Practicing Organization Development (A guide for Consultants) - Part 42 pdf

The most effective people at work are those who are willing to try things and explore, through training, mentoring, or coaching, what is going on in their adaptive area.. OD consultants

• Reacting with courage, grace, and honesty in conflict situations;

• Being self-correcting; and

• Responding when they have control—or don’t have control

Obviously, the adaptive skills are deeper in the causal chain of human

behav-ior In fact, it might be more accurate to view what lies in this domain as

uncon-scious automatic tendencies, rather than as skills The adaptive area explains why a person does what he or she does in the functional and work content

areas These characteristics are more about who a person is than what he or

she thinks or does Most adaptive tendencies are so embedded in people’s psy-ches that they may not be aware of when they are using them They may think they are just being themselves People who knew a person well when they were younger could watch him or her at work now and see the child they once knew

People don’t normally think about the adaptive area—but think from it

For-tunately, rather than being on automatic, or leaving to chance whether or not what they are doing is right for the situation, they can become aware of their

adaptive tendencies and begin to exercise some choice in how they respond to

certain situations

It is a rule of work life that people get hired for their work content and func-tional skills—or how good they are above the waterline—and fired (or

pro-moted) for their adaptive tendencies—or how good or poor they are below the waterline The most effective people at work are those who are willing to try things and explore, through training, mentoring, or coaching, what is going on

in their adaptive area OD consultants aspiring to include personal development interventions in their practice would be well-served to get involved in ongoing work in their own adaptive area (See www.scherercenter.com for information about a personal development approach, You ARE the Intervention, based on this concept.)

THE INTERPERSONAL BENEFITS OF PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 1

Identifying and addressing personal development opportunities in an OD effort has benefits not only for the client(s) being worked with directly, but for all those the client(s) interact with as well After all, most accomplishments in the

workplace occur within a relationship infrastructure, a human system, within

which employees, managers, and leaders enter into an ongoing series of inter-personal encounters

“If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.” This may sound like advice from a current business best-seller Actually, it comes

from the brilliant mind of Lao Tsu, 6th Century B.C philosopher (quoted in Novak, 1994) Stephen Covey (1989), a more recent philosopher, says, “Private victories must precede public victories.” They both understand the direct and unavoidable connection between mastering the outer world and mastering your own inner world To have earned the right to attempt to influence others, OD

consultants need to be “doing their own work” of self-development Then it is

appropriate and possible to assist in the development of clients OD consultants who attempt to change others without addressing their own development will

be experienced as manipulators

At the very bottom of self-mastery is mastering fear Working with a client’s fear is often a huge factor in the success of any OD effort—fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of failure, fear of looking bad There are a million fears that grip people in the workplace Marshall Goldsmith (2000), one of the better-known executive coaches, asserts that when clients become afraid and highly stressed, they lose access to their own humanity and become survival-oriented This leads to de-humanizing those they are afraid of, stripping them of their

humanity, reifying them, turning them—and themselves—into objects The

result: a failed relationship between two human beings, failed because at least one of them has forgotten that everyone involved is a human being Only human beings are capable of creative problem solving

THREE PERSON-CENTERED INTERVENTIONS IN OD: TRAINING, MENTORING, AND COACHING

We offer a deeper look at the three personal development modalities: training, mentoring, and coaching, all of which can be used to foster any or all three areas of personal development as shown in Scherer’s pyramid We begin with the most widely used OD intervention to have an impact on personal

develop-ment—training Even though the work content area (that is, technical) is the

focus of most training, a masterful OD practitioner can also direct development

of functional and adaptive capabilities

Training: Using a T-Group One of the oldest person-centered OD interventions, and still one of the most powerful, is the T-group, which was developed virtually by accident by Lewin himself.2The purpose of a T-group is to provide participants with intense per-sonal experiences designed to help them examine their ways of interacting with others, their styles of self-presentation, their basic life positions, their val-ues, and other issues Participants work in small groups of eight to twelve people for periods ranging from three days to two weeks In OD’s early years, T-groups

were a widely used technology for team building and were aimed primarily at changing attitudes and values Practitioners and OD pioneers like Bob Tannenbaum soon realized, however, that one of the unintended consequences of the T-group was a powerful personal development experience for participants—and facili-tators

Adopted and exported to the West Coast in the early 1950s by personal growth facilitators like Jack Gibb (1978), Will Schutz, and Carl Rogers (1980), the T-group quickly became the technology of choice for people looking for a devel-opmental breakthrough In the process, the T-group eventually was offered to the public at large, rather than remaining just a means of OD intervention, thereby divorcing it from its original organizational context (NTL-LABS [www.ntl.org]

is the organization that has maintained and passed on the T-group, offering Human Interaction Laboratories around the world.)

In the hands of a well-trained facilitator, the T-group is a powerful, although somewhat risky, person-centered OD intervention In terms of individual devel-opment for the workplace, it can help people, as Geoff Bellman says, to bring more of who they are to what they do

Why a T-Group Works in OD

The first thing a T-group participant finds is that the OD consultant/facilitator

does not actually facilitate—at least not in a way that can readily be seen as

useful by participants (Golembiewski, 1977) Participants must interact with each other without an agenda and without guidance from their facilitator, other than for processing observations Generally, the only agenda is: “We are here

to learn about self and others.” The facilitator states a few norms of group behavior—such as speaking for yourself, listening, practicing authenticity, stay-ing in the present, and respectstay-ing others—then only monitors and comments

on what he or she sees happening This creates an ambiguous situation for the group, which must develop of itself How each participant responds to this absence of structure reveals a great deal—about each person, about groups, and about human nature in general The T-group’s discussion centers on the present moment, and there is no authoritarian hierarchy since the OD consul-tant refuses to be drawn into that role Each participant is afforded equal oppor-tunities to experiment with new behaviors in an open, trusting climate that evolves after several days of intensive work The end result is a shift in how participants view themselves and others This shift goes deep because what is affected is the adaptive level, the person’s core belief system—not conscious thoughts, but rather those embedded childhood assumptions about self, oth-ers, and life A psychological shift takes place at the deepest level, and partic-ipants find themselves behaving differently in functional skill areas as well (Scherer, 1980)

Cognitive Dissonance and T-Groups

As Lynton and Pareek (1990) have shown, one reason the T-group works to

change participants’ attitudes and behaviors is the result of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance exists wherever there is a perceived difference between what

is and a key belief about what should be happening It has been said, “Cognitive

dissonance is what happens inside you when you see your worst enemy drive off

a cliff in your new car.” Because of the absence of traditional emotional and con-ceptual supports, participants are confronted with several kinds of dissonance or internal discord, which must be reduced This dissonance manifests in four ways:

1 Between the participants’ expectations of the consultant/facilitator and the consultant’s actual behavior Consultants avoid all participant attempts to seduce, force, or otherwise get them to conform to their expectations to provide more familiar structure or facilitation

2 Between a participant’s self-concept and his or her actual laboratory behavior

3 Between the participants’ expectations of the group’s reactions to what happens and the group’s actual reactions

4 Between the image that a participant wishes to project and the image that others in fact perceive

Dissonance between beliefs and reality leads to a discomfort that is often felt

by T-group participants as a kind of chaos, which becomes an uncomfortable void that they must fill with their own created reality This act prompts learning

to occur But then, according to Scherer (1981), chaos is the birth canal for all personal development Something has to give The participant either has to dis-believe what he or she is experiencing or let go of a belief or assumption about what he or she thinks should be the case This dissonance makes the T-group an intense and disturbing experience, which is exactly why T-groups produce such high rates of learning retention Research findings from the U.S Bureau of Research place T-group retention rates at 75 percent, compared to 55 percent for visual material, and 35 percent for lecture presentation (Lynton & Pareek, 1990) The key point to remember here is that, whether a consultant is designing a training program or setting up a coaching or mentoring relationship and wants deep learning to occur, one proven approach is to make sure that there is cog-nitive dissonance in the experience The consultant or facilitator must find a way to confront participants with whatever gaps are present between their con-cept of things and reality (for example, how trusted others perceive things) This requires that both participants and the OD consultant be highly skilled at offer-ing and receivoffer-ing feedback

T-Group Limitations

T-groups do have their limitations, however:

• You can’t lead others where you haven’t been yourself;

• Not every organization is ready for T-groups;

• T-groups seem to work best with a minimum of eight and a maximum of twelve participants—which raises the cost-effectiveness question, espe-cially in large systems;

• An effective T-group requires at least three days’ duration; and

• T-groups conducted with people from the same organization engender a heightened, perceived—and, in some cases, actual—personal and orga-nizational risk for participants For example, “I let Tracy see me in a more vulnerable and real way today in my T-group, and she’s going to

be sitting across from me in the staff meeting next Monday What will happen then?”

As indicated above (Lynton & Pareek, 1990), people who have been to

T-groups on their own have been able to retain and apply a surprising amount of

learning on their return to the organization, regardless of the lack of larger system involvement.3Even with these caveats, the T-group deserves to be understood and respected, and its principles applied in person-centered OD interventions because it has great power to shift the attitudes and behaviors of individuals in

an organizational setting

Personal Development Principles Derived from the T-Group

Regardless of the type of personal development intervention you may be plan-ning, you would be well-served to consider the following principles that char-acterize a good T-group:

1 Invite participants to come up with their own learning objectives

2 Create a design that allows participants to discover things, rather than

telling or showing them

3 Make the environment a safe place to be, but also a place where par-ticipants know they will be confronted with their developmental areas

4 As trainer or facilitator, minimize your role as much as possible, only providing what the participant(s) can’t provide themselves

5 Create a supportive climate, where defensiveness is reduced and sup-portiveness is enhanced

Jack Gibb (1978) describes two types of group climates this way:

Defensive Climates Supportive Climates

Mentoring and Coaching: One-on-One Personal Development While training in all its various forms continues to be the delivery system of choice for most person-centered OD work, a rapidly growing number of indi-viduals and organizations are turning to one-on-one approaches to save time and money—and to achieve maximum depth of insight and transformation One-on-one developmental relationships have had a long history, dating back to Biblical times, as when Moses turned to his father-in-law, Jethro, for help (see Exodus 18: 13–27) Although we don’t know exactly what happened in this one-on-one encounter, here is a possible updated scenario of this Biblical conversation:

“I can’t handle it any more!” Moses says to his trusted father-in-law

“What’s the problem?” Jethro asks

Says Moses, “I’ve just got too many people coming to me for decisions and advice All day long It’s all I do now It’s driving me crazy! What can I do?” Jethro replies, “Well How about this? What if you set up some of your best decision-makers to be responsible for a hundred people, and a few of

your very best to be responsible for a thousand people that way, some

handle all the little stuff, others handle the not-so-little stuff, leaving you to take care of the really big stuff ”

“Hey!” says Moses “I like that!” and he did what the two of them had cre-ated together

There is a lot about mentoring and coaching embedded in this hypothetical

exchange

• Moses is hard-working—you might say even driven—and is

experienc-ing some strong dissonance between his idea of how this wilderness trip

was supposed to go and what was actually happening

• Jethro is older, more experienced, knows his way around, and is

some-one Moses respects They had sufficient bandwidth for this conversation.

• Apparently Jethro had confronted a situation like this before—or at least

Moses believed Jethro had the emotional distance and clarity to see a

new solution

• Trapped inside his old paradigm—the one that came out of his promise

to Yahweh about getting everyone to the Promised Land all by himself— Moses couldn’t see his way to a solution for his current distress

• Moses asked for help The feedback and coaching were requested This

opened Moses’ heart and mind to receive Jethro’s idea

• Jethro first affirmed what would not change in the situation He is rooted

in reality, not in pie-in-the-sky positive thinking “Yes, Moses, these peo-ple are going to keep coming to you—or someone—for a long time.”

• Jethro then suggests something for Moses’ consideration He doesn’t try

to force or sell his idea It is a suggestion, not a command When a good

coach or mentor offers an idea, he does not use positional power with the client (if he has any), but rather relies on the power of the idea itself

• Moses acted on his father-in-law’s coaching He set up the organization

suggested by Jethro and saw it through

Mentoring The word “mentor” comes from the name of the Greek man, Mentor, in whose care Odysseus left his son Telemachus while on his ten-year return voyage from

the Trojan War, as told by Homer in the epic The Odyssey In Odysseus’ absence,

Mentor not only helped the boy become a competent young man but also saved his life This relationship, in which an older or more experienced person assists

a younger or less experienced individual in his or her development, is a model for what we now know as mentoring Mentoring has become a widespread means of providing personal development in OD

Today’s organizations realize that mentoring programs are quite effective for addressing such issues as diversity, developing current and future leaders, retaining high performers, and reducing the time and financial cost of train-ing/learning Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, and McKee (1978) were instru-mental in defining the mentoring process Their concept of a mentor includes such roles as teacher, sponsor, counselor, host, guide, exemplar, developer of skills and intellect, and supporter

Mentoring integrates characteristics of parent-child and peer-support rela-tionships According to Levinson et al (1978), young people who do not have mentors during their formative years are disadvantaged in terms of their psy-chological and career development Young people often search for and discover appropriate mentors on their own, but enlightened organizational leaders are paying more attention to mentoring and making it an official part of the lead-ership and management developmental process Young managers with high

potential are often the first to be given mentoring experiences Generally, a young manager is assigned to a mentor who is senior in position and age and who sometimes occupies a position that is several hierarchical levels above that

of the protégé Mentors are not necessarily selected from their protégés’ depart-ments but are selected for their interest, availability, and mentoring competence This would include the image of their competence and empathy among col-leagues, and their ability to provide appropriate emotional support One men-tor should not have more than five protégés, say Levinson et al

Research supports the perceived value of a good mentoring program The American Society for Training and Development reported that 75 percent of executives surveyed cited mentoring as being one of the key factors in their

business success Business Finance magazine reported that 77 percent of

com-panies credited mentoring with increased employee retention and performance (see mentor@mediapro.com)

What a World-Class Mentoring Program Looks Like

In the typical workplace mentoring program, a relatively new manager or employee is invited to take on the role of protégé and seek out someone in the organization he or she admires who is more experienced and could be a men-tor Mentors help their protégés navigate the organization’s culture, including its political, operational, technical, and even interpersonal dimensions They also listen to their protégés’ personal and job concerns, help them search for solutions to on-the-job problems, share their own experiences, respond to their protégés’ emotional needs, without creating inappropriate dependency, and cul-tivate longlasting, informal personal relationships Here is a short list of what mentors do with and for their protégés:

• Increase the protégés’ personal and interpersonal effectiveness by pro-viding feedback about their behavior on the job and assistance in ana-lyzing their interpersonal competence;

• Review the protégés’ progress in achieving work objectives, especially project management;

• Identify concerns in and around the protégés that are hindering their progress;

• Assist in generating alternatives and a final action plan for dealing with identified concerns;

• Model the best behavioral norms;

• Champion the protégés for special projects, paving the way for their advancement;

• Assist the protégés in setting goals for continual improvement;

• Protect the protégés from the unseen consequences of potentially threat-ening political turmoil;

• Provide support to the protégé while he or she implements action plans; and

• Do whatever they can to help the protégé realize his or her potential

Generally speaking, the mentor focuses on the protégé’s career and move-ment up and through the organization In the best move-mentor-protégé relationships, however, personal development becomes the emphasis, as the mentor offers feedback not only in the above-the-waterline aspects of career and job perfor-mance, but also below the waterline, to address functional and even adaptive skill areas as well This requires a mentor who is trained in coaching, and a rela-tionship with sufficient bandwidth to support the deeper work

The Risks of Going Deep in Mentoring

Ironically, the deeper the personal development goes in a mentoring relation-ship, the more risky it becomes Above-the-waterline conversations are safer for both parties Neither really wants the protégé to reveal too much that might shake the mentor’s confidence in him or her This results in a certain limitation on the relationship, usually unconsciously, which restricts what can and cannot be discussed If the protégé reveals too many vulnerabilities—cru-cial to development at the adaptive level, for instance, where the deepest learning takes place—it might affect the mentor’s support and sponsorship The typical mentor, who must also think about his or her own reputation in the organization, wants to be seen as backing winners These factors, which are at work in many mentoring relationships, tend to invite the need for some-thing deeper, freer, where the protégé can let it go, confident that nosome-thing shared will come back to haunt him or her later This deeper work, necessary for many professionals at various points in their careers, is what coaching is all about

This also explains why below-the-waterline coaching is best provided by

someone who is not in the protégé system.

Coaching

“Coaching is an ongoing professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses, or organizations” (www.coachfederation.org) In the words of workplace coach and co-author, Lynn Brinkerhoff, “Simply put, coaching is a relationship designed to assist the client in bringing out the best they have in them and applying it in their lives.” Through the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life In each meeting or phone call—

many clients and coaches never meet each other face-to-face—the client deter-mines the focus of conversation while the coach listens and contributes obser-vations and questions This kind of interaction leads to greater clarity and moves the client into action Coaching is intended to accelerate the client’s progress by providing greater focus, awareness, and increased options Coaching concen-trates on where the clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future

There are two basic paths to personal development coaching, corresponding

to the two Medieval spiritual development methods: the via negativa (the neg-ative road) and the via positiva (the positive road) Both work The via

nega-tiva is what would be called gap analysis today The client is assisted in looking

deeply at where he or she is now, where he or she wants to be at some point, what is standing in the way, and what steps would get him or her where

desired The via positiva view looks at where things are working already and

how the client can enhance or build on that existing capacity

The via negativa view focuses on what is missing or not working; the via

positiva view uses what is present when the person or situation is at its best.

Both approaches work—and work equally well Johnson (1992) would say that what we have here is a polarity to be managed, not a good thing to be supported (the positive approach) and a bad thing to be invalidated (the gap-analysis approach) There are times when a masterful coach will want to have access to both

We start with the via negativa, since it has been around the OD consulting

field the longest and is still the path most intuitively taken Lewin’s Force-Field Analysis showed that, if you pushed on “driving forces” in a change project, what usually happens is that the “restraining forces” simply increased to match our pressure Lewin asserted that we will get more movement ultimately by reducing (or reversing) a restraining force, something most of us have experi-enced first-hand This success in change efforts has led OD people to focus on the restraining force side of the equation, analyzing and addressing what is going against the change What follows is a gap-analysis coaching process that has been used to coach individuals in a variety of organizational settings (Scherer, 1986)

STRIPES: A Breakthrough Coaching Process

These seven coaching dimensions, using the acronym STRIPES, can be addressed in order during a coaching session Even better, a consultant could simply listen to the client, taking notes in the appropriate area, noticing which areas are receiving the most attention Eventually, they will see which dimen-sions need to be explored further to promote the client’s breakthrough The dimensions are described below: