Thanks to Michael Cavanagh for an engaging and provocative presentation on supervision for the 21st century. This also applies to leadership development for the 21st century. Here’s what I learned…I’d love to hear from others who were there – what else did you take away?
I learned (or re-learned)….
- …there are two ways that we can develop. 1) what you do and how you do it and 2) how you view the world. Our old ways of seeing the world may no longer be applicable, which means that changing what we do may not get us the results we need, unless we change our paradigms.
- …where we have complexity (high structure but unpredictable), we need dialogue with stakeholders to gain understanding; multiple safe to fail experiments; to act, notice emergence, build on positives
- …where we have chaos (low structure and unpredictable), we need to provide structure; help people to connect; and dialogue for understanding and common purpose
- …the quality of the conversation determines the quality of the relationship. the quality of the relationship determines the quality of the system/organization
- …performance is a function of the system, not the individuals (see Boris Groysberg research with high performing traders who flunked when moved to new teams)
I was surprised….
- …working towards goals is too static for the fast-changing environment. (I’ve grown up in a coaching world where we always set goals first). There are some assumptions implicit in “business as usual” coaching, for example cause and effect is essentially linear..but the world no longer operates in “business as usual” and is getting so complex that we can no longer rely on that cause and effect methodology for coaching.
- …having vague goals with unfolding pathways is much more realistic in today’s world
- …purpose can only be worked out as we look back over our lives, discerning the patterns of commitments that we made
I am wondering…
- …how do we, as an organization, embrace the notion of quality conversations leading to quality relationships leading to quality organizations?
- …how do we embrace systemic talent management rather than individual? (team coaching, team performance management, team learning….)
- …how do we help our employees to figure out their purpose by looking back over the pattern of their commitments
I am going to…
- …start all my coaching contracts by saying that neither of us can predict the complexities you’ll be faced with, nor how you will resolve those. The world is changing, and we need to figure out new ways for you to perceive the world, and new ways to adapt
Great post Clare. I was recently preparing a presentation where I summed up part of the essence of your observations with these bullets:
1. We cling to the illusion that we can control outcomes
2. The truth is we are in a constant state of change innovation in response to the environment
That is why coaching to unleash potential is critical. If you haven’t yet come across it, I highly recommend looking into the Thinking Environment model laid out by Nancy Kline in the book Time to Think. It offers a simple and repeatable process for teams and peers to think together and meshes nicely with what those of us trained in coaching would recognize as a coaching process. I think this could provide some of the essential puzzle pieces to the things you wonder about above.
Love these blog posts. Thanks for taking the time to share your thinking in writing!
yes, I love Nancy Kline’s work. I’ll definitely revisit it, with fluidity of goals in mind.