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Best Practices have considerable undeserved cachet. There is an embarrassment of unexamined assumptions embedded in the myths surrounding best practices.
There is no clear, common understanding of what is meant by “best practices”. Does it refer to the practices of the “best” companies; or to practices of some of the best known companies, or the best known publicly traded companies? Or is it the most common practices of a selected set of some of the best known, you get the point.
And who says those practices are the “best”? Or even that they are the specific practices that have led to that companies (presumed) success?
America’s Test Kitchen is an organization that tests kitchen equipment and recipes. The point here is that they test them — they have a panel of people who test them. They don’t publish the “best” recipes without having their panel test them at home and then rate them for the results they produce. Often, the “best” kitchen equipment does not come from the best manufacturer (biggest market cap) or the best known brand. And, it’s seldom the most expensive.
The best practice for scrambling eggs is determined by people scrambling eggs in different ways and tasting the results. The best chocolate cake practice is determined in a taste-test bake-off.
Nobody bets millions on the best way to scramble eggs and those practices are tested! Organizations bet tens and hundreds of millions on best practices all the time without any testing! With scant evidence of the effectiveness of the practices — without a bake-off that determines that some particular practice is best for them.
And of course, there’s the rub. How would you know if some practice — some way of doing things — is best for your organization? Let’s bring just a dash of thoughtfulness to this issue before running off half-baked to the next conference or workshop purporting to tell you about the best practices in some particular area.
AN EFFECTIVE DISTRACTION
Best Practices are an effective distraction from the real source of power in creating competitive advantage. That’s why smart organizations are so willing to share them! They distract others from noticing what really makes the difference. Distraction — the best magicians have mastered the art. They tell you what to keep your eye on to keep you from noticing what they are really doing.
Think about what it would take for a practice to be “best” for you and your organization. First, it would have to integrate with other practices. Even the most simplistic thinkers would be hard pressed to suggest that there is any one practice in an organization that has no relation to other practices: that the part of the organization employing that practice has no effect on the rest of the organization and the rest of the organization has no effect on that part. Impossible! Separate and disconnected is the primary source of organizational difficulty; not a solution.
The organization that develops a particular practice does it in some particular circumstances, at some particular time, to address an issue that those people, at that time, saw needed to be addressed and who determined an effective way for them to address it given their unique strengths, background and relationships with each other.
Well of course that practice ought to work for you and your organization! You’re just like them! Or more insidiously as the thinking goes, if we act like them in this particular area we can become as successful as them.
Rubbish! Your thinking; your orientation is a more fundamental source of power for improving organizational performance than your practices ever will be. What is required for your organization to be successful at this point in time, facing these challenges with these people? Did you make this up or discern it from listening deeply for something fundamental that is missing and available?
Develop practices that fit what is called for now and evolve them as your organization develops and as circumstances change.
COOKING UP BEST PRACTICES FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION
(An untested recipe but that shouldn’t matter)
Gently mix several “good eggs” until integrated. Do not separate. Be careful; we just want them folded together, not beaten.
Place over high heat and stir gently with a significant accomplishment required by a specific deadline.
Add the spice of fresh thinking; whip up inspiration, listen for practical solutions bubbling up.
Reduce over the inescapable heat of reality.
Serve developmentally.
Consensus: A colossal waste of time and energy; a sell-out of what’s valid and fitting; concern with protecting an image. Consensus does not even deliver what it promises — everybody on the same page — let alone what would have real value — everybody on a page worth being on.
One popular working definition of consensus has to do with getting a group to the point where people can say, “I understand and I agree”. Understand and agree with what? The validity; the appropriateness of the direction or decision is not at question — just the degree of acceptance among those participating in the conversation. Consensus is a lowest-common-denominator approach. What can we decide or what action can we take, that everyone can agree with. Or, is willing to say they agree with.
Gee, if the boss wants this it sounds like a consensus to me. What’s it worth for me to say I disagree? Is it worth my next bonus, or risking my acceptance within the group, or making a fuss? Well, I guess we have consensus then.
Think about it. The aim of consensus is agreement yet agreement is tragically over-sold. Of what value was the flat earth consensus? There was certainly a tremendous cost when bold, thinking people dared to question the consensus and lost their life as a result. What was the value of the consensus that the sun revolved around the earth… or that some particular food is bad for you…oops now it’s OK… oops, sorry it is bad for you. There was a consensus among some at Enron, World Com and Tyco about what decisions or actions were appropriate. But those actions were judged as illegal and cost thousands of people hundreds of millions of dollars, including both their livelihood and their life savings.
Arriving at consensus view does not require you to engage in a conversation that reveals some fundamental validity — something more valid than an opinion that we can all agree to agree with; or to support. Consensus is concerned with personal opinions and points of view. It seeks a position that is a balance between “most acceptable” and “least objected to”. It is a question of what people can “live with and support”; not what’s best for the company as a whole.
Consensus does not require an integrative solution or decision that serves what’s best for the whole company. It is designed to minimize upsets and disagreements without requiring a resolution of them. Consensus helps people find a way through issues, that they can live with; that they don’t find too objectionable.
As children we’re taught to share, to compromise, to play nice. That often translates into “go along with”. Consensus requires people to give something up. They give up having a conversation that reveals a fundamental issue in favor of agreeing to reduce the effect of a symptom. They give up conversations that discern what’s appropriate in favor of what’s agreeable. They give up what they can see as having some validity, or engaging in conversation listening for what resonates for everyone.
They stick to their opinions and points-of-view until a particular view begins to emerge as the dominant view, then they go along with that. They capitulate. They agree that they have had a say and that they can “support” what others have found agreeable, for whatever reason. But what does “support” mean? Does it mean, “I will mobilize all my resources behind making it happen”? Or does it mean, “I will not actively work against you, for now, if you go ahead with that”? (I, on the other hand, am clear about the best course of action for me or my part of the organization.)
The experience of giving up something is what allows people to say, after the meeting, “Well, I didn’t really agree”, “that didn’t apply to me or my department”. Or when the agreed action or decision turns out to be a poor one, “I didn’t agree with that in the first place.” Expediency trumps alignment. Agreement out-votes what’s fitting, appropriate and feasible.
Of course, one dreaded alternative is that people appear to give up nothing. They don’t listen for what’s fitting and feasible; they stick to their point of view, by turns righteously bludgeoning and cajoling others to agree with them until “consensus” emerges. But it only appears that they give up nothing. What they really give up is communication that would produce increasingly powerful results.
Consensus is well-meaning yet appallingly misguided. The willingness to settle for consensus avoids the real conversation. It provides the illusion that people are on the same page while getting there in a way that encourages harboring resentment; holding out, and settling for what they can agree on; not necessarily what’s best for the organization. It exalts appearing to agree, to avoid the messiness of a real conversation. It is as if people are saying, “This is the best we can do — at least we’ve agreed on something and we’re not arguing,” and believing that this has tremendous value.
Puh-leese! Abandon consensus and start listening for what really needs to be addressed, resolved or accomplished for the whole organization. Then serve that. Develop yourself, and others around you, to become or to do whatever fulfills what you are up to together. Forsake merely getting by the current circumstances or getting through the issues in favor of generating a conversation in which you can hear together what would resolve something fundamental while developing the organization to the next level.
A recent Harvard Business Review article on cooperation and change caught my attention. It provides an interesting illustration of what alignment is and is not. The headline of the article states:
“Managers can use a variety of carrots and sticks to encourage people to work together and accomplish change. Their ability to get results depends on selecting tools that match the circumstances they face.”
This brief statement raises several issues related to causing alignment in organizations. Some of the issues are raised by what is said, some by what is not said.
Not Carrots, Sticks and Tools
Alignment is not created by carrots and sticks – carrot and stick thinking makes it impossible to achieve real alignment. Those wielding the sticks and offering the carrots, by the very nature of the implied threat and bribery, create disconnection and separation from those they are seeking cooperation with.
“Selecting tools” is not the route to alignment. Tool selection places the focus on the tools and risks turning those you are seeking to align with into tools as well. It is difficult to cooperate with a tool; it is easier to learn how to use a tool. The level of engagement with those you are using as tools, or using tools on, is generally not high – leading to a low level of uncoerced compliance.
“Matching the circumstances” is also problematic unless one includes people and what they could accomplish together in their understanding of “circumstances.” If one matches only the circumstances they miss consideration of the current relationships among people and between them and what they are out to accomplish together.
Conversations Generate Alignment
Getting people to change is a very weak basis for working. The real issue is having people work together powerfully to accomplish what is required. Alignment is essential to accomplishment, to developing people and teams to produce greater outcomes, and to providing more powerful leadership. It is grounded in a fundamentally different relationship with people than the relationship of “getting them to do what you want”.
People-in-conversations is the territory of generating alignment. It is a relationship that is fundamentally different than trading opinions, consensus or compromise. It is a relationship in which people have a commitment to each other, to serve what is called for next in their organization. To serve what is missing and available to be fulfilled or accomplished.
Alignment has occurred when people, in conversation together, can come to hear a fitting and inspiring direction for their work group or organization. Trust and mutual intention are the foundation of alignment – deeper levels of trust provide a solid base for greater levels of accomplishment. Listening for what is called for next, and honoring and serving that, begins to reveal a basis for trust: people realizing there is something they are up to together.
Alignment is a question of what is fitting. It has to do with hearing a fitting direction for the organization or work group – where the fitting direction is not “made up”; it is heard by people in conversation together recognizing what it will really take to realize the promise and potential of what they are up to together.
Alignment is neither agreement nor consensus. People can agree on things that are not “fitting”. Examples abound where people in organizations have “agreed” on a business direction or strategy that was soon revealed as not fitting. The business press is full of these stories: back-dating options, acquisitions that immediately drive the stock price down and other bone-headed moves. Leaders in these organizations could get others to agree or they could reach a consensus but they could not hear that it was not fitting or not a fit for their organization.
Leadership has to do with initiating and following through with the conversations from which alignment can emerge – establishing trust and mutuality and opening up new directions. With alignment there is resonance and inspiration. Inspired people working together in a fitting direction are way beyond carrots, sticks and tools to force cooperation.
1 Armstrong, Lorne. The Tools of Cooperation and Change. Letter to the Editor, Harvard Business Review, March 2007, pp. 136, 137.
2 Christensen, Clayton; Marx, Matt; and Stevenson, Howard. The Tools of Cooperation and Change. Harvard Business Review, October 2006, Boston, MA. pp. 73.
Competencies are dangerously over-sold and tragically misunderstood by managers and executives trying to improve the performance of their people and their organization — especially in the area of leadership. There are three hidden traps in implementing competencies: the assumption that behaviors are a good indicator of fitting and powerful leadership, that knowing what to do is paramount and that getting everyone to lead the same way would be better. It is easy to fall into any or all of these traps and the more emphasis you place on behaviors, knowing what to do and on getting everyone’s leadership looking the same, the worse performance will get.
Let’s take a look at “behavior” first. Here’s how the faulty logic goes. As the managers and executives of this organization, we want good leadership here. It seems logical that if we are going to have good leadership, we have to tell people what we think good leadership is, and how we expect them to lead. So we tell them by describing what we think good leadership looks like, and then we run some training programs to get people to lead like that.
That seems to make sense — except it is dead wrong. There is only a small part of real leadership that can be seen — that can be described by behavior — and that part makes the least difference.
What leadership looks like from the “outside” and what it looks like from the “inside” are very different. Describing behaviors simply makes it easier to imitate others’ behavior. A clear description of how someone else does it may work well for gutting fish but not for an area as complex and nuanced as leadership.
Just because you can imitate someone else’s behavior doesn’t make you an effective leader. Descriptions of leadership behaviors hide several essential aspects of leadership and our hypnosis with behaviors blinds you to the hidden dimensions — the critically important dimensions!
Behavioral descriptions hide the subtle and complex considerations that determine the appropriate action to take. A description of desired behaviors hides the environment and circumstances in which the leadership occurred. For example, it doesn’t describe the nature of the particular opportunity or crisis that was facing the organization, team or leader. It doesn’t reveal what was known, unknown and unknowable about the particular issue or circumstance. It obscures the relationship between the leader and his or her group; between members of the group and between the group and the rest of the organization. Behavioral descriptions fail to consider peoples’ experience in working together or working on these particular kinds of issues or challenges.
Behavioral descriptions are blind to the particular cues and indicators in that environment and in those particular circumstances that were important for that particular leader, given his or her unique strengths, constellation of relationships and experience. Describing behaviors gives no insight into how that particular leader interpreted the environmental cues and circumstances in determining what action to take.
Trying to imitate some “desired” behavior does not warn that that behavior is appropriate to a particular relationship between the leader, his or her unique strengths, the people they are working with and their circumstances. It doesn’t warn that another person may well have done it another way with equal or greater success. It diminishes the complexity and richness of the leadership conversations and substitutes a simple action to take for the messiness of reality.
The view from the “outside” (what leaders look like in action) is not the same as the view from the “inside” (what they are paying attention to, and what they’re not; how they are interpreting those cues and what courage is being mustered). And real leadership happens on the inside. What you see on the outside is just the tip of the iceberg. As soon as you start describing the “how to behave” of leadership you are on a dangerous and slippery slope.
“Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.“
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Paraphrasing Emerson: Who you are speaks so loudly I’m not fooled by what you’re doing. Getting real is the essence of powerful and effective leadership. Leading real conversations with real people — based on your strengths; not someone else’s. Trying to imitate someone else, or some imagined ideal, turns you into a pretender, a charlatan, a fake. It turns you into someone trying to be like someone you’re not — and that’s the kiss of death to real communication.
Real communication starts with you being authentically you; recognizing and contributing your strengths; recognizing and orchestrating the strengths of others. Fundamental to real communication is both who you see yourself to be and who you are for others.
Do you think you need to have the right answer or are you willing to engage with others to discover what the situation calls for? Are others real people with both human foibles and unique strengths to be developed? Are you willing to become a powerful developmental partner or do others occur for you more like bubble gum cards with players pictures and names — to be traded whenever you get a good offer?
Resolve for yourself the question of who the hell you are to lead and identify what you are out to fulfill — for you, for others and for the organization. Develop and contribute your unique gifts. Stop trying to imitate others!
