Assumptions vs Behaviors — Where do we begin?
Week 3 of the Practical Self-Management Intensive has been focused on Deliberately Developmental Organizations. We were asked to do an exercise called the Immunity to Change Map designed by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey in their book, “Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization." Here is a good article that will walk you through the exercise. I found a lot of value in the exercise for me personally, and it also got me thinking more deeply about the power of our internally held, often unspoken/unrealized, assumptions about our world.
Aaron Dignan from The Ready, in his book “Brave New Work”, helped give this idea of assumptions a real world example that we’re all familiar with. He asks us to think about a traffic intersection — where two roads cross. It’s a seemingly simple challenge, how do we prevent cars from hitting one another while allowing maximum flow of traffic? In the United States, the solution that we’re most familiar with is the signal controlled intersection. This is a classic example of an operating system that has a series of assumptions underlying it. They are:
- People can’t be trusted to manage the intersection on their own, they need to be told what to do
- Complex problems must be managed with elaborate rules and technology — cables, lights, switches, control centers, etc. — programmed to optimize flow of traffic
- We need a plan for every possible scenario, with multiple colored signals, arrows, flashing and solid, etc.
Another way to solve this same problem, is the roundabout, which also can be thought of as an operating system with a different set of assumptions:
- People can be trusted and will trust one another to use good judgment
- Complex problems can be managed with simple rules and agreements that leave room for judgment
- Many scenarios will unfold in a roundabout, but social coordination will be sufficient to handle them
Which one is safer? Which one has higher throughput? Which one is cheaper to build and maintain? Which one works even when the power goes out? The answer to all of these is the roundabout, however, the roundabout is far less popular than the signal, at least in the United States. Why is this? In the US, we’ve become so comfortable with the signal that we don’t stop to really think about the underlying assumptions and whether or not those assumptions are leading us to a rational conclusion. Many of us are certain that the signal is the best, most effective way of moving cars through an intersection. Much of the time, and not just when we’re driving, we have become blind to the assumptions that dictate our world because we’re so accustomed to them.
I find this to be a great metaphor for how our assumptions dictate how we go through the world and it’s especially relevant in our businesses and organization. The business world is full of deeply engrained, yet virtually unexplored, assumptions about the best way to organize our work, many of which are either no longer as effective as they once were or are actively holding us back (for a primer on these topics, I recommend reading Frederic Laloux’s seminal work “Reinventing Organizations”).
This brings us back to the Immunity to Change Maps. As I said, I found a lot of personal value in the exercise, but the exercise brought up a question that I’ve been wrestling with for a while now — how do we invite others in our teams and organizations to evaluate their underlying assumptions? How do we invite a collective of people to evaluate our shared underlying assumptions?
When attempting to drive change within a team or organization, I’ve found a tension when determining where to start from:
Do we start by trying to uncover our underlying assumptions or do we start by introducing new behaviors, tools, and practices?
I believe that in order for us to bring new ways of working to our businesses and organizations (and lives), we must focus not just on behavior changes — ie switching from email to slack to drive better transparency — but instead on culture changes, on changing our mindsets and beliefs, or said another way, our underlying assumptions. Starting with assumptions, while arguably the more powerful and impactful place to start, is a much more difficult discussion and one that requires a high level of psychological safety and vulnerability. Whereas starting the conversation around re-envisioning behaviors is a much easier place to start, one that is easier to get buy-in for, since all teams can readily create a long list of practices that are not working for them. Yet, starting with behaviors feels like just one small (although vital) step towards a larger shift in developing more agile, dynamic, and human ways of working.
To me, it feels like it requires a both/and approach. To get buy-in from teams and organizations to start this work, I’ve found it easier to begin by focusing on very tangible areas of improvement, usually grounded in behaviors — ie. starting by clearly defining Roles, Accountabilities, and Decision Authorities for example. But without a deeper exploration of the underlying assumptions that have led us to our current Ways of Working and current struggles, we are only applying a temporary solution. Tools are not solutions in and of themselves, tools are value agnostic.
So back to my original question — how do we invite a team or organization who’s new to these conversations to explore unspoken/unwritten assumptions that make up our culture and drive our behaviors? I do not have any silver bullets here — I think it’s a combination of many things — but Susan Basterfield (one of our facilitators of the Practical Self Management course) had a suggestion that I am excited to try. Susan suggested using the Immunity to Change Map as a collective team exercise as a way to introduce the concepts of behaviors and underlying assumptions in a less personal and therefore less vulnerable space.
That’s all I have at the moment, but I suggest this will be an area of reflection and experimentation for many years to come. I am excited to try the Immunity to Change Map exercise with my larger team and I’ll report back. And please, if you have other ideas about introducing the concept of assumptions and their impact on culture, I’d love to hear them!
