LeadWise Academy Week #2 Reflections: Relatedness

The theme for the second week of LeadWise Academy: Practical Self-Management Intensive was Relatedness, the universal want to interact, be connected to, and experience caring others.

Almost immediately, this raised a question that I think most of us take for granted, or at least I do: What does it really mean to be in relationship?

Dictionary.com gives a simple, yet deeply profound definition:

Relationship: The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected.

What does it mean to be genuinely connected?

Leaning on my training in Co-Active Coaching, such a state of genuine connection is defined as an Empowered Relationship, a space that challenges, motivates, and evokes transformation; such a relationship empowers people and gives them full agency. Such a relationship is separate from all people involved (in the case of coaching distinct from the coach and the coachee), and I think is something that can be extended beyond coaching.

As shown above, this is a hypothetical example of 3 people that are part of an Empowered Relationship. Even though each person may have a different role (see Week 1 for more on roles), each of them grants power to the relationship. In turn, each person is empowered by the relationship to take charge of their respective roles and the choices they make in the context of this relationship. The power each person receives does not come directly from another person, but from the Empowered Relationship- from the shared intentions, promises, and agreements all 3 people have collectively granted to the relationship.

How might we design empowered relationships?

Even though relationship design may seem like a blindingly obvious thing to do in this article, I wonder how often do we genuinely do this in our lives? I often fall short and assume that people are on the same page and share the same beliefs. I mean, why wouldn’t they right? Of course I mean best for the team- why doesn’t anyone see that! The likely reality is that each team member has a perfectly rational (in their own mind) and distinct set of assumptions and beliefs that guide how they behave (for more on this, see Adaptive Leadership). Even as I write this, I have been part of a self-orgnaised volunteer team this part week that has brought much confusion and energy drain to me because of misaligned assumptions and expectations- I too have been part of the problem.

The work of relationship design really starts with surfacing individual assumptions and expectations. Using the LeadWise Academy (LWA) as the sandbox, here are the questions (questions I think can extend to any team) we were asked to explore as a LWA participant, and my responses to each:

1. As an individual, why am I here?
   - I am here to explore the question:
   How might we unleash creativity and agency in individuals, organisations, and systems? (More on that here)
   - I am here to learn the principles and practices of self-management and apply it to my life and work.
   -I am here to be transformed and more fully realise my agency and creativity as a human being.
2. What does a great experience look like for me?
   - One where each LWA participant is fully committed and present to the shared experience to the best of our ability
   - One where there is authenticity and honesty in our communications
   - One where we challenge and support each other in our personal growth
3. How does my participation support the mission of this project?
   - I am committed to humanising the workplace and creating a world every human being can express their natural creativity, resourcefulness, and wholeness
   - Specifically, I hope to bring self-management into my own consulting practice with not just my clients, but my own team. I also hope to bring it to the self-organising volunteer teams I am a part of
   -I have and will continue being an advocate for self-management beyond this project
4. What support do I need to ensure I achieve my personal participation mission?
   - I would love if every participant can show up fully to every touchpoint, acknowledging that each of us have our own busy lives to lead
   - I would love clear and honest communications when working together, not just on the content of our work but down to expectations
   - I would love a culture where we lovingly challenge each other for the sake of growth and development

Using the Role Expectation Canvas, the above translates into a 1-pager which surfaces my own commitments, beliefs, and assumptions about others.

This is just the first step. The next step involves each team member sharing their own commitments/assumptions/beliefs, surfacing differences, and achieving consensus.

There are numerous ways to do this (this list is non-exhaustive):

• Morning Star, a self-managed world-leading vertically integrated food processing company, uses the Colleague Letter of Understanding (CLOU), a document which outlines individual commitments to others and the organisation. After crafting a CLOU, every Morning Star employee is required to get sign off from CLOU colleagues (colleagues to whom you are making commitments to) to get their agreement on all the commitments and expectations outlined.
• Social Contracts, a dynamic set of mutual expectations that is co-created and reviewed regularly. The key difference between this and a Role Expectation Canvas and CLOU is that a social contract is a collective agreement i.e., it is a singular agreement that is co-created by all members of a team and subsequently informs and guides the behaviour of all members.
• Designed Alliance, another term I borrow from the Co-Active Coaching Model. This entails both coach and coachee designing what they need and want in a coaching relationship, the client ‘designing’ the coach, and the coach ‘designing’ the client- all this in service of creating an empowered relationship.

The term “Designed Alliance” resonates most with me, as “Design” implies intent, and “Alliance” implies co-creation and collective agreement. The terminology of “Social Contract” on the other hand feels like a legal contract can come across as taking a purely pragmatic view on relationships.

One of our assignments for Week 2 was to create a Social Contract. While the assignment was meant for our self-organised team to design a Social Contract, by some stroke of misunderstanding we took it to mean to design a Social Contract for an organisation. We settled on Sunkyung Han’s organisation, C. (Cdot), which seeks to promote social innovation and changes by connecting and engaging people who devote themselves to make positive changes and impact in society.

After appreciating the organisational context of C., each of us from our self-managed team of 4 came up with our own recommendations for the Social Contract, engaged in a wonderful discussion, and agreed on the principles outlined below in the SlideShare. Jane Kelly even came up with a super awesome rap of the Social Contract.

What was interesting was that even though many of the contract principles were based on the Korean context that C. operated, all of us felt that the principles resonated with all of despite coming from very diverse parts of the world.

Reflections

• The world would be a much better place if everyone took the time to intentionally design empowered relationships. Misunderstandings and conflict often stem from misaligned assumptions and expectations. I believe this extends not just in the workplace, but even in our personal lives. I absolutely love this New York Times article on the success a couple has had through creating a “relationship contract” that they review periodically- I’m going to try it myself!
• The need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence is truly universal and cuts across cultures. Even though C.’s Social Contract was heavily based on its operating environment, Korea, all my team members (British, Dutch, Singaporean) felt a strong resonance with it and would readily adopt it ourselves.
• Structure is often nothing more than a set of relationships that individuals have with other individuals to achieve a particular goal. The development of structure is fundamentally about developing relationships to achieve such a goal. (Source: Chris J. Rufer, Founder of Morning Star- see this video) In this light, self-management is really about empowering individuals to co-create the relationships they need to achieve the goals that matter in their lives.
• As Guita Gopalan wonderfully summarised in her post, one the key differences between Corporate VMV / Code of Conduct and a Social Contract is that the former is often created by a select group (leaders, consultants) while the latter is co-created by everyone working in the team. A Social Contract also tends to be a living document reviewed frequently. Even though my team had created a wonderful Social Contract for C., this will likely at most serve as a starting point as the actual Social Contract will require all C. team members to share their own perspectives, and discuss + align on shared expectations and commitments. As an outsider, the role I think I could best play is to help to facilitate the creation of such a contract- the team has to ultimately create and evolve it.