How can that be? The answer lies in one word: perspective. You continued to trace the circle in the same direction, but your perspective on the situation changed when you shifted from looking up to looking down at the circle.

What does this have to do with your leadership team? Team members often have different perspectives on the same situation. That’s natural because team members occupy different roles and therefore have access to different experiences and information. There’s a saying, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” How we see things depends on the vantage point we’re looking from.

Unfortunately, when it’s time to make decisions, teams often have a hard time integrating different and seemingly opposite perspectives. They get stuck in either/or discussions. In an either/or discussion when people see things differently from you, you assume that either you’re right or they’re right, but you can’t both be right. So, everyone argues as hard as they can so their view will prevail. As a result, teams make decisions that ignore part some of their information or perspective. Because the decisions don’t reflect the complexity of the situation they’re trying to address, implementation suffers.

But as this simple experiment shows, saying that the circle is either moving clockwise or counterclockwise doesn’t represent the full situation. Teams that want to make good decisions move beyond taking one perspective. They apply both/and thinking. They ask the question “How do we make sense out of multiple perspectives that seem at odds with each other?” They figure out how people who have seemingly opposite facts both have valid information. By digging deeper to make sense out of what seems at odds, teams do the hard and work of problem solving.

Next time your team is thinking that only one perspective can be valid, remember that imaginary circle you drew.

originally published March 2012

Minds are like parachutes; they function only when open. If you want to be a leader who gets the best from your team, it’s not enough to try to influence them to follow your views. You need to be open to being influenced by their views as well. If you expect your team to be open to new ideas, it’s essential that you model what you expect. That’s why one of the core values of the Mutual Learning approach is curiosity.

You don’t need a parachute to skydive. You need a parachute to skydive twice. (Why are parachute bumper stickers so popular?) This bumper sticker is a brutal reminder that you need a different kind of mindset and skill set to create sustained team results than you need to get your team to perform only in the short term. It’s also a reminder that solid preparation pays off.

186,000 miles per second – it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. This physics bumper sticker reminds us that we work in systems with immutable natural constraints and interdependencies that we must operate within. It’s similar for the social system of a team. For example, if you focus all of your energy on improving team performance and neglect how your team members’ work together, over time you won’t have high team performance or effective working relationships.

Forget about world peace . . . imagine using your turn signal. This is a satirical version of the bumper sticker “Think global, act local.” I’m all for world peace, but as a formal job, it’s a little above my pay grade. This bumper sticker reminds us that the little behaviors we engage in every day can make a significant difference for the people we work with.

Don’t believe everything you think. It’s smart to question others’ thinking; it’s wise to question your own thinking. You lead yourself astray when you tell yourself stories about what’s happening in your team and then act on your stories assuming that they’re true. It’s critical to question yourself and how you came to know what you think you know. And that takes us full circle to the first bumper sticker.

 originally published February 2012

If I’m compassionate, they will think I agree with them.

Some leaders worry that if they show someone compassion, that person will think the leader agrees with what he has done. But you can be compassionate even as you disagree or can’t support what the person has done. It’s perfectly reasonable to show your concern for someone at the same time you express concern about what he has done. You might say something like, “I don’t agree with how you went about doing this, because I think you contributed to the situation you’re in. But I feel for you. You’re in a really tough situation.”

If I’m compassionate, I can’t hold the person accountable.

Here you believe that if you show someone compassion, you lose the ability to hold him accountable. This creates a situation in which you must choose between holding someone accountable and being compassionate. But this is a false choice. You can do both. In fact, if you don’t hold people accountable when it’s appropriate, you risk taking on the other person’s responsibilities.

If I’m compassionate, I could open up a can of worms.

Imagine that in your meeting with Jason, one of your direct reports, he mentions that his role as corporate spokesperson is becoming overwhelming. You respond with compassion, saying that you’ve noticed he looks tired and that you’re worried about him. Hearing your compassion, Jason tells you that the daily attacks from the media and activist groups combined with the organization’s shifting strategy for dealing with the public are making it impossible for his team to accomplish any other work. All of this is taking a heavy toll on his team and him. Some people are showing signs of burnout, others are reporting being depressed, and Jason has starting taking antidepressants on the advice of his physician. As he tells you this, you’re feeling bad for Jason. At the same time you’re thinking, “Have I gotten myself in too deep on this? I’m his boss, not a therapist. Besides, I can’t afford to have Jason check out. The organization needs him now.”

Sometimes leaders feel for others, but they worry that if they respond compassionately, they might encourage the person to open up about issues that they think are better left undiscussed. It’s natural at times to wish you didn’t know something. But not knowing doesn’t make the problem or its impact go away. By being compassionate and curious, you learn about challenges that already exist, and get the information necessary to support others in eventually resolving the problem.

Sometimes leaders worry that being compassionate will take them into conversations they are not qualified to deal with. People might talk to you about strained relations with their children or spouse, financial trouble, or mental health illness. The good news is that you can be compassionate even if you have no expertise about the situation that is causing the person’s suffering. That’s because compassion isn’t about solving problems. All you may need to do is listen, share your concern for the person, and extend an appropriate offer to help. Sometimes being a leader simply means being a human being.

originally published January 2012

“Your suffering isn’t that serious.”
When you tell yourself that the other person’s suffering isn’t serious, you are saying that the person doesn’t deserve compassion. When a team member says, “I’m totally overwhelmed with work,” are you dismissively thinking, “Be glad you have a job in this economy”, “Get over it, we’re all in the same boat” or “Stop whining and wasting my time”?  When someone says, “I can’t get any cooperation from the other division,” do you think, “That’s what we pay you to do – make it happen”?  Suffering isn’t a competition. Another person’s suffering doesn’t have to exceed yours for you to be compassionate.

 “You contributed to your problem.”
In this version of judging, the person must be fault-free to earn your compassion. If the person didn’t take complete initiative, didn’t respond as effectively as possible, or didn’t seek help early enough, they don’t get your compassion. But most of us contribute at least somewhat (if not largely) to our own challenges.  If you extend compassion only to those who have made no contribution to their problems, you will exclude most of the people you work with and yourself.

“You’re acting like a victim.”
A victim is, by definition, someone not able to help himself. People act like victims when they discount their ability to help themselves or blame others for their problems. It doesn’t mean they’re not suffering, it only means they don’t see the extent of their ability and responsibility to do something about a problem. If you believe that a person is acting like a victim – even if they are not – you will probably either get angry at them or feel pity for them. In either case, you won’t be able to respond with compassion.

How do you respond with compassion?  You need this new acquisition to add to the division’s bottom line and you don’t want the meeting to turn into a gripe session.  But you don’t want to ignore what people are feeling.

Compassion involves noticing others’ suffering, connecting to them cognitively and emotionally, and responding to them with help. It doesn’t mean taking responsibility for solving other people’s problems or pitying them. Here are some steps to take:

Name the Feelings.  Check your inferences about what people are feeling. You might say, “You’ve said that you’re not getting the cooperation you need from some key leaders. From your tone of voice, it sounds like you’re feeling really frustrated – am I off?” Alternatively, you can simply ask, “How are you feeling about this?”

Connect with what People are Thinking and Feeling. It’s important that you show people you have some understanding of their situation and that you feel for them, without being presumptuous. Don’t say “I know exactly how you feel,” even if you have been in the same situation. Although this seems like a way to validate people’s feelings, they may interpret it as a discount. No two people may feel exactly the same way in the same situation. Instead, after you have identified what you think someone is feeling, consider paraphrasing what the person has said to you. You might say something like, “It sounds like you’re feeling angry because the site managers haven’t made anyone available to help you address the problems they are still complaining about. Am I getting that right?”

Be Curious about the Cause of the Suffering.  Simply knowing what people are feeling, doesn’t tell you what led them to feel that way. If they haven’t already told you, be curious. Say something like, “I’m curious what’s happened that leads you to feel this way?” Remember that the point of being curious about causes is not to try to solve the problem; it’s simply to better understand what people are going through.

Engage without Discounting or Minimizing their Feelings. If people start to talk about their pain, listen and explore it with them. Don’t make believe it doesn’t exist or dismiss it by saying something like, “Yes, but apart from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

Focus on the Suffering before trying to Solve the Problem.  Leaders love to solve problems. And many leaders find it easier to focus on solving the problem than exploring people’s suffering, which may feel uncomfortable. But to respond with compassion, you need to connect with people cognitively and emotionally without unilaterally trying to solve the problem that created it. Later in the conversation, you will have time to ask how you can be helpful.

Jointly Design Next Steps.  After you have a good understanding of what people are going through, then you can jointly design next steps with them. Rather than assuming that they want you to solve the problem for them or help them solve the problem, simply be curious. You might ask, “Tell me, how can I help you?”

Sometimes people may tell you that you have already helped simply by hearing them and understanding their suffering. Other times people may ask to be able to talk with you when they need support in the future. Still other times they may ask you to do something for them or with them.

It’s not your goal or responsibility to make others feel better. Only each person suffering can do that for himself. What you can do is jointly design next steps that each of you might take, that if successful, will help resolve the situation and change how people are feeling.

Be Transparent and Accountable.  Asking “how can I help you?” doesn’t require you to do whatever others request. If you believe that people are asking you to do something that inappropriately shifts the accountability from them to you, explain why you’re not willing to do that. Mutual Learning compassion includes accountability.

Be transparent with people as you are trying to support them. Don’t try to make them feel better by saying things that aren’t true or leaving out relevant information in order to protect them from feeling worse. Discounting people’s ability to handle the reality is a form of Unilateral Control. It creates future problems for them and you.

originally published November 2011

Want to know what it feels like when you don’t get to jointly design next steps? Think about a meeting you attended that was really important to you when the person running the meeting set the agenda, decided who talked and for how long, and determined what information members could share and what information was not relevant. If your views differed from the meeting leader’s views, you probably quickly realized that you wouldn’t influence the outcome because you couldn’t influence the unilateral process. You probably felt that decisions were not as good as they could have been because everyone didn’t get to share their relevant information. As a result, there was little commitment to follow through with these decisions. Now imagine how others react when you unilaterally control a project, meeting or conversation.

You can jointly design next steps throughout a meeting. For example, when developing the agenda for a meeting, you might write a draft, explain your reasoning for the topics you included, and then ask others if they want to add relevant items. At the beginning of the meeting you would ask, “What changes, if any, do you think we need to make to the agenda?” This ensures that participants believe that the meeting will cover all the relevant topics.

Next, when deciding how to discuss a particular agenda item, you might say, “For this next item, I suggest we first agree on the problem, then identify criteria for solving it, and then generate possible solutions before evaluating them. Does anyone have any questions or concerns about doing it this way?”

Then, before moving to the next agenda item, you might check in with your team members to make sure that everyone else is ready to go forward. Instead of simply announcing the next topic, you might say, “I think we’re ready to move to the next item. Is anyone not ready to move on?”

You can also use this ground rule when you disagree with others. Usually, when team members find themselves disagreeing, each member tries to convince the others that his or her own position is correct. The disagreement escalates as each person offers evidence to support his or her position and no one offers information that might weaken his or her own position. In the end, the “losers” still believe they are right.

How is it different when you jointly design a way to test a disagreement? Consider a meeting in which you and your team members disagree about whether proposed changes to your customer service will lead to increased or decreased costs. Together, you and the team would develop a way to figure out how the proposed changes could potentially increase or decrease costs and by how much. Jointly designing the test includes agreeing on what data to collect and what process to use in collecting it. Team members decide together who to speak with, what questions to ask, what sources to use, and what statistical data to consider relevant. Whatever method you use, it is critical that the team members involved agree to it and agree about how to use the information gathered.

To jointly design next steps effectively, you need to change your mindset. This means shifting from thinking that you are right and others who disagree are wrong, to assuming that each of you may be missing something that the other sees. By jointly resolving disagreements, members make more informed choices, and they are more likely to commit to the outcome because they helped design the test and agreed to abide by its results.

originally published September 2011

Think about the questions you ask your team. Questions that start with contractions, as in “Don’t you think…,” are often not genuinely curious because they embed your own view in the question. In contrast, genuine questions often start with open-ended words, as in “What do you think?”

Do you think it’s possible you’re asking your team questions that you think are genuinely curious, but in fact they are not? Take a look at the questions below and identify whether you think the question is genuinely curious or not. If not, what makes it not genuine?

1. “Why don’t we just try it this way and see how it works?”
2. “I understand we’ve got an HR issue here, but what possessed you to call Jane?”
3. “How do you see this situation?”
4. “Would it be a good idea if we got this up on the whiteboard?”
5. “Why can’t you just follow the procedure like everyone else?”

If you find yourself asking questions like these, consider this: Question 3 is the only genuinely curious question – it’s straight-forward, with no strings attached. The others are not genuinely curious:

• In Question 1 you’re not really asking a question; instead you’re indirectly saying, “Let’s just try it the way I want to.” If you’re the senior leader of your team, you could be shutting people down with a question like this.
• In Question 2 the words “what possessed you” reflect your own view, which roughly translates to “I think you’re crazy for calling Jane.” A question like this will lead others to get defensive and reduce trust.
• In question 4 you’re actually saying that you think it’s a good idea to put this up on a whiteboard. In the 30+ years I have helped leaders and their teams, I have never heard someone ask this question and then say, “We’ll I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I was just asking.” A question like this can have many negative results; at a minimum it leads people to think that you don’t really want to hear their opinions.
• In question 5 you’re stating your view as a question (the person isn’t following procedure and is not acting appropriately) and asking them to justify their answer rather than simply explain the situation. A question like this is bound to create defensiveness and unproductive conflict.

In each of these four cases, you’re not being genuinely curious about what others think. You’re not genuinely seeking new information. Instead, you’re using questions to demonstrate what you think. As a result, you are limiting your opportunity to reap the rewards of others’ knowledge and experience. Learn to be genuinely curious: it will help you get better information and make better decisions.

originally published August 2011

For example, we think our role as leader makes us responsible for setting the agenda and guiding the discussion in team meetings; otherwise two or more people with conflicting ideas will attempt to control the meeting and create problems.

Leaders are only beginning to entertain the idea that there can be leadership from every chair. This kind of team leadership involves shared control that is engaging, fluid, and flexible, and recognizes that any one sitting around the table can provide the insight and ability to move the team forward. At the same time, it provides the formal leader with responsibility for how decisions will ultimately be made.

Making a shift to effective team leadership, where there is shared responsibility for the team’s functioning, requires us to think differently about what it means to be a formal leader, and what it means to be a team member.

Those of us who are members of a team often act in a way that reinforces the traditional role of a leader, and then we complain.

• We think it is our boss’s role to raise and resolve difficult issues that are hindering our team’s performance, yet at the water cooler we express our frustration that they either don’t see the issues or don’t address them to our satisfaction.

• We think it is our boss’s role to give feedback to our peers whose behavior is problematic, yet we complain to others when we don’t see any changes in how our peers act.

• We think it is our boss’s role to see how they are contributing to our team’s problems, yet we don’t provide them with the information that would help them see this.

These complaints aren’t a result of a boss being a poor leader; they come from how we think of the relationship between our boss and our role as a team member. In many ways we think, “That is my boss’s job, not mine. That is what he gets paid for.” We expect our boss to make things move forward, to resolve problems, without realizing that we as team members hold the information on which action can be taken, that we are accountable for sharing that information, speaking up, and expressing what we think is needed.

Leading from every chair requires us to recognize how our own assumptions about roles lead us to act in ways that unwittingly reinforce the outcomes we are dissatisfied with. It compels us to take responsibility for our own leadership role and not let team leadership fall exclusively to our boss.

originally published July 2011

Here’s a story to illustrate how being transparent about our plans can lead to better results:

My 17 year-old daughter Hannah planned to meet with her high school guidance counselor to discuss her class schedule for next year. Hannah wanted her counselor to support her plans to take an anatomy/physiology course as an addition to her already full schedule.

At breakfast that morning, I asked Hannah, “What will you tell your counselor about why you want to take the class?” Hannah said, “Well, I think it will be a good complement to the AP [Advanced Placement] bio class that I’m going to take.” She paused, then continued “If I’m being honest, I would tell her that the main reason is that I want to raise my weighted GPA. But that doesn’t feel like a good reason. It feels like I’m only doing this to raise my GPA, instead of being interested in learning.”

I said, “If raising your GPA is your honest reason, it’s important to share it because then your counselor can help you make more informed decisions.” Hannah replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”

That day after school I asked Hannah, “How did the meeting go with your counselor?” Hannah said, “I decided not to take the course. When I told Ms. Sholomon my goal was to raise my weighted GPA, she told me that even if I got an A in the course it would lower my weighted GPA because I am already taking so many AP courses.” I said, “That’s the value of being transparent about your reasoning.” She smiled and said, “Yeah, I didn’t even think about that.”

Hannah took a risk. Instead of keeping the reason behind her plans private, she made herself vulnerable.  She took a leap of faith that if she was transparent, it might mean she wouldn’t get her way, but she’d be more likely to make the best decisions and get support for her goal.

How about your goals? Are you withholding your reasoning from those who might be able to help you make the best decisions to achieve them? If so, how might that put your success at risk?

Originally published June 2011

The executive’s advice to the new manager was self-limiting. As soon as he described his strategy for influencing, he reduced the chance that he could use his strategy “on” that person. Self limiting strategies are those that are used “on” others, just as the executive described. In general, the more people who know a strategy is being used “on” them, the less it works.

Self-limiting strategies are a common problem in teams and organizations. Unfortunately, sometimes consultants create the problem. I was recently working with a group of medical leaders and one physician asked me what I thought of a famous consultant’s approach to creating change. This consultant recommends that leaders create an urgent need for change – even if natural events haven’t created that urgency yet. I replied that this approach becomes less useable as more people in the organization learn it: when you tell your team to create urgent change that isn’t yet urgent, they will come to know you’re using a technique rather than a genuine strategy, and the next time you say urgent change is needed they won’t trust you.

In another organization I worked with, another consulting group was helping HR leaders learn how to deal with people who were resisting change. The consultants showed leaders how to profile the type of resisters they were facing and to overcome the resistance with a proscribed approach based on “type”. But once the resisters understood they were being treated as a “type”, the prescribed approach would no longer work.

Another example of this self-limiting approach is the sandwich approach. (Click here to read about it.)

Unfortunately, organizations continue to teach leaders these self-limiting approaches without realizing that the more they are practiced the deeper the negative impact becomes: self-limiting approaches can create cynicism, disengagement, distrust, and poor performance across the organization

To create effective teams and organizations, leadership strategies have to become stronger – not weaker – as more people use and experience them. Instead of strategies that we use “on” others, leaders need strategies that we use “with” others.

Originally published May 2011