Also obvious is that some organizations are more successful than others. They’re just consistently better at doing all of those things that organizations do day in and day out.  What isn’t so obvious is why.  Is it that they’ve got smarter people? If that were the case, how to explain businesses that transform their performance—that move from mediocre to exemplary, or vice versa?  Clearly there is something else at play that impacts an organization’s success or failure.

Here are a few hints…

• It never appears in the annual reports or analysts’ statements
• We all do it all the time, whether we’re alone, with friends, lovers, foes, team mates, bosses, employees, customers, constituents—anyone and everyone
• It shapes our perceptions, our moods, even [our physiological state.  It determines what is possible, what’s problematic, what’s workable, what is worth doing
• It is actually the basis for all the work that gets done in an organization
• Some say it is what makes us human

The answer is pretty mundane: Conversations We are almost always in conversation—listening, exchanging sounds, making sense of each other, of the world, of our lives, even of our “selves.”  When we’re alone, we’re often still in conversations with ourselves, planning for the future, replaying the past, articulating opinions (and sometimes arguing with those opinions), telling ourselves stories to make sense of things.

Although often invisible, our conversations drive our actions and our relationships. Conversation is the currency for human action—it’s how we coordinate and get things done with other people, at home, in the community, and in our organizations.

“She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.”
- George Bernard Shaw

Conversations??

We’ve all spent plenty of time listening to people speaking a lot, but not saying very much.  And of course we all know how to have conversations; even five year-olds know how to do it.  Well, yes they do—but not necessarily the kinds of conversations that produce exceptional organizational results.   When I tell executives and managers that a key to their organizational and career success lies in their conversational mastery, some begin rattling off all of the active listening, public speaking, assertiveness and “Effective Communications for Managers” seminars they’ve attended.

You’d think we’d all be masters in the art of conversation, but it turns out there are conversations and then there are effective conversations, and they definitely look different and produce very different results.

Consistently effective conversations aren’t just accidental.  I see four core competencies that underlie “conversational mastery” and high performance:

1.    Conversational Design – Different types of conversations are suited to different organizational activities, and conversations can be skillfully designed to optimize successful outcomes and build relationships

2.    Managing Linguistic Action – Talk is actually anything but cheap—as long as we understand that speaking is action. There are a handful of potent “linguistic” actions that are present in almost every conversation, and these linguistic actions generate all of the commitments that make things happen in organizations (including the web of promises I talked about in the last post) Understanding these actions and knowing how to use them well in our conversations leads to business integrity, trust and effective performance.

3.    Managing Moods – Moods live in our bodies as well as our conversations Each emotion we experience has its own physiological profile, and when we change our conversations (either internal or external conversations) we can often directly impact our own moods and the moods of those around us—which has dramatic impacts on almost every aspect of organizational success.

4.    Identifying Missing Conversations – When certain conversations are missing in a planning process, a strategic initiative, a business process or a relationship, the right things simply will not happen (and the wrong things usually will happen).  Seeing where critical conversations are missing enables us to engage with the right people and design right conversations for the right outcomes.

Our stories, opinions, our knowledge and social skills, and our deepest aspirations live in our conversations.  In organizations, whether it’s front line operations, “soft” HR management, or high-level strategic planning, conversational mastery is the currency of effective action.  And each of the conversational competencies can be learned, practiced and mastered.

Creating powerful Contexts, Managing the Web of Promises and cultivating Conversational Mastery—the holy trinity of executive and organizational transformation.  Now that we’ve introduced each of these elements, we can devote future posts to exploring them in more detail and following the many threads that make up the fabric of individual and organizational performance.

Just imagine how much less complicated things would be if we didn’t have to deal with anybody else.  Nobody’s schedule to meet; no worrying about how I look, how I’m “doing” or when that promotion/new customer/winning lottery number, etc. might arrive. Say goodbye to office politics (and any other politics). No more waiting in lines for that Grande Double Decaf, Soy Latte at Starbucks. Getting dressed in the morning is a snap, and the commute would be a dream.

Dealing with other human beings can definitely put a damper on things.  Especially when we have to rely on them for things that are important to us—or when they’re relying on us for things that matter to them.  Like in families, or friendships, communities, organizations, nations.

For today we’ll just focus on organizations; partly because that’s where many of us spend a lot of time, and also because it can be easier to see how all of our various human “dependencies” actually work in organizational settings.

Same Organization – Different Perspective
We have lots of ways of looking at organizations.  We can see them as hierarchical structures with positions, authority and reporting lines (as in traditional org charts); we can see them as matrixes with defined functional and product lines and relationships; we can see them as groups of teams that interact within larger teams…Lots of different organizational models out there.

Every organizational model reflects and reinforces a particular way of seeing, thinking about and behaving.  Each model has its strengths and limitations, and each may be better suited to different types of organization, different cultures, different times.

Over the past couple of decades, a new view of organizations has been emerging that I first learned about in the mid 90’s from a friend and mentor of mine, Rafael Echeverria, PhD.  This view opens all sorts of doors to individual and organizational performance improvement that simply don’t show up in other other models.

This new view reminds us that, however quicker our commute might be with nobody else around, the fact is that we’re not here alone, and we are dependent upon other human beings—for perhaps everything that we do, touch, think and even feel.  We are inescapably reliant upon other people.  And a surprising number of folks are dependent upon us, every single day of our lives—including in our organizations.

The gist of this new perspective is that organizations are fundamentally networks, or “webs” of dependencies between people within the organization and outside.

Now, let’s replace the phrase “web of dependencies” with “web of promises…”  Suddenly (at least for me), the organization has been transformed from a passive place where people are filling a space on the org chart or matrix, depending, waiting for somebody else to do something–to a dynamic place where these same people now have tremendous power to think up new possibilities, make meaningful offers to others, grow their reputation and build trust, and expect commitments to be honored by others.

Here’s why the Web of Promises perspective makes so much sense: Because fundamentally, the only reason we come together in organizations is to accomplish things that we can’t accomplish alone.  And accomplishing those things requires that we coordinate our actions together so that different people in the organization agree (promise) to do certain things, in certain ways, by certain times, which everybody else can rely upon.  This enables everybody else in the organization (and many outside) to promise to do other things in certain ways, by certain times, and so on.   

The real power of this perspective comes from how we think about all those hundreds, often thousands of promises that comprise even small organizations.  All of these promises are constantly being made, kept, broken, renegotiated, forgotten, ignored, fretted over.  Every single one of these promises is made between human beings, whether they realize it or not.  And for every promise, there is someone who wants something of value to be done (a “customer”), and the person whose job it is to produce or deliver that something of value (a “performer”).

The Promise of Promises
When we learn to see our organizations as webs of promises, and ourselves as both customers and performers (we’re always playing either of these roles at various times throughout our day), we discover that we have the power to create value for our colleagues, our bosses, even our reports, that we never realized before by managing our promises effectively.  We do this by understanding and embodying the specific practices involved in making, keeping and honoring our promises effectively.  The more we do this, the more people want to rely on us for more and more important things.  In other words, they trust us more and value our contributions more.

The other nice thing about this perspective is that it gives us powerful tools for identifying and addressing organizational disconnects, misalignment, poor performance, and weak accountability, without having to impugn people’s character or attribute personal blame.  That’s really important to me as a consultant and coach. Best of all, learning to manage promises is something that anybody can do.  The only negative side effect is that that there may be more and more people wanting lining up who want to give you that promotion, seek out your views about office politics, or buy your next Latte.  But hey, that’s just life with human beings…

Background. Milieu. Setting. Environment. That which surrounds and gives meaning to something else. The parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning.  All of these definitions relate to the word “context” (from the latin “to join by weaving”).

In the world of executive and organizational coaching, focusing on context is like working with a magic loom that can weave profound transformation.

While imparting skills, tools, or techniques certainly has a place in the coaching and consulting world, whenever a radical, non-incremental leap in perception, capacity or performance has taken place, it’s because the context has shifted, not because a skill was honed or a new tool was employed.  Contextual work is the ultimate energy-efficient technology; it can generate Himalayan scale change with relatively little force.  (It also doesn’t require a lot of space or equipment.)

So what is context, really?

For our purposes, let’s think of context as the worldview of a person or social entity (group, team, department, organization, community, country…).  It’s the way the world shows up for us in the different areas of our lives.   Here are some of the “things” that make up context within the business world (this is, by necessity, a very incomplete list)…

• What we perceive, see, hear, recognize, notice, pay attention to, etc., (as well as what we don’t perceive, see, hear…)
• The assessments we have about ourselves, our colleagues, our company, the marketplace, the world (and the assessments others have about all of the foregoing)
• The stories or explanations we tell ourselves about ourselves, our actions, our history, our possibilities, our limitations, our future—as well as those about our colleagues, our company, the marketplace, the world…(This includes what people call realistic, practical, common-sense—these only apply within a particular way of seeing things—change the context and what’s realistic or practical or sensible also change.)
• The moods or emotional spaces that we have (or that have us)
• Our expectations about how things should go (for us, our colleagues, our company, etc.  (This relates to the stories/explanations we tell ourselves.)
• The social and professional practices, routines and standards that are expected and “normal” within our given working environment (company, industry, marketplace, culture…)
• Our habitual physical posture and movement patterns (how we stand, sit, walk, carry ourselves), our breathing patterns, the ways that we become excited or calm, tense or relaxed, and so on.
• So-called “external” corporate, industry, market factors, forces, conditions or circumstances

Context both defines and is defined by what we perceive, how we think about what we perceive, and what actions make sense to us in any given situation.  How we see and think about ourselves (our self-identity) is a critical dimension of “our” context.  Oh, and contexts are usually invisible.

We only know that we’re in a particular context when we somehow step “outside” of it and suddenly see freshly what is normally just taken for granted. Contexts are invisible because they are habitual.  Like breathing air, much of context just happens in the background, without our conscious awareness (until we experience difficulty breathing—when the background of “breathing air” is quickly propelled into the foreground of our awareness).

Another way in which they are invisible is that contexts are abstractions—we can’t touch or feel them with our hands, see them with our eyes, or measure them with instruments. They only “exist” in our minds.

So contexts are invisible; they’re habitual; and they only exist in our minds…

NOTE: For those of you who just started wondering whether this is getting a little too woo-woo…try and take a deep, non-habitual breath and hang in there just a little longer.

Just because they exist only in our minds, it doesn’t mean that we can’t work with contexts—or that they are less powerful than more “concrete” things (like time management tools, leadership skills, or team building techniques, for example).  In fact, the opposite is true.  The fact that contexts are mental phenomena is what actually gives them their transformational potency.  All of the significant inventions, technologies and achievements that we humans have brought about, come from our mental constructs, our ideas, images, calculations, stories that arise in our minds and then find expression in the world.

Whether it’s Copernicus’ realization that the Earth revolves around the Sun (and not vice versa), Ghandi’s recognition of the inherent dignity of every human being (including the British “oppressors”) that led to his embodiment of non-violent resistance, or Steve Job’s vision of a “personal” computer for the rest of us—our capacity to create new contexts is what makes us the potentially creative, innovative creatures that we are.  Contexts animate us. They inspire us.  And they express themselves through our intentions and actions.  (And of course it’s not just our grand achievements that flow from contexts—everything, even the most mundane things we do flow almost effortlessly from the context we are each living in each moment.)

This is why my coaching and consulting is always focused on contexts: because of the central role of contexts in determining who we are and what we can become.  But we’ll get into themes like Identity and Possibility in future posts, along with some reflections on how to shift contexts, the role of language in Collaborative Leadership and other ramblings.

For now, I’ll sign off with this paraphrase of the famous football coach Vince Lombardi:  Context isn’t the only thing—it’s [literally] everything.

From another perspective though, it’s clear that I’ve always really just been doing one thing: redesigning contexts.  Or, to be more accurate, helping clients to redesign their own contexts.  Through all of the different projects and challenges that I’ve been invited to work on, it keeps coming back to this.

When a manager or executive is feeling stuck in place, not performing the way she knows she could, we could focus on things like improving her time management, being more assertive or becoming a better public speaker.  These are all valid areas of learning, and there are tons of tools and systems available to help improve these skills.  But it’s almost never the case that these shortcomings in skills are what’s really keeping a person stuck.  And it’s almost always the case that improving these skills won’t do more than incrementally improve executive performance (and usually only for a short period of time).

Or take executives on a management team that have been entrenched for months (or years) in stewing conflict and distrust, making little eye contact with one another, addressing their remarks only to the CEO, and not holding themselves or their counterparts accountable for results (even while clearly blaming the others for the organization’s weak performance).  We could work on active listening, making “I” statements, clarifying team roles or even re-articulating organizational strategies.  Again, some improvement will likely occur, and perhaps some of it will even stick for a while.  But the funky dynamic, the mood, the distrust and the overall performance of the team and the company will persist.

The problem with both of these situations is that the context hasn’t changed.

The ways that the executive sees herself, her organization, her job–her life–are not going to be much altered by learning new management or communication skills.  Her “stuckness” is rooted in her perception, in the ways that she “makes sense” of her world.  What she (and most others) sees as her shortcomings and challenges flow inevitably from this perception.

Same with the funky executive team (and this describes an actual team I worked with)–all the “I” statements in the world aren’t going to unseat how the folks on the team think about each other, or themselves.  For each of them, the way they see each other is really the way things are–and there’s not much you can do about the way things really are, except try to “nicen” things up a bit (or act like things are really better than they are, which is common in the situation).

The context in both of the situations is what perpetuates–even requires–the very behaviors that are seen as the problem and that get all of the attention.  Every context carries with it the ways of seeing and acting that make perfect sense within the context.  To think or act differently would seem ludicrous, irrational, even dangerous within that context.

The way to shift what’s going on in both of these examples is to redesign the context.  When the context changes, our perceptions, our explanations about what’s going on and why, and even our idea of what were previously seen as problems are transformed–almost effortlessly.

NOTE TO READER:  I know something about this, because once upon a time as a young consultant, I used to traffic in “I” statements, active listening, teaching management skills and all the rest.  It felt productive, even virtuous, but it rarely produced deep, lasting change.

With all of this mention of “context,” it’s only right that we define the term.  I’ll do that shortly in an upcoming blog post…

Seminar Details:

Leadership Skills for Non-Leaders

Whatever job you are in requires personal mastery and making leadership moves to make a difference (and also get your needs met). This seminar looks at leadership from an uncommon perspective and shows you how to build your personal leadership competencies regardless of where you stand in your organization.

Date: Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Location: Santa Rosa Campus, Bertolini Student Center – 3rd Floor/Rm 4875

For more information, contact the Santa Rosa Campus at (707) 527-4329 or crobbins@santarosa.edu

Stay tuned for specific dates and location.

This blog will be a place for some of those reflections, as well as just free-range ramblings on a variety of topics related to human performance, organizational action, language, perception, collaboration, conflict, martial arts, raising puppies, and no doubt more.

Feel free to jump in and help grow this conversation with your own comments, ideas, challenges or questions.

Welcome to the GJ Blog!
grayson