comprises a domain of conversations:

• In one domain the conversations have to do with interpersonal tions, or relationships in the broadest sense of that word They introduce

connec-themselves, talk about who they represent, welcome others, reminisceabout when they last met, ask what the others have been up to, andsay why they are there and what they hope to accomplish with thehelp of the other participants In these conversations they’re recogniz-ing each other as legitimate participants in the work they are doing andcreating—opening—their space for doing the work of organizing.1

• In another domain, talking as well as listening to others’ ideas, tions, or proposals, they sort out what they are doing, assign responsi-bilities, and get commitments from everyone about what they are going

sugges-to do or what kind of contribution they’ll make

• In the third domain, keeping an eye on what is going on, they remindone another about their commitments and schedules; and, if things havegone awry and some sort of corrective action is needed, they’ll ask otherparticipants to explain themselves or to account for what they’ve done.Wanting to label the conversations in each domain in a way that capturesthe essence of the talk, I’ve called them, respectively:

• Openness

• Commitments

• Accountability

It takes conversations in all three domains—conversations for

open-ness, as well as conversations for commitments, and conversations foraccountability—for people to organize themselves effectively and align

If, for example, participants don’t know what they were supposed to do,because they haven’t taken the time to clarify what their work entails and

to assign tasks (i.e if they are missing conversations in the domain ofcommitments), there will almost certainly be breakdowns Similarly, ifthey’ve overlooked conversations in the domain of accountability, becauseteam members aren’t paying attention to whether they’ve done what theysaid they’d do, there is a good chance, too, that they won’t do their workproperly or well

As long as their conversations in these three domains cover all theirwork talk (i.e everything people could, should, and do talk about to gettheir work done), this scheme will help anyone who is taking on the work

of organizing to align This sounds like a big claim for a little work, particularly if you are used to management tools that come withlots of diagrams, some formulae, at least a few charts, and a three- or five-step program Yet, as we organize in conversation, one conversation at a

frame-time, a lot hinges on having good conversations throughout a network,just as there is a lot to lose by not having them or by having sanitized orsuperficial ones, which, unfortunately, happens all the time.

Illustrating the framework

At various places in this book I’ve used a picture of a group around atable to illustrate aspects of organizing Here it is again, in Figure 12.1, tohelp explain the three domains of conversation The group in the picturecould be a departmental committee formed to honor a colleague for herachievements; or it could be representatives of major stakeholders in alarge building project (contractors, city officials, environmental protectiongroups, and so on), meeting to go over a proposal As before, I’ve put acircle around them to represent their social space Their conversations domore than fill the space They actually influence the quality of it in terms

of what gets said and, then, what gets done

Perhaps I should remind you about social spaces Simply by gettingtogether, a group of people creates a space that “holds” their conversa-tions Their space, which both influences and is influenced by whatever

they think, feel, say, and do (Chapter 6), is shaped by their attitudes (i.e.how each shows up) and their relationships Filling their space with con-versations in the three domains, as I’ve done in Figure 12.1, suggests thatwhatever they have to say to one another (whether they’re talking shop orchatting about what’s going on in their lives), belongs in one or more ofthese domains In this regard, the three domains of conversation are just away of categorizing work talk: that is until I add the stipulation that, when-

ever people work together, they need to have conversations that cover all

three domains Now the scheme is a framework for organizing work—for

action—and it doesn’t matter what people are actually doing, as long as it

is collective work and they have to organize it Once they are aware of whyand how conversations in each domain matter to the work of organizing,provided they think about the domains and conversations, they should do

a better job of organizing and do better work

What to do with the framework

Now that you have seen it, there are three things to remember aboutthis scheme It is holistic, which is why, in the picture, there are arrowsconnecting all domains Next, the domains form a unity They can’t beseparated Finally, no domain takes precedence over the others When theyare organizing in departmental meetings, negotiating contracts, or havingonline discussions or water-cooler conversations, participants, particularlyactivists who are out in front in taking charge of work, ought to ask them-selves whether they have covered the ground in each domain properly

To do this they should be able to associate conversations they’ve had, orare having, with domains Are there specific conversations they ought tohave but haven’t had yet—missing conversations? If there are, why arethey missing? Are they trying to move matters along too quickly? Arethere things that they don’t, won’t, or can’t talk about? Is it that the issuesdidn’t seem relevant until now? Have they talked openness, commitments,and accountability, or are there whole domains of conversation that haven’tbeen covered? What are they going to do about it?

Who is responsible for keeping an eye on what people are talking about,for assessing whether they need to “get into” particular conversations inorder to align, and for deciding whether it is openness, commitments,

or accountability that they ought to be talking about? A short answer is

“everyone, jointly.” Organizing is everyone’s business, as Figure 12.1 isintended to show If I were tossing these ideas about domains of conversa-tions into the management ring and someone thought they were useful, you

could bet they would end up as one or more tool To start with, the work might be handed over to “experts,” say to the training group in HR,with a directive to design an intervention to “improve communications,”

frame-“enhance collaboration,” or “increase knowledge sharing.” Then, as part

of a day-long training session on the “Three Domains of Conversation,”one-by-one teams would be taught and told to use it and that would be theend of the matter: they’d been trained to have the right conversations

As a way of crossing between the universes of management and nizing, however, I’d expect groups letting go of one and catching on to

orga-the oorga-ther to treat orga-the scheme as orga-theirs and something that continually

influences how they think of their work (seeing it as conversations in

these domains) and continually has a bearing on how they work with one

another This is a scheme to keep people: in the work of organizing, talking

to one another and not being distracted by tools; focused on what matters

to doing good work; engaged, making meaning, and aligning As there is

no beginning or end to organizing, we are always in a conversation in one

or more of these domains The scheme is a way of identifying, ating, and naming our conversations Its purpose is to make us conscious

differenti-of and familiar with them Then, in taking on the work differenti-of organizing, it isour responsibility to be conscientious about getting into the conversationsneeded for aligning, deliberately drawing one another into conversations

in other domains if necessary, whenever it is appropriate to do so

Missing conversations

When there are breakdowns in organizing, you’ll usually find that ing conversations are the Achilles heel and you can put the problem downalmost entirely to management practices In meetings, planning sessions,and so on, whatever people have to say about the six Ds of documenta-tion, data, directives, deliverables, deadlines, and dollars, their attention

miss-is almost exclusively on getting commitments, narrowly defined as ing up with tools,” like agendas, budgets, plans, and lists of requirements.There is so little room for proper conversations in this culture of action-over-talk that even talk about commitments gets short shrift “Stick tothe agenda” and “focus on the outcomes and requirements” is the kind

“com-of advice you expect to hear; and you can more or less forget about anydiscussion of openness or accountability

Impatient to “get on with the work,” people would rather not take time

to clarify, and then resolve, who will be doing what, when, and how cially if it’s a newly formed group, however, to align their intentions and

Espe-actions it is going to be necessary for them, first, to clarify how they want

to work together; for example, what they’d like to see from one another, orwhat they expect to accomplish No doubt they have different expectations

of what constitutes “success,” which means they go into their work withvarying degrees of commitment to the task as well as to who they want tosatisfy and how

Many missing conversations have to do with those

“elephant-in-the-room” situations, when people don’t want to talk about something,

because it’s hard for them to have the difficult conversations Often, themost difficult conversations have to do with accountability Perhaps theproblem is a colleague who isn’t holding up her end Tensions in a smallteam that is under a lot of stress are now aggravated by members having

to cover for her She hasn’t been available to do interviews, never turns up

to meetings (but phones at the last minute to say she won’t be there), and

is always busy with something else No matter that they’ve discussed andgot agreement on their responsibilities, her assurances just don’t seem tomean anything

They’ll whisper to one another about the situation, but no one willspeak up to name aloud the matter they aren’t willing to talk about and

no one will talk directly to her about the problems they’re having andwhat to do; perhaps because they’d prefer not to appear confrontational

or because they aren’t sure how to handle the situation High-controlmanagement bears much of the blame for this By perverting “respon-sibility,” turning it into a set of technical tasks, such as administeringrules and overseeing requirements, bureaucracy appears to remove bothpersonal and moral considerations from the picture For many, it is eas-ier on their conscience to “follow directives” and fire someone, say, for

“poor performance,” because “you haven’t met our minimum standards,”than it is to hold him to account as a fellow human being whom, youfeel, has broken promises or not met commitments he made and, gener-ally, has fallen short of your expectations The problem is that you can’thave bureaucracy, or rules, regulations, and compliance, without someone

to enforce them: hence high-control Especially when it’s combined withhierarchy and competition, bureaucracy encourages a not-responsible-for-anything and blame-someone-else mentality Without conversations foraccountability, the team’s ill-will toward the person who isn’t meeting hercommitments will fester, adversely affecting their willingness and abil-ity to work together; and there is a good chance that, if they don’t talkabout the problem, sooner or later this matter will contaminate her workrelationships with others

It’s tough to have conversations of accountability when you aren’taccustomed to doing so, but it may help if groups are in the habit of

asking about, then getting into, their missing conversations, which brings

me to the question: What is the purpose of conversations in each domain?Answering it will explain why conversations in all three domains are nec-essary, why openness is at the top of the list when it comes to aligning, andwhy conversations for accountability, which remind us of our joint owner-ship of and collective responsibility for knowledge-work, are essential toorganizing

Conversations for openness

Openness is a precondition for good conversations in all domains, so I haveconversations for openness first on the list; not because they are moreimportant than the others, but, above all, because these conversations influ-ence the “quality” of the social space people hold together The openness

of their space influences what they say to each other; what they feel theycan talk about (and shouldn’t talk about); what they actually talk about;and how they talk to one another (whether, for example, they are will-ing to listen, patiently to one another or, on principle, are dismissive ofwhat others say) Knowing how difficult it can be to talk to your spouse orlife-partner about how you organize and live your lives together—tellinghim or her that he or she regularly goes to bed too late, or that you feelthat leaving a trail of clothes on the floor is being inconsiderate—it isn’thard to understand why organizing work is often difficult, especially whenworking with people we hardly know

Social networks are a hodgepodge of people organizing in differentplaces, doing different things, for different reasons So, whenever indi-viduals interact to talk, there are lots of potential, invisible boundariesbetween them; a result of their varied affiliations, relative positions in thehierarchy of bosses and subordinates, and different experiences and per-sonal interests, as well as their attitudes to each other For good organizing,participants should be able to engage easily, without these considerationsbecoming insurmountable obstacles, so they can get into good conversa-tions, share knowledge, and align in action If the obstacles are already

there, as many usually are, they need a space, which they create and

hold jointly, where, because everyone is paying attention to their

relation-ships and to aligning, they can still engage productively This way, whenthey spot boundaries that are barriers to aligning, they can name themand negotiate them with the object of turning the barriers into bridges

“Openness” describes social spaces with these qualities

Openness is a relational idea, which speaks of people’s way-of-beingwith others Openness refers to a space—a context—where they can