A633.9.3.RB_DavisCarl Polyarchy Reflections

                                                       POLYARCHY REFLECTIONS

Welcome to the last installment of the Educated Leadership Blog for class number ten of my Master’s Program! This week we’ll take a look at Polyarchy and Oligarchy, how those models fit in the world of business today, and how I intend to continue to grow as a leader.

If you have had an opportunity to read through the textbook we have been referencing throughout this class, you’ll be familiar with polyarchy. In short, polyarchy is when each person on a team, or in an organization, is empowered to step to the forefront and lead when the situation calls for it. In contrast, 99% of the business world operates via an oligarchy, where a few leaders set the direction and give orders to many employees. Our reading and learning have been about Obolensky’s proposition that organizations must move from silos and polyarchy (Fig. 1) to complex adaptive systems via a transition to a matrix organization (Fig. 2) in order to handle the dynamics of an internet driven world(Obolensky, 2016).

     

   

                         

                   Figure 1                                                                     Figure 2

                                                                                           (Obolensky, 2016, p. 22)

A question posed via our assignment was whether the old models of leadership were becoming redundant. I can say that I believe the model of oligarchy will have its place for at least the next eight to ten years. The main lever is the growth of automation in the workplace. At the current time, there are multitudes of workplaces filled with people doing jobs. As jobs are replaced by machines and artificial intelligence, the models will shift rapidly. Polyarchy may not be applicable then, but oligarchy will be less present for sure. An illustrative point would be to look at the military leadership model. The military must have a hierarchical structure that resembles an oligarchy to operate. The impact of more information being pushed down to the war fighter on the front lines is that the amount of hands-on leadership at the front may lessen, but the battle plan and decisions affecting execution will reside at high levels as part of the requirement to know who is responsible for certain decisions. The basic structure may shift and adapt, but the command and control structure will remain.

The benefits of polyarchy have been demonstrated but there are caveats to implementation. Hamel (2011) and Coutu (2000) wrote about companies that have thrived after moving decisively to the model. Both writers noted that the probability of transitioning a company from oligarchy to polyarchy is inverse to its size. The larger the company the header it will be to make the shift. Additionally, the older and more culturally set the company is, the harder the change will be. Ergo, one should not expect to hear about a Ford™ or a Caterpillar™ or an IBM™ to making the shift to polyarchy. However, small parts of those corporations can make the shift and become highly efficient and empowered. These islands of polyarchy will have to work very hard to maintain their structure as the larger organization attempts to get them to revert to the oligarchy prevalent in the rest of the organization. The larger system will fight to align the outliers to the processes of the corporate majority.

Ok. Now that we have reviewed the structures, let's talk about what it means to me in my career. Knowing what I do now, I intend to educate fellow employees at my company about the benefits of complex adaptive leadership. The flexibility provided by allowing the employees access to more information and authority to make decisions and take action is quickly becoming a necessity in today’s business world. I work in a very oligarchical organization. The company is structured that way because of the business we primarily conduct and the rules and liabilities that have impacted the organization are serious. At the same time, our competitor’s agility (because most are far smaller than us) and the impact of technology advancements to our business have made the need for polyarchy more apparent.

I am reaching the end of the Master of Leadership program and hope to be complete by December 31^st. The end of this program will not mean the end of my leadership development and education. Groth wrote about the model Google™ created that is referred to as “70-20-10” (2012). The numbers refer to the idea that one should devote 70 percent of their time focused on their core competencies, 20 percent of their time on related projects, and 10 percent of their time on learning new skills and working side projects. Stressing the core of what I do is important because, frankly, that is where I earn my paycheck. My company has an expectation that I will execute the tasks they hired me to do…and do that well. The 20 percent of my time on related projects is where I look for opportunities at work to provide input and look for synergies or to somehow act as a catalyst for some other team in my company.  The 10 percent where I work on new skills and side projects works back to personal growth, but more importantly, to recharging my inner desire and motivation. As noted by Boyatzis (2005), one cannot be a great leader if they are burned out or have lost the drive to help themselves and others succeed.

I intend to continue working very hard at my primary job. I know there are a number of side projects I can assist colleagues in creating, too. My personal growth will revolve around learning a second language, continuing to attend training about leadership, delivering training and presenting information to other groups and organizations, and working on improving my health. I am very appreciative to have been exposed to the information in this class and refer back to it as I continue to grow as a leader and as I develop other leaders (which is a defining goal of mine).

See you in class eleven in a couple of weeks!

Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Coutu, D. L. (2000). Creating the Most Frightening Company on Earth (Vol. 78, pp. 142-150): Harvard Business School Publication Corp.

Groth, A. (2012). Everyone Should Use Google's Original '70-20-10 Model' To Map Out Their Career.   Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/kyle-westaway-how-to-manage-your-career-2012-11

Hamel, G. (2011). FIRST, LET'S FIRE ALL THE MANAGERS. (cover story). Harvard Business Review, 89(12), 48-60.

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd ed.). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.

A633.8.3.RB_DavisCarl How To Better Enable Leadership

                                                              How To Better Enable Leadership

Hello, readers! This week we’ll talk about the way the company at which I work can better enable leadership at all levels. I took the opportunity to talk to some co-workers and get their thoughts. From that data and from the reading we’ve been doing in class I’ll discuss how a better organization could be built. I’ll also talk about the role I’ll play in promoting leadership at every level of my organization.

My coworkers, for the most part, felt they had opportunities to lead, though some felt so more than others. The managers I talked to all had a desire and a style for leading. They are graded on their ability to lead and how they model the attributes of finding a way, setting high expectations, charting the course, inspiring others, living the Boeing values (trust, honesty, being ethical), and delivering results. Their scores are part of a formula that determines their salary and bonuses.

Employees are measured against performance values, which are very similar to the leadership attributes. Therefore, there is an implied expectation that employees will step up to be leaders when they feel it necessary. Many of the employees on my team are hired because they have been leaders elsewhere. The jobs they hold require that they feel comfortable taking on high levels of responsibility and making decisions. If anything, the high number of leaders in one area leads to stress at times, especially when the rules of engagement for a tasking are not explicit. It’s a good problem to have. I once heard, “I’d rather have to pull on the reins of an employee than to have to prod them to work.” I think I agree with that statement.

The information I received from the employees and the reading I have done lead me to the following conclusions: Communication is key to solving 90% of the leadership shortcomings and confusion. My company needs to be more reactive to the ideas that “bubble up” from the employees that step forward to offer help and plans for situations of which they are aware. Our company still makes too many decisions at levels too far away from where the issues, and the people who must deal directly with them, reside. This is not a new issue here. The processes, rules, and some less flexible managers have impeded the plan to “empower the lower levels of the workforce.

Obolensky (2016) reminds us to embrace uncertainty and look for opportunity in complexity. My company lives in the realm of complexity and we are constantly dealing with uncertainty. I can promote leadership by educating my staff and employees about the opportunities to be found in uncertainty. Additionally, given the position I hold in the organization, I have the capability to communicate across multiple organizations and to model the practice of providing followers opportunities to grow and stretch. I will be teaching classes at our Leadership Center, as well, which will further expand my capability to teach others about the power of enabling employees to take on more responsibilities. As the graphic at the top of this page reminds us, there are many benefits to empowering employees and trusting them to accomplish the task.

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd ed.). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.

A633.7.3.RB_DavisCarl - Leader Follower Relationship

                                           LEADER FOLLOWER RELATIONSHIP

It’s a double posting week at the Educated Leadership Blog! Thanks for following along.

The leader follower relationship should be the focus of any manager wanting to get the most out of her or his team. It is through this connection that the magic of accomplishment of growth occurs. Obolensky’s (2016) writing has focused our learning on leading in times of chaos. We have looked at the ways complexity and chaos can lead to an opportunity for growth and that allowing our followers to get more involved in the process of finding the structure in chaos benefits all involved.

In Chapter ten, Obolensky discusses four strategies for leading teams depending on the focus of the leader on the followers and/or the goals of the organization. He created a graph that allows us to plot the leadership style that would be applicable based on the focus of the two variables. Please see Figure 10.11 (Obolensky, 2016, p. 179).

Figure 10.11

As a quick review, in case you haven’t been able to read Mr. Obolensky’s book, let’s start in the lower left quadrant, called section four (DEVOLVE). Here the people and goal focus are both “low”. Not a good place to be and Obolensky (2016) noted this area indicates the organization is in trouble and devolving.

Moving to the upper left, section three (INVOLVE), we have high people focus and low goal focus. Here the leader needs to get the people involved. The leader may hold back to get the followers to contribute and make inputs and solutions.

Section two (SELL) is where the high people and goal focus resides, in the upper right. The leader gets the followers to “buy-in” to the solution so they have ownership and maintain motivation. Mountains need to be climbed and the people want to do it!

The remaining section, number one (TELL), indicates that the leader may need to be prescriptive to get the goals of the company attained by the followers.

At the beginning of chapter 10, Obolensky provided a quiz to provide insight as to our own preferred style, considering our current leadership setting. The result of my quiz indicated that I lean toward the use of section three (INVOLVE) leadership. I do not find this surprising. I am privileged to lead a group of highly trained and skilled professionals who are tasked with jobs in which I am not an expert in accomplishing. I lean on their expertise to get our goals accomplished. I told this team when I first was put in position as their leader that I knew I was not the smartest person in the room, but I knew our group was one of the smartest I had ever seen and we could accomplish great things together!

I was not 100% in section three with my answers. Also, not surprizing. Section three is a place for leadership when time is not an issue. I feel comfortable moving into the other areas, depending on the situation.

The significance of the quiz, for me, is the validation I found in the result. I am far into the Leadership Program and hoped the ability to morph into the leader needed for a situation was taking hold. The quiz appears to indicate I can and do make the shifts. As far as further applying the information Obolensky provided in this chapter, I will use the terminology to help communicate the technique of being a flexible leader to those I lead, coach, and mentor. Oboloensky’s (2016) book will reside on my bookshelf at work to be used as an overall reference, not just chapter 10.

To tie these learning points to another real-life situation, I would point you to Stayer’s (1990) article in the Harvard Business Review. The metamorphosis undertaken by Mr. Stayer as he helped grow his company and lead the employees into areas of performance they never dreamed they would accomplish is a great example of moving through the sections as needed.

Keep learning. Keep communicating. Trust yourself. Test yourself.

See you next week!

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd ed.). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.

Stayer, R. (1990). How I Learned to Let My Workers Lead. Harvard Business Review, 68(6), 66-83.

A633.7.4.RB_DavisCarl - How Do Coaches Help?

ERAU Daytona Campus                            (C) C.S.Davis 2015

                                                      HOW DO COACHES HELP?

Readers, the week on the Educated Leadership Blog we are going discuss the practice of Executive Coaching. 

The exercise was to reflect on the following statement:

“To be an executive coach, it is necessary to know that clients are the first and best experts capable of solving their own problems and achieving their own ambitions; that is precisely the main reason why clients are motivated to call on a coach. When clients bring important issues to a coach, often they already made a complete inventory of their personal or professional issues and identified all possible (known) options. Clients have already tried working out their issues alone, and have not succeeded.”

The first sentence does not sound correct to me. Coaches can be called for many reasons. Maybe the client doesn’t know what they want out of their career. Maybe they are not capable of solving their own problems. (If they could, would a coach have been called?) As noted by Coutu, et al, (2009) many times an executive coach ends up working in areas that resemble that of someone trained in psychology. Leadership is a mental exercise and the line between coaching and therapy is blurry where they meet.

Another indicator of the need for coaches to help people who are, at the time they call for assistance, incapable of identifying and addressing their shortcomings, is the sum that professional coaches can earn for their services. XXXXX wrote that the rates he found were from $300 to $3500 dollars an hour! An issue that hovers around the Executive Coaching profession is how they can document the impact they may or may not be having on their clients and their companies. Yet, the rates they command are impressive. I believe the fact that most people struggle to truly take stock in their inabilities. If they do have the courage to truly inventory their abilities, it is rare for that person to correctly identify their shortcomings and, more importantly, have the capability to design a plan to alleviate or mitigate those shortcomings. This point speaks directly to the second sentence of the paragraph. Having a coach to assist in finding the way forward and who is educated in the many ways of leadership can be the lever for a subpar leader to step up to a new level. The coach has the benefit of distance.

Now let’s talk about distance. The ability to look at a situation from a new perspective is very empowering. Those of you that have followed this blog through the years will recall that leaders can struggle to extract themselves from situations and relationships. There may be high levels of responsibility binding and blinding them. It may be a case of the leader’s ego giving them tunnel vision. The type and quality of relationships the leader has cultivated with their employees, peers, and leaders may impair their ability to see failings, too. The coach can see the interactions with a clearer perspective. What is that worth to a struggling leader? It can be priceless if it saves a career or a company or a relationship.

If a leader is busy dealing with a business, or a department, or a handful of people, will the have the bandwidth to “know all their personal and professional issues and identify all the options available to them? From personal experience, I can tell you there’s no way to know “all the issues and all the options”. If I spent the time needed to do such inventories, I would be failing as a leader! Leadership takes attention and time. As with any project, doing smaller jobs more often is more manageable than waiting for the issues or tasks to pile up. Work and life can draw 100% of a leader’s attention. The shortcomings or areas for improvement, when they become apparent, have had to reach a level that overpowers or impact the job or relationships of the leader. The task of correcting the path is now a mountain that could appear insurmountable. Facing a challenge of magnitude is not as difficult if one has a coach to urge, prod, educate, and listen.

The last sentence can be true quite often. Leaders will likely make some attempt on their own to improve. Leaders may have been trying and reached an impasse. They may have had partial success. They are looking for the catalyst to push them to a new level of performance. If it was easy to fix oneself, the pay rates for coaches would likely be much lower.

Examining the statement above was an exercise that allowed me to dive into the need for executive coaches. I would add that the dynamic environment in which leaders now find themselves can leave a leader in new relational territory. The need for assistance from a professional that has been looking at the world from a fresh perspective is growing and the profession is growing in response (Parker, 2012). I would like to take the lessons I have learned while earning this degree and help other leaders grow and succeed.

Coutu, D., Kauffman, C., Charan, R., Peterson, D. B., Maccoby, M., Scoular, P. A., & Grant, A. M. (2009). What Can Coaches Do for You? Harvard Business Review, 87(1), 91-97.

Parker, A. (2012). Coaching Profession Shows Growth.   Retrieved from https://www.td.org/Publications/Magazines/TD/TD-Archive/2012/09/Intelligence-Coaching-Profession-Shows-Growth

A633.6.4.RB_DavisCarl Circle of Leadership

ERAU Daytona Campus - CSD 2015

It’s another week of the Educated Leadership blog! Welcome back. This week we’re going to talk about what Obolensky calls the “vicious circle for leaders” (2016, figure 9.5, p. 162). Take a moment and read around the circle.

                         
                                          

Who is in the wrong here? There is a shared responsibility. Notice that the circle doesn’t mention the leader or the follower stopping to have a conversation to level set the situation. If either person made an effort to clarify the desires or intentions of the other, the circle is likely broken.

Those of you that have been reading this blog for a while know that I spent time working as a flight instructor. As part of teaching someone to fly, the student has to be allowed to attempt maneuvers and skills. Flight instructors know they have to let the student make some mistakes so that lessons will be learned. The skill of the flight instructor lies in allowing the student to head toward trouble to see if they can recover while knowing exactly when to take control…before the airplane is in a situation beyond recovery. Instructors WANT the STUDENT to see the situation developing and work to get themselves out. That builds confidence. Instructors also know that as soon as they take control of the airplane from the student, learning ceases for a period of time. Depending on how the change of control was handled, the amount of time the student ‘shuts down’ will vary. The more abrupt or aggressive the take-over, the longer the period. Competent instructors do not want that to occur. If the instructor continually takes control, the vicious cycle ensues and the student is apt to give up flying lessons.

Micromanagers are excellent candidates for swirling down the drain of a vicious circle. At some point, the employee all but gives up trying to think or act. They know that their actions will be corrected or dismissed. One of the questions to be answered this week is if there are examples of vicious circles in my organization. Without a doubt, there is. How do I know? I have been on the receiving end of the circle from a leader. I did try to break the circle via conversation, action, and outright coaching. No luck. I did eventually quit trying to think ahead of my boss. I knew I would get detailed descriptions of how I was to handle anything that came my way. I decided two things during this experience. The first was that I would still strive to find ways to do my best and add my perspective to situations. I’ll call that a decision to persevere. The second was that I would learn from the situation and strive to never put a follower in that position intentionally. I’ll call that my commitment to leadership excellence. When I was at the Naval Academy I was taught about learning from leaders by observation. The obvious lesson was that I could learn from the great leaders. The lesson that was not as obvious to me as a teen, but has proven to be the more impactful in my life, is that one can learn what never to do from unskilled leaders. I decided to apply that practice to the situation at work. Use difficult situations to your advantage.

The vicious circle can be a very intimate situation. One on one with another person with whom you are in close proximity for 40 hours a week, relying on the interaction between the two of you to make things work is an intimate situation. If the relationship is unhealthy, from a social or leader/follower perspective the situation can dissolve into the vicious circle before either person knows what’s happened. Distance is no vaccine to falling into the circle. In fact, the barrier to communication that distance often brings can hasten the development of the circle. So, rule one for evading the circle is to communicate! Recall that to communicate means to receive a message, transmit what you understood, and receive either confirmation of the message OR clarification of the original message (which then should be confirmed). Only then has communication taken place.

Let’s tie this back into another leadership theory. Recall that Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory proposes that leaders will have two groups of followers. “The basic idea behind the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory is that leaders form two groups, an in-group and an out-group, of followers. In-group members are given greater responsibilities, more rewards, and more attention. The leader allows these members some latitude in their roles. They work within the leader’s inner circle of communication. In contrast, out-group members are outside the leader’s inner circle, receive less attention and fewer rewards, and are managed by formal rules and policies” (Lunenburg, 2010, p.1). Given that description, doesn’t it seem the members of the out-group are predisposed to fall into the vicious circle with the leader? At the end of each day, as you review the situations you have faced as a leader and critique your own performance, run a scan of your organization specifically looking for evidence of an LMX. Then look for evidence of vicious circles with those with whom you feel less…connected.

So, how do we create “virtuous circles”, as Peter Senge (1990) calls systems that build up an organization, not tear it down. We have already talked about the first thing. Communicate. Then we can begin to rebuild the circle’s parts. We’ll start in the upper right of the circle with “Follower asks for advice – demonstrates low skill to leader.” This is a great time to ask the follower what training they may have had, or what their needs are, or if there are other issues distracting them from performing. Taking a few moments to investigate the situation would then turn the next step from “Leader gets concerned” to “Leader provides training, or provides the correct tool, or assists the follower in dealing with the distraction”. From there we can change “Leader takes a more hands-on approach” to “Leader supports and observes follower to ensure the situation is rectified”. Now we can change “Follower’s confidence lowers” to “Follower’s confidence is bolstered”. By now, the follower is hopefully feeling a sense of accomplishment and a growing level of confidence so we can change “Follower thinks he has to defer more” to “Follower completes tasks and demonstrates mastery of the process”. We’re back at the spot we started, but we can change that slot to read, “Follower asks for more complexity or more tasks”. The beautiful part is that if we’ve done a good job as a leader, the follower will ask us for advice BEFORE stumbling, or will be unafraid to admit they have stumbled because they now know they will get support. Voila! A Virtuous Circle of our own making!

This virtuous circle can be applied across all facets of an organization. Finance, Sales, Accounting, Operations, Custodial Services, Transportation, Assembly, Marketing, Distribution, you name it, it can be used there. The really cool part is that it can be used ACROSS functions! I have spent time with finance personnel assisting them with situations, terms, and nuances that apply to my part of the organization so they could do their job better. Guess what? They came back for more help later, BEFORE situations developed that required re-work or repair. I have done the same thing with Supplier Management, Contracts, Accounting, Human Resources, Business Operations, Business Development, and Quality Assurance. The operations department now has a reputation of being helpful. I am proud of my team and the way they continue to nurture and grow the relations across our organization. We have open relationships based on trust. I and my team know we can go to these departments and ask for clarification and assistance when we are preparing to act on a project and that we will be received in a positive light and helped. Is it always perfect? No. Do we have a great foundation? Yes. We’ll keep working on it, that is for sure!

Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). Leader-Member Exchange Theory: Another Perspective on the Leadership Process. International Journal of Managment, Business, and Administration, 13(1), 5.

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd ed.). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.

Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday.

A633.5.3.RB_DavisCarl Reflections on Chaos

Educated Leadership Blog readers! Welcome back to another week.

We were asked to observe a video on YouTube where a group of people completed an organizational exercise that required them to find order out of seeming chaos. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QKeKQ2O3E

As you have now hopefully seen, the group finds stability out of chaos in rather short order. They did so with very few rules, an open work area, a defined goal, and the ability to move (act) as they needed. The laughter of the group that occurred when Professor Obolensky asked the group, “What would have happened if I had chosen a leader for this exercise?” was a good indicator of how much more efficient the use of some seemingly simple principles is for dealing with chaos and complexity.

The principles can be broken into what Obolensky calls the 4-plus-4 model of leading (2016, p. 105). For a team to be capable of cogently dealing with chaos, they should be provided with clear, explicit and individual objectives. From this, they can derive an underlying, implicit and unifying common purpose. The group will also need their boundaries defined. Within these boundaries, they can have discretion and freedom to act. The group also needs to know a few simple rules of the organization. Knowing these rules, the skill and will of the individuals can be freed up greater than in organizations that do not define these edges. Lastly, the group needs to receive continuous and unambiguous feedback. This information will provide them guidance when dealing with ambiguity or randomness that is far from equilibrium.

In the video, the group has a set boundary (the room), a clear objective (maintain a spot equidistant from two other people), a few simple rules (don’t tell the people you are using as markers, move slowly, stop when you are equidistant from them), and they have continuous feedback via their eyes as to how they are progressing toward their goal. The group had the underlying goal of finding out what would happen. They had the discretion to move where they needed. They had the skill to move as necessary. Lastly, they found order in the chaos and were able to move to the solution quickly.

The impact this exercise had on my perception of chaos theory was to further impress upon me the fact that chaos is not something to fear, but something that can be managed with the proper leadership techniques. As Eric Berlow noted in his TEDTalk (2010) opportunity can be found in chaos. Obolensky has now provided us with more tools for assisting the groups we lead in dealing with complexity.

Tying these principles to strategic planning and strategy in general, we can look forward to chaos and complexity as opportunities and not risks. Now that we, at the Educated Leadership blog, are becoming far more comfortable with chaos theory we have a strategic advantage over other organizations and leaders that shy away from chaos, leaving us even more capability to differentiate our products and teams. Our experience with chaos also provides us the tools to review and revise our strategic plans as the dynamics impact the fidelity of our initial strategy.

Obolensky, N. (Producer). (2008). Who Needs Leaders? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41QKeKQ2O3E

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership (2nd ed.). London and New York: Taylor & Francis Group.

Talks, TED. (Producer). (2010). Eric Berlow: Simplifying complexity. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB2iYzKeej8