Vedere Consulting

I did something a while ago that I regret. I joked about Richmond (the one in Virginia) being a place where the Civil War is still taken very seriously. If you know Richmond you are probably wondering why something like that would bother me. After all, the Civil War is taken very seriously in this former capital of the Confederacy. But it’s not all about unreconstructed Rebels wishing the South would rise again. It’s a complicated conversation that stirs many emotions. At its best, though, the conversation about the Civil War is an attempt to “integrate and salvage the national story.”

I first saw that phrase in an interview in the Richmond Times-Dispatch with University of Richmond President Ed Ayers. It captures perfectly what I believe is a necessary step in the evolution of our nation and, importantly, in every organization faced with difficult and long-ranging decisions.

I’ve heard people say that we just “need to get over it and move on.” Moving on is a good thing, but moving on without understanding how we got here in the first place keeps our understanding incomplete, our focus small and our options narrow. This is true because the world we live in is the result of decisions made and actions taken in our collective past. We assume many things are simply “the way they are” without understanding that something happened to make them that way in the first place. If we know what that something is, our minds are often opened to new ways of thinking.

Dr. Beverly Fletcher and Dr. Billy Wayson offer a course at the Federal Executive Institute called “The Long Shadow of Slavery.” Their goal is not to rehash old wounds, but to help us look at our past with open eyes so we can see the policies and the reasons for the policies that shape our way of thinking today. Such an examination makes it possible to “heal the future” –to create solutions to long-standing problems. If we see our problems as decisions made long ago, it makes it easier to see the decisions we can now make, individually and collectively, to make things better. Such an honest examination makes it easier to see how our opponents (as well as our friends) came to draw the conclusions they’ve drawn, and then to see new and creative options.

All organizations have difficult, knotty issues to tackle. Often there are conflicting viewpoints about how those issues can be best addressed. I believe that executives need to understand the collective past before they decide on the corporate future. They need to know, not the rosy corporate history fashioned by the communications department, but the organization’s unvarnished understanding of itself.

How can they get this viewpoint? The best way is to ask. Not one person, but lots of people. Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff (www.futuresearch.net )created a strategic planning methodology, the future search conference, which brings all the stakeholders of an organization together to create a picture of its future. During the first part of the conference, participants create a collective timeline detailing the significant events and decisions in an organization’s history. This timeline creates a collective understanding of “how we got here” and begins to spark conversations and ideas of how to go forward.

Future Search Conferences are one way an organization can learn about its past. It’s not the only way. However, executives would do well to learn from the Federal Executive Institute. FEI is devoted to developing executive leadership in the federal government. It believes that federal executives need to understand our “national story” if they are to understand the context, the environment, in which they have to lead. Such understanding makes leaders—government and corporate—far wiser and far more effective.

Labels: Executive Leadership

One of my clients, a regional marketing vice president for a mid-sized insurance company, has been negotiating a difficult agreement between her division and the underwriting department concerning concessions for an important client. It was a particularly tough negotiation because the SVP of underwriting and her boss in marketing see each other as rivals within the senior leadership group. Both men are also known for their large egos and arrogant behavior.

Despite these difficulties, my client was feeling pretty good about the results of the negotiations. Then she got a call from the underwriting SVP. Though he wouldn’t have engaged in such behavior with her boss directly, while on the phone with her, he lambasted her boss, he made additional demands, he screamed at her about how incompetent her boss was. She saw the agreement she worked so hard for going down the drain. What was worse, she said, was that he couldn’t see how unreasonable his demands and accusations were, no matter what she tried.

Does this sound familiar to you? It does to me. It reminded me immediately of the times my then 2- year-old sons would have a temper tantrum over something they wanted. They usually picked a very public place, say the grocery store. They would scream, cry, yell at me, “I hate you, Mommy!” because they wanted something I wouldn’t let them have. The choices parents believe they have to counter such behavior are pretty limited and mostly ineffective. Do you placate the child by letting them have what they want? Do you threaten them with a spanking if they don’t behave? Do you try to reason with them, (i.e. “But Bobby, that candy will ruin your supper.”)?

None of these strategies work. Yet it’s these same strategies dressed up in more sophisticated clothes that people in organizations use to manage powerful people who explode or scream to get what they want. I’ve even encountered bosses who try them with demanding (or brazen) employees. Like my client, we are thrown by the unreasonableness of the demands and the behavior. What can we do?

I did many things wrong as a parent, but one thing I learned to do right was managing my children’s temper tantrums. I didn’t do any of the strategies most parents use. When my children were screaming at me, crying and kicking, I simply said in a calm voice, “I’m sorry you feel that way.” I then walked away, leaving them without their favorite audience. Within seconds the tantrum stopped. After a couple of times, my kids never had a tantrum again.

This strategy worked because all tantrums are about power. If I refuse to get in a power struggle—to acquiesce or resist—then the tantrum goes away because it isn’t working. The principle is calm non-responsiveness. One need do nothing but remain calm and remove oneself from the tantrum as quickly and gracefully as possible. How one does that in an organization is different for each situation. The key is to not take the tantrum seriously and to stay calm and uninvolved.

My client’s new strategy for dealing with the SVP’s tantrums is to simply listen for a few moments, thank the person for calling, say “I think _____is the best person to discuss that issue with” and find an excuse to get off the line or change the subject. She feels that if the SVP is forced to confront whoever is offending him directly, he will be more restrained since he won’t have the third-party “audience” for his tirade. I like her plan. Do you? I invite you to tell us your strategy for coping with office tantrums.

Labels: Leadership: Leading Up