Do we really want to get back to normal?

The Great Pause…for thought?

Have you ever thought “stop the world, I want to get off”? If so, in some ways C-19 has granted your wish. Perhaps the virus offers us some unexpected gifts amongst the horror and disruption. Napoleon is said to have told his generals, “ask me for anything but time”. At this unimagined moment in our lives, a great many of us have that unexpected gift.

I am not saying for a second that this is a leisurely time. It’s hard to imagine a more anxious period as we look economic mayhem in the eye. But I am suggesting that there are many of us lucky enough to have time to think; a relative break from the pell-mell of what was part of our normal experience of working.

That harried experience is just one of the aspects of what was normal 21st century working life for tens of millions of people across all sectors until a month or so ago. It’s one that emerged as an ‘interference’ to effectiveness and well-being time after time in our coaching and leadership development work.

So, what if we could use this temporary glut of thinking time to modify the ‘normal template’?

What could our working life be like if we seized this opportunity to give it a proper overhaul rather than the habitual running repairs or unthinking allegiance to business as usual that seemed to be our only options before the virus?

We want business survival to mean much more than the ‘next episode’ as if work were just some giant Netflix series we’re glued to.

‘Normal’ (as seen through the privileged lenses of organisational consultants).

We are aware and appreciative of the fact that, as consultants and facilitators, we don’t do all that much doing. Our service is enabled by the critical distance we can maintain between your action and our observation. At our best we notice things you may not be seeing and reflect them back to you by ‘holding a mirror up’. That may not sound like much but it’s quite a job to notice and reflect back what may have profound significance; and to do so without fear, favour or judgement.

So, with that caveat in mind, here we go.

We have noticed that, with many fine exceptions, normal was sclerotic, stuck in a paradigm better suited to the first industrial revolution. Leadership was still overwhelmingly perceived as “something done to us by those at the top”. In many organisations, the intricate balance between the interests of shareholders, stakeholders and customers was reflexively and heavily skewed to the former. It is no surprise that employee engagement levels and the public’s trust in corporations were both resolutely low.

Long before The Great Pause, we lived and worked in a world of connectedness and mutual interdependency. A lot of that was wonderful and brought countless benefits. It also brought mental health and sustainability crises, but these are beyond the scope of these few hundred words. Perhaps this world might have brought an end to oligarchic leadership, in which the few people at the top must pretend that they know best about everything all the time. This is a ‘charade’[1] because they and everyone else knows perfectly well that they can’t and don’t. We have noticed only limited and slow shifts towards polyarchy, an inclusive, distributed kind of leadership, prescribed well over a century ago by Max Weber for organisations that want to survive and thrive as ‘acts of leadership throughout the system’.

For over 40 years we have discussed this drama in terms of the tension between authority power and personal power. It is not an either / or matter. Many have both and use them well in service of all the interests of their businesses. Our philosophy is simply that there are practically no circumstances in which your leadership will be at its best if you were to rely upon your authority power alone.

We believe that a marked acceleration in the shift towards a new normal characterised both by polyarchic, distributed leadership and a finer balance between the three primary interests served by business would be a positive outcome from our current crisis. Equally, this new order of things may be precisely what is needed in the aftermath.

[1] As coined by Nick Obolensky, ‘Complex Adaptive Leadership’ Routledge 2014

Underpinning a new normal

Fundamental to the kind of organisation we’re envisaging is that it is far more of a community of human beings[1] than a collection of human resources and what makes that sort of community work is the quality of the relationships within it. How can you tell that the relationships are good enough? You may judge that by the level of mutual trust, respect, support and challenge perceptible in everyday exchanges from meetings to email.

[1] Henry Mintzberg’s terminology

This is no idle or idealised task. There’s rocky ground to cover so this feels like the right time to offer some gentle advice. We think you’d do well first to examine some data, some dynamics and your own determination.

A decade long survey from 1995 in over 50 countries by leading business schools revealed that under 10% of “solutions that actually make specific changes happen on the ground to get positive effects” originate at the top of the organisation. Approximately three times more of the good stuff is generated in the middle but the richest seam turns out to be where what the military call ‘the ground truth’ lies; on the frontline. That’s where approximately 60% of the effective measures came from in the longitudinal survey.

What wisdom and solutions do your middle and frontlines have to offer?

When would be a better time to find that out?

The key dynamic to ponder is the collusion of the rest of the business in the charade of top- level omniscience. There are innumerable stories of avoidable, fatal accidents that happened because junior staff failed to challenge their ‘superiors’. This won’t change overnight and there are good psychological and evolutionary reasons for it.

What would it take for your middle and frontline to offer their solutions more readily?

What would it take to make them forever regret taking that responsibility?

Command and control is generally easier than leadership — provided you have authority power — and it is all too often confused with leadership itself and assumed to be what people will get from the top. So it takes everyday courage to challenge up the hierarchy. Less obvious is the courage it takes to be challenged and to respond well.

Where would you put yourself on an imaginary scale between hubris at one end and humility at the other?

Are you up for playing your part shutting down the charade?

And if you are, who will be your allies?

What will be your sanctuary when it doesn’t go to plan?

And what have you actually got to lose?

Oh, and one last question…

Written by Jon Davidge