I think it is very important to make sure we scratch hard at the surface of these ideas and try and understand what assumptions they are resting on.  It can be too easy to grasp at virtually any suggestion for dealing with this pace of change, simply in the hope it will affect some relief.

My belief is that many, if not most of these ideas rest on the assumption that this pace of change and the specific changes within it can be predicted and/or controlled. 

George Herbert Mead pointed out that when interaction takes place it is the dynamic between the ‘gesture’ and the ‘response’ that produces meaning.  That is, the gesture and the response together create meaning.  What is critical here, is that the meaning that may actually result from any given interaction is uncertain.   Interaction rests on a foundation of uncertainty.  Within this uncertainty is always the potential for novelty; and novelty means change.

One fundamental thing that has changed in our world over the past 20 years or so is the number of interactions that people have with other people.  Interaction now takes numerous forms due to technological advances, social media, etc.  They may or may not be intentional or attended to but there is no doubt we are interacting more these days. 

As our levels of interaction increase we can expect more novelty, more uncertainty, more change.  Less predictability and control. 

This is why it is important to look closely and critically at the ideas currently being espoused to deal with the experience of accelerating change. Many of these ideas, especially those informed by complexity science point to increased interaction as a way of dealing with these situations.  What is often attached to these solutions however is a subtle sense that increasing the number of interactions will ‘make things better’.  The subtlety tends to come in descriptions that the quality of these interactions must change as well and if the quality changes then things will get better.  From Mead’s perspective, the quality of the interaction was immaterial, the interaction rested on uncertainty.

As an example of this, below is an excerpt from a paper published in 2000 – Leading at the Edge: How Leaders Influence in Complex Systems, by Birute Regine and Roger Lewin.

We can restate this in the language of complexity science as follows: In complex adaptive systems, agents interact, and when they have a mutual affect on one another something novel emerges. Anything that enhances these interactions will enhance the potential creativity and adaptability of the system. In human organizations this translates into agents as people, and interactions with mutual affect as being relationships that are grounded in a sense of mutuality: people have a mutual respect, and have a mutual influence and impact on each other. Mutuality lends itself to an appreciation of the wholeness of the other person, which increases the range of responses and possibilities between people.

I like this paper now and I liked it when I first read it years ago.  Nevertheless I also think it represents a very subtle slip into giving the impression that ‘good’ interactions will produce something ‘predictably good’ as well.  The bolded text above represents that subtle slip.

Interaction produces the possibility of novelty, the ‘goodness’ of that novelty is uncertain.

This does not mean that we shouldn’t try and have the very best interactions that we think we can have with others.  Of course we should.  It does mean that we should not burden these interactions with the expectations of predictability and control.

I agree that more, and more authentic interactions are a good way to ‘be’ in these times of high uncertainty.  It increases the potential for ‘good’ novelty.  It also increases the uncertainty we feel, especially the uncertainty we feel as predictability and control erodes away with each new uncertain interaction.

Perhaps the greatest gift we have as humans is our adaptability.  We have a tendency to adapt and be ‘ok’ in a very wide range of circumstances.  It seems our current drive in organizations for predictability and control has compromised our trust in our capacity to adapt.

As we enter this new year, we would suggest you ask yourself and your teams a question as you make decision after decision, each one resting on the uncertainty of the interactions surrounding them:

Will we be ok?

Push hard on the answer and you will likely find or rediscover that trust in our very human capacity to adapt.

Author – Tom

Face validity is one form of preference assessment validity that is relatively subjective and therefore an easy target for those wanting to criticize these types of instruments.  From a research perspective it is typically seen as the least important measurement due to this subjectivity.  For those of us that use preference assessments it tends to be the most important measurement.  Good face validity means participants accept the assessment and the data it produces to an extent that enables them to move forward in actually using the data for some purpose.

What is important about the subjectivity of face validity is that this subjectivity is socially constructed.  Our acceptance of a specific preference assessment at a personal level will be the result of countless interactions in the past, as well as how well the data may fit into how we may use the data to act on our intentions for future interactions.  Both the left and right hand loops of our interaction diagram below are involved.

What is often not discussed in criticisms of face validity as it applies to preference assessments is the socially constructed and subjective assumptions the criticism is based on.  One example of this is illustrated in the article noted in the post PA – Test Retest regarding validity.  The statement is made – The MBTI also has much intuitive appeal. The descriptions of each type are generally flattering and sufficiently vague so that most people will accept the statements as true of themselves. – To me this is an assumption just as subjective as face validity is yet it is positioned as fact and a generalized criticism.

If we find more of a balance between psychology and social construction, we can accept that much of the value people find in preference assessments is socially constructed, just as the preferences they measure are.  At that point criticism of face validity can be let go and we can spend our time acting as best we can on the face validity that does exist.

Video: Information on Assessments and Accreditation

Author – Tom

Childhood is another country. They do things differently there. It is a place of wondrous certainty. The last home of the unconditional. Children embrace the shock of the new. They don’t qualify or temporize.*

A theme of our blog posts here is the idea and experience of uncertainty so when I read the words ‘a place of wondrous certainty’ as attributed to children I wondered…..  The words rang true and I wondered what it might be with children that could enable this perspective.  I also wondered what might happen that causes us to lose this perspective.

Perhaps in the short histories of childhood we still know ‘we will be ok’, pretty much no matter what.  ‘Embracing the shock of the new’ seems to require a sense of knowing you will be ok in that ‘new’, whatever it might be.  Perhaps a wondrous certainty is more about being certain we will be ok than being certain about what will happen.  As a child we know with each interaction might come the shock of the new and we are quite fine with that.

The short histories of childhood have not had the time to build up the experiences that perhaps we will not be ok.  We have yet to internalize the socially constructed and quite difficult to define measurements of what ‘ok’ actually means.  And as our histories extend and our experiences grow, our definitions of what it means to be ok become more mysterious and ill defined and eventually seem to be supplanted by a shift in seeing certainty as being certain of what will happen rather than being certain we will be ok.  The critical reflection of what it means to be ok gets lost in the effort to create a certain future.  And without that reflection we can never know if we will be ok in that certain future or not.  And within this pattern, a wondrous certainty never seems all that wondrous.

We are social beings; meant to interact with each other.  Each interaction we have with one another is founded in uncertainty.  And yet we strive to create a certain future through these very interactions with others.  A perplexing paradox….. for many of us adults.

Perhaps now would be a good time to shift our focus of certainty from creating a certain future to one of being wondrously certain that we will be ok no matter what the future is. 

After all, it is close to Christmas.  A time for many of us when our interactions are a little more meaningful and present.  A time when the wondrous certainty of childhood is within our reach again.  A time when perhaps we can hold onto that place a little longer and bring it forward in a very real way into a new year.

Best wishes for the holidays from TMS Americas.

* Full CBC transcript is here

It seems unique or unprecedented is pretty normal.

I’ve been in or around organizations for over 30 years now and this uniqueness seems to be one of the constants of conversations over that time.  And if I go back a little further I can remember my father and mother talking about how fast the pace of change was in their organizations and how what they were experiencing had never been experienced quite like that before.  I imagine they heard similar things from their parents and that we could go way, way back and find similar conversations for as long as conversations have been happening.

I think one of the big challenges with this perspective of always being unique, of always being different and special is that we think there must have to be unique and different ways to solve our current challenges.  This seems to feed an almost insatiable appetite for the next new solution, the next new tool or the next new idea.  And quite often this thirst for a new solution, tool or idea misses the point of the foundational fact of what has been occurring since people organized themselves.

People have been interacting together.  And at the heart of interaction is uncertainty.

When we look back at history, even recent history, this sense of the experience of uncertainty tends to get lost.  Primarily because we know what actually happened and we assume someone ‘back then’ either planned for what actually happened or should have been able to.  There just couldn’t have been quite the same level of uncertainty that we are experiencing today.

I would think that there was very much the same experience of uncertainty.  And also a very similar response to it, another foundational fact of what has been occurring forever. 

People have been interacting together into their very uncertain futures.

It might be a good time to remind ourselves that the experience of uncertainty and the courage to act together into it is a story that we share with all of humanity throughout time.  Our present experience may be unique from a content perspective but we are not unique in how we will respond together.  If we remind ourselves that for all of history people have acted and interacted together into an uncertain future we can stop waiting form ‘someone’ to fix our challenges of today and become that ‘someone’, fully realizing we may not ‘fix’ anything but we can certainly move forward together.

That movement forward will be one different interaction at a time and we’ll just see what happens.  If we can accept that our interactions are creating an uncertain future perhaps we can move forward with a little less fear and worry.  We can do what we think is best and see what happens.  We do not have to be certain of the outcome since waiting for certainty is a very long wait.

What interaction might you change tomorrow?  And can you change it with a little less fear of what might actually happen?

Author – Tom

Test retest reliability for any assessment is important since you want to have a decent level of confidence that the assessment is reliable over periods of time and results are not affected by random chance.  This also means that what is being measured by the assessment should be stable over those same periods of time.

If you assume that preference is innate then you would hope to have an assessment measuring these innate preferences to have perfect test retest reliability.  Since no preference assessment has perfect test retest reliability, claims that the assessment is measuring innate phenomena simply open up the door for endless criticism of the assessment.  Criticism that in our view is justified.  For an example of such criticism you can review this article that pops up quite early in a Google search of the MBTI test retest studies.

The unfortunate thing that happens however is that articles such as the one above tend to attack the assessment rather than the assumption of innateness.  This pattern of interaction adds very little value in making these widely used assessments more focused, and potentially valuable.

If you move away from the nature vs. nurture positions and try to balance the perspectives of psychology and social construction you can engage in much more useful conversations about what value these assessments can add.

As noted in our last post we see preferences emerging from the left hand loop of the process above and assessments are measuring recognizable patterns of interaction that have emerged over time.  These patterns have a certain level of stability so a decent level of test retest reliability in an assessment is important.  These patterns are also changeable as everyone can attest to who has ever made some type of behavior change.  Given the actual experience and history of preference assessments regarding test retest reliability, it seems they are picking up this experience of change.  The stories about these changes (or lack of them) have real value, value that these assessments can add to.

If you assume a greater role of social construction in the emergence of preferences many of the statistical arguments can be left behind and greater focus can be put on how these assessments can add value to our present interactions.

Video: Information on Assessments and Accreditation

Author – Tom

…How you use your Team Management Profile (TMP) will determine how much value you can take from it.  We will be talking about how to understand and use this data during the upcoming debrief sessions.  There are a few things we would like to point out now however that you might find of value as read your profile.

The first thing is that our work lives emerge through the interactions we have.  Nothing happens in an organization outside of our interactions.  Our interactions are informed by both our experiences from the past and our intentions for the future.

As a new manager within your organization you will be experiencing new interactions, having new experiences and also adjusting your intentions for the future.  Your success is critically dependent on the quality of the interactions you will now have.  Your preferences and those of others will affect the quality of those interactions.

What is the TMP actually assessing?

The left hand loop in the diagram above is primarily where our preferences emerge.  Over the course of our lives we have had countless experiences and we develop patterns of interaction that ‘work’ for us; that have become repetitive and preferred across numerous contexts.  If when you read your TMP it resonates for you, it will be illustrating those patterns of behaviour that you recognize from your experiences and interactions of the past….

As you likely can tell from the above our position on what the TMP is measuring is weighted toward an interactive and constructionist perspective.  We simply find this provides much better access to the data and avoids often low value arguments that detract from actually using the data to make sense of our interactions.

This perspective also means that behavior change, preference change is a real possibility.  It may certainly be a challenge but it is definitely possible if we seek out and are present to new interactions.  It brings a more active and engaged view to using the TMP, or any other preference instrument.

Over the course of the next few weeks we will be building on some other points about our perspective on what preference instruments are actually measuring and we invite you to come back to these posts and add your own thoughts and comments.

For information on our assemssments, click here – Video: Information on Assessments and Accreditation

It feels like many of us are in this position right now, a climate of fear permeates so many organizational settings, either hiding in the corners or screaming from the rooftops.  And often it causes us to withdraw, feel victimized, place blame, feel very sad or angry.  It puts us in a place where words are hard to come by, at least those words that might be helpful, useful and purposeful.

Fear is an interesting thing, especially now.  We often talk of reactions to fear being fight or flight.  These reactions however are generated from parts of the brain that developed very early on, not only in humans but many other species as well.  They are reactions that apply when fear represents a clear and present danger to our safety, in the moment.  It is a visceral reaction and the reason to fear is right in front of us.

The fear that seems so present now is more of an intellectualized fear, not a bodily reaction.  It exists more as ‘what ifs’ than ‘what is’.  It’s a little more out into the future than the fear that stimulates fight or flight.  We’re not afraid for our safety, we’re afraid of things much more complex, much more intellectual and hard to put words to.  And this tends first to close down conversation, or creates conversations that no longer fit or do very little to acknowledge our reactions to this type of fear.

What we find, from our own experiences in our organization, as well as working with others is that the most valuable conversations where the climate of fear is present are conversations that start with the ‘what is’ rather than the ‘what if’.  Conversations that move us back from the future into the interactions of the present and emerge from that very present reality.

When really tough choices need to be made in these times where a climate of fear is present we find it valuable to pose questions that bring us back to what is happening right now.  Questions such as:

• What do our present interactions tell us about what we are afraid of?
• If this fear wasn’t present how might this conversation be different?
• What do our present interactions tell us about what we’re trying to protect?
• If someone you really admire was part of this conversation, would it change at all?  How?

Questions such as these bring us back into the present, help us take our present interactions seriously and seem to ground us in a way where we can move forward to thinking and conversing about the ‘what ifs’ from a place of a little more strength, a little more accountability and perhaps even power.  They do not necessarily dissipate the fear but they do seem to provide a place from which to more effectively move forward together.

So much of our time in organizations is spent thinking about the future or analyzing the past that we are no longer very good at talking about what is really happening with our present interactions.  Back in April of 2009, a few months after the economic collapse of late 2008, we wrote a post called Different Times, Different Conversations and we talked about how we needed to give ourselves some space to find the words for different conversations.  I think one of the things we’ve learned in our work with others and about ourselves since then is that this space is about the present interactions we are having right now.

Over the past number of years we have had quite a lot of these types of conversations, within our own organization and with people in other organizations.  Connect in with us if you would like to talk more about the facilitation of this type of process.  Because one thing we do know for sure about times when fear is present in organizations; we move through it most effectively when we use our greatest gift, our capacity to talk with each other.

Author – Tom

But right now I’m writing this blog post and beside me is the book, Bark, Skin and Cedar – Exploring the Canoe in Canadian Experience by James Raffan.  It’s good to have a browse through this book before you head off for a canoe trip.  To be reminded of a history and place that extends into the depths of Canadian past.

To be reminded that for all our perspectives we consider new and unique in today’s world, in many ways we share a journey that has been repeated countless times by those forgotten and gone.

I met Jim inRankin Inlet,Northwest Territoriesat the time, nowNunavut.  We were both there to speak at a teacher’s conference, him because of his extensive experience in the north and with experiential education, me because my sister was a teacher up there and a good promoter of her brother…. Different pathways, same place.

Jim was a veteran of the north, having spent lots of time there, on the land, with elders, with himself.  I was there for the first time, a rookie and very excited to experience bits and pieces of the north as a ‘tourist’ might.  Still pretty cool; well actually very cold, as it was February and the night time temperature dropped down to – 45 C on a crystal clear and very long night.

Jim’s talk was about the land as teacher.  I subsequently spent some time with him as he helped me take this perspective into a leadership learning initiative that took place near where I will be in a few days.

Sometimes you don’t know how lucky you are until a long time later.

Fast forward about 15 years or so and look into some of the work being done in complexity science as applied to organizations and you will see it focusing on what we can learn from nature.  No doubt we can.  Yet quite often that focus moves in 2 ways.  One, an idealized, almost romantic perspective of what nature has to teach us.  Nature is always right and we need to go back and reconnect with that rightness.  And two, a perspective that what nature does, can, or should be replicated by us in our organizations.  That we should learn the ‘simple rules’ of birds and all flock in the same direction as our vision.  That we should seek our deeper purpose and we will work together as do bees or termites to create things much greater than any one of us.

I’m not sure if Jim and I ever talked about the specifics of the idea of the land as teacher.  But I do remember thinking that at the heart of his message is that the best way of learning from nature is to be part of it.  To be part of it as a human person and to not forget that you are a human person as part of nature.  I think this perspective applies to how we can learn from things like the complexity sciences.

Let’s not forget that we, as humans and part of nature, have our own uniqueness’s as well.  We have a different consciousness than most of the rest of nature.  We interact in different ways.  The choices we make about our behaviour are different as well.  We ARE nature and unique to it at the same time.

I think the lessons from nature and the lessons from complexity science are best positioned as metaphors.  And that we should be very rigorous in recognizing the differences we have as interactive human persons as we transfer these metaphors back into our very human organizations.

I remember Jim telling me how majestic and wonderful the polar bears are and that he had lots to learn from them when he was able to observe them in the wild.  He also said he always kept a gun nearby too when he was observing them…. just in case.

So while I’m in the wilderness over the next week or so, I’ll do my best to remember that I’m a part of it all and still completely unique at the same time.

Perhaps you can do the same thing as you navigate your organizational wilderness.

Author – Tom

As Gil (Owen Wilson) slips from the present into Paris of the 1920’s, a time he considers wonderful and full of life I was reminded of how many times in organizations we hear about resistance to change as people hold on to images and memories of what things were like at some point in time they considered ‘better’.  It is not until he slips a little further back, to Paris at the turn of the 20^th century, accompanied by Adriana (Marion Cotillard) who finds this time frame her wonderful time that he sees things in a little broader light.  His statement ‘These people don’t even have antibiotics’ signals his imminent return to the present which he has largely neglected, pining for a ‘better era’.

As Jack (Sean Penn) drifts from memory to memory of his past in The Tree of Life we realize that his (and our) lives are constructed and remembered by the countless small events and interactions that have led us to where and who we are now.  And even if others were part of those small events and interactions, they would see them differently and would have constructed different memories and meanings from those same events.  As the film progressed I was reminded of how much we hear about shared vision, alignment, shared mental models and everyone pulling in the same direction.  I wondered if all that effort was really in service of control and assumed certainty rather than the remote possibility of seeing things in a shared and common way.

As Antonio Damasio points out in his newest book Self Comes to Mind we construct our memories first from our feelings and then build the physical content of the memory around those feelings.  Our memories are highly subjective for the most part.  So are our ideas for the future, perhaps even more so. 

Current organizational thinking encourages us to spend inordinate amounts of time focusing on visions for the future and lessons from the past, such as best practices.  While a certain level of focus on these areas is valuable we tend to spend so much time focusing on the past and future that the present is largely ignored.  Ignored in terms of taking our present interactions seriously.  Ignored in terms of taking accountability for our choices today.  Ignored in terms of realizing that the uneventful events of today are constructing our futures.

We have come to believe that our memories of the past are indeed fact, and that our visions for the future can become a shared certainty.  Both these perspectives are gently, yet powerfully shattered in both Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life.

The nuances of how these messages are portrayed in these movies resonate with so many of our experiences in organizations even though both movies are not about organizations at all.

If you want a good lesson in OD you might want to consider seeing these films.  You might then want to also consider how current thinking about organizations may have some serious flaws.

Author – Tom

The weather is likely the most common example of this in nature.  There are countless examples in the realm of human nature as well, one relatively recent example being the economic downturn virtually worldwide over the past couple of years or so.

In many of our posts here we have said that nothing happens in organizations outside of the interactions we have.  Organizations ARE the patterns of interactions that exist and are made up of countless day to day interactions, most of which we take for granted and often don’t take seriously.  We tend to place far more emphasis on certain, often structured interactions, such as the communication of the strategic plan, the creation of the budget, the performance management meeting, or the communication of the change management plan.

When we actually look at how much real time these structured interactions take up in terms of the time we spend at work, the percentage is typically quite low.  Often less than 10% of the time we really spend interacting with others and this tends to hold true even for the most senior of managers.

So if we were to apply the lesson of the complexity sciences noted above about the potential of small disturbances creating significant change, would it not make sense to pay serious attention to 90% of the interactions we have in our organizations where that potential exists?  Certainly the math would say yes, but unfortunately the math is not certain, and we have an aversion to uncertainty it seems.

However, we have convinced ourselves that the 10% of the interactions we deem as more significant, must create a more certain outcome.  And yet the more subtle lesson from the complexity sciences noted above, that it is not predictable (certain) which disturbances will create what changes apply to these 10% of our interactions as well.  In fact there is very little proof that a well crafted strategy or thought out budget will create a more certain future at all!

These activities certainly can have value, but perhaps it is time to take more seriously the more numerous interactions we have day to day through which our organizations emerge.  Those hallway conversations that are as much about strategy as the plan, those interactions in the midst of a crisis that are as much about performance as the list of objectives and that off hand remark that captures the values of what you stand for as much as any values statement or list.

Each interaction we have holds the potential for significant impact, or it may not have any impact at all, we simply cannot know.  But if you imagined that your next interaction with someone just might create a change that was important and significant, would you not take that interaction seriously?

Seriously does not mean well planned out and structured, although it may.  It means that we understand our interactions are creating our organizations and the future of our organizations is uncertain.  And in the midst of that uncertainty we will move forward together and the interactions we are having right now are part of that moving forward, together.

Today, think of all those interactions that just seem to make up our day and seem so uneventful.  Think of that 90% that just happen.

One of them might change tomorrow in a big way.

Author – Tom