The Sense Makers

Make the decision where the information is

Our role as coaches is to bring our client, the executive, to a point of greater awareness of the systems, multiple sources of information and interrelated factors that need to be considered through various perspectives, maps or frames such as:

- organizational structure
– the human resources
– power differentials and politics
– symbols and culture

In his book Masterful Coaching, Robert Hargrove mentions that he follows five compass points to bring a client to insight and breakthroughs:

- In partnership with the client
– By standing in the future the client wants to create
– By prompting the client to start by reinventing themselves first
– By being a thinking partner with the client
– By expanding a clients ability to take successful action

It’s Hargrove’s “thinking partner” concept that helps to interrupt old frames of reference and bring new insight.

He offers some stock questions to help the coach to challenge the client’s thinking:
– “What leads you to that conclusion?”
– “Could you walk me down your ladder of inference?”
– “What is your reasoning process?”
– “Do you have any data to substantiate that opinion?”

Mary Beth O’Neill, also a coach, says “A systems perspective resists identifying a single element or person in a system as the root cause of the problem.”

She builds on Salvador Minuchin’s triangulation theory of family systems by introducing the impact of triangulation in which the coach can get sucked into the drama and lose all objectivity and personal power.

These triangles can cascade into multiple interlocking triangles and the coach’s role is to help the client see the “interactional fields” and “dances” within a system so the client can get a perspective and navigate a way forward with less stress.

The premise of Bolman and Deal in their book, Reframing organizations, artistry, choice and leadership, that a “primary cause of managerial failure is faulty thinking rooted in inadequate ideas” is a reminder of my responsibility as a coach:
– to help frame and reframe organizational and personal experience within the organization
– to help shift points of view and interrupt old and archaic frames,
– so that executive leaders see and act on new possibilities

And that aligns with Hargrove’s 5th compass point:

“Expanding a clients ability to take successful action”

Dene Rossouw

Organizational unconscious

During 1998-99 I worked in the public relations division of the largest life assurance company in the southern hemisphere. In terms of growth, the organization had outgrown its motherland, South Africa, and was on the point of demutualizing and listing on various stock exchanges, including the London stock exchange. One of my functions as was to produce the “glossies,” the annual reports of this 154 year old life assurance company.

Working to deadlines, I remember burning the midnight oil, working with 50 content experts, the graphic design people, the chief accountant, actuaries, in-house copywriters, and chasing directors and board members with the photographer in hand.

And then after many proofs, when the “glossy” finally came off the press. The annual reports got shipped out on schedule to high net-worth investors, trade-union stakeholder groups, members who requested a copy and to every branch in the country.

After all this activity, I remember feeling disappointed. After all that effort, no-one was queuing up to read the copy, hot off the press. Although the organization was experiencing incredible growing pains as it became an international player, none of the true culture, spirit and symbols of the organization was reflected in the pages. Not able to put my finger on it at the time, I now know that the annual report reflected one aspect of the narrative, “what’s happening” but not “what’s really going on here?”

Once the annual report is out, leaders, employees seldom read the numbers. As a customer, the most anyone might read is to casually flip through the pages, while waiting for an appointment with a representative of the company.

But leaders also seldom read the organization’s actual balance sheet. Apart from income and expenditure, assets and liabilities, it’s the off-balance sheet numbers that show the actual human cost of staying in business. Those numbers are rarely seen. Consider this fictitious scenario:

Although Mike Pender, the sales manager at Learnys Inc., regularly exceeds the sales projections, we re-calculated the balance sheet, by including the off-balance sheet realities of Learnys. This new balance sheet showed the actual cost of sales to Learnys, and the numbers turned out to be less rosy. Why? The off-balance sheet numbers revealed that two extremely skilled members of the IT production team resigned because, in their view, Mike had a short fuse, lacked integrity and was in need of some vital social skills. We included the many hours that were consumed last year at meetings trying to keep the peace instead of addressing the actual issues between Mike and the production team. We included the loss of productivity of the production team because of Mike’s unreasonable demands and tantrums. We also projected the cost to replace the intellectual capital loss if five more member of the production team decide to resign because no one has the know-how and courage to confront Mike. And if left unchecked, like bad cholestrol, we calculated the cost to Learnys Inc. if it’s veins get further clogged with the toxic waste of interpersonal fallout between sales and production.

If leaders look at the company through its cultural and symbolic frames, and zoom in on the off-balance sheet realities, it might spur different actions and better results.

I can’t help but think of the incredible loss of intellectual capital, energy and human potential that wasn’t reflected in some way in the annual report, because the frames of reference were more about structure, and traditional powers and politics, while ignoring the significant contributions through the lens of culture, spirit, symbolism.

The result was an incomplete picture, overlooking, misinterpreting or reframing important signals and thus presenting a partial perspective of what’s really going on. [Bolman & Deal, pg 4]

And even as the annual report is shipped out, most everyone knows it’s a partial story because at the same time, other numbers and narratives are being circulated around the water cooler. They reflect the off-balance sheet numbers that show the actual human cost and potential of the organization.

It’s the employees, often overlooked, who hold informational and informal power. They are the ones who hold the keys to the real kingdom – real transformational change.

Dene Rossouw

In a paper presented at the 18th Annual World Congress of Organization Development in Dublin in 1998, Gervase Bushe spoke about five theories of change embedded in AI (Appreciative Inquiry).

In his “appreciation” of appreciative inquiry, he calls and cautions practitioners to not fall into the trap of thinking that any process that focuses on the positive is in fact AI and that it’s use will always have a positive effect.

He mentions that organizational systems of “deeply held and unexpressed resentments will not tolerate an appreciative inquiry until there has been some expression and forgiving of those resentments” (Bushe, 1998, p.2).

This resonates with me because he makes a point of saying that negative images that are repressed from discussion or are undiscussible, will result in “nasty side effects” (Bushe, 1998, p.2).

One of the five theories of change that Bushe mentions in his paper is the organizational inner dialogue.

Simply put, the theory suggest there are layers of awareness in the organization including the official voice heard in meetings and announcements – the conscious, rational corporate mind. And the unofficial inner dialogues that happen around the water cooler, confidential conversations, interpretations and judgments that occur below the radar of any official forum – the unofficial inner dialogue of the organization.

According to Bushe, this inner dialogue of the organization are the officially undiscussable conversations which can be a stabilizing force in the organization [or unsettling – my perception]. This is where “peoples’ real thoughts and feelings about what is discussed in official forums are revealed and communicated.” (Bushe, 1998, p.4.)

Why unsettling? My sense is that if these conversations are not balanced or overwritten with more positive conversations, morale eventually gets so low that a company can flounder, lack direction and result in lower investor and customer confidence.

According to Bushe; The AI change theory is: “if you change the stories, you change the inner dialogue.” (Bushe, 1998, p.4.)

Based on my experience I would agree that in terms of change management, nothing a leader does in the official medium will effect change if the organization’s inner dialogue is resistant to it.

What is required, according to Bushe, is “richly woven stories written in the first person.” (Bushe, 1998, p.5.)

My understanding of the role of the coach is to help leaders to tell new stories and to create an environment for people to hear each other’s stories. Using Bushe’s tracking and fanning concept, “tracking is a state of mind, where one is constantly looking for what one wants more of,” while “fanning is any action that amplifies, encourages, and helps you get more of whatever you are looking for” (Bushe, 1998, p.6.).

AI comes into its own when the telling and retelling of stories lays down new organizational neural pathways and ones intrapersonal and organizational inner dialogue is refreshed and updated with more accurate information, helping the organization to move on.

As sense makers and coaches, we need to Bushe’s caution to pay attention to and encourage appropriate outlets for negative and positive personal and organizational inner dialogue. And by tapping into the power of imagination and innovation and crafting unconditional powerful questions, provide opportunities for new and old stories to be articulated.

Dene Rossouw

Gervase R. Bushe Ph.D.Published in Cooperrider, D. Sorenson, P., Whitney, D. & Yeager, T. (eds.) (2001) Appreciative Inquiry: An Emerging Direction for Organization Development (pp.117-127).