Resistance

I have wanted to post a blog entry on the subject of resistance for some time, but for some reason have not gotten around to it. So the question is: “What have I been resisting?”

Resistance is a subtle and interesting thing within each individual and group. Unless you are aware and observant you may not readily identify resistance in one of its many forms. And, you may find that you unwittingly participate in the process of resisting while thinking that you are helping move a project or change effort along.

Edgar Schein, one of the leading experts on culture says that individuals and organizations resist change when there is a lack of psychological safety. Schein defines psychological safety as the ability to see the possibility of solving a problem without loss of identity or integrity. Without psychological safety individuals or groups will deny data that creates discomfort; in other words, people will resist. This denial of discomforting data is called strategic myopia. (Organizational Culture and Leadership p. 298-300)

According to Peter Block, this denial of data or pushing back against the proposed change or project is a reaction to an emotional process taking place within the individual (or group). It is a natural reaction when faced with change, or the prospect of having to address difficult organizational problems.

Block provides an interesting list of what he calls The Faces of Resistance that may help you in identifying when you are working with someone or a group that is using resistance as a tool to avoid change. Keep in mind that some of these forms of resistance are very subtle and elusive:

• Give me more detail – The person (organization) keeps asking for finer and finer bits of information.
• Flood you with detail – The person (organization) gives you too much detail.
• Time – The person (organization) says that he/she/they would really like to change but the timing is off.
• Impracticality – The person (organization) says that he/she/they live in the “Real World” and are facing “Real Problems”, and can find practical problems with any change or solution.
• Attack – The person (organization) adopts the most direct form of resistance – attack the change agent directly.
• Confusion – The person (organization), after hearing the explanation or description of the suggested change several times, continues to be confused, and resists concepts necessary to understand a situation or idea.
• Silence – The person (organization) remains stoically silent and passive in the face of the need for change.
• Intellectualizing – The person (organization) “…starts exploring theory after theory about why things are the way they are…” “Spending a lot of energy spinning theories is a way of taking the pain out of a situation.”
• Moralizing – The person (organization) "...makes great use of certain words and phrases: ‘those people’ and ‘should’ and ‘they need to understand.’ It is all about those other people, not me."
• Compliance – Even when the person (organization) complies with a recommended change with no negative reaction at all, you may find that you have a low-energy agreement that will result in initial compliance, with gradual return to the old systems.

(Flawless Consulting – Peter Block, Chapter 8 Understanding Resistance, P. 140-148)

Not every question or push-back is a form of resistance. But, with these thoughts in mind, maybe you will be a little better prepared to identify when you or people you are working with are resisting rather than working together to change things for the better.

I suggest reading the chapter on resistance in Peter Block’s book Flawless Consulting for a better description of how to identify and deal with resistance in its many forms.

One final note; Schein points out that in dealing with resistance that grows from a lack of psychological safety the visionary leader becomes essential because “…the vision sometimes serves the function of providing the psychological safety that permits the organization to move forward.” (Organizational Culture and Leadership, p. 301)

If you are leading a change effort and feel significant amounts of resistance (which you can now identify), you might ask yourself whether you have provided the individuals or groups that are resisting with sufficient ability to see the possibility of solving a problem without loss of identity or integrity.

So, why are you putting off that important project or change effort? What are you resisting?

Authenticity

The entries in this blog over the past year hopefully have made it clear that there is more to leadership than sitting down in an office with your name on the door and giving orders. We have all worked with people who approached leadership from this perspective, but I doubt that many of us would consider these people good role models, or the kind of leaders we would want at the helm when crossing the unknown sea.

There are also leaders who inspire in us a willingness to tackle the most difficult problems, or to go where no one has gone before. And, they are able to do this without having to raise their voice or demand our compliance.

What is the difference between these two types of leaders? Why are we bored and demotivated by one, and inspired to reach for the stars by the other?

There are probably many reasons, but I want to suggest one answer that deserves your consideration.

When we believe that we have a leader who truly cares for us and our success, who believes in our abilities, who listens and considers our suggestions, who supports us in success and failure, and who communicates his or her thoughts and feelings; in short, when we have a leader who is authentic in every way, we feel valued, and are willing to invest ourselves in the success of that leader and our organization.

In August of 2001, Peter Koestenbaum described Authenticity in the following way:

Authenticity includes:

1. Underscoring the centrality of both caring and integrity in helping people to feel valued and treated fairly. This is ethics.


2. Supporting people in mastering the anxiety of grave uncertainty, the insecurity of frequent failures, and equip them to rely on their inner resources to maintain their dignity as well as their obligations to the future of the whole organization. This is courage.


3. Strengthening people to survive amidst the chilling environment of a harsh economy, bitter competition, political infighting, and unforgiving stock exchanges. This is reality.


4. Lighting up the intellect to fashion new, creative and imaginative solutions to intractable problems. This is Vision.

(Peter Koestenbaum - August 6, 2001)

Peter Block, an organizational development consultant who has spent many years working with leaders, describes authenticity in the following way:

Deeply understanding the other person's point of view gives feeling of authenticity. The first order of business is to understand the situation rather than correct the other person's perception. (The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion, p. 168-169)

Authentic behavior... means you put into words what you are experiencing... as you work. (Flawless Consulting, second edition, p.37)

Authentic leaders listen, support others, express their feelings and thoughts, make visible what is going on inside their heads,

Also, authentic leaders help others move from dependency (the theory that the leader or manager is totally responsible) to an understanding that each person is responsible for exercising their own free will and choice.

Paternalistic behavior on the part of a leader removes power, choice, and freedom from the employee. Authentic behavior leads to empowerment, and an understanding that the individual must exercise his or her free will to affect the work environment.

It must be noted that authentic behavior on the part of a leader can create anxiety in those who follow. Anxiety should not be seen as a negative emotion. In fact, growth cannot happen without anxiety. Every time you enter a new situation you experience some level of anxiety. The important thing is how you deal with the anxiety. Do you try to remove yourself from the situation that is causing the anxiety, or do you embrace the anxiety and allow it to give you the energy and courage to face the new situation? Removing yourself assures that the anxiety will go away. But, facing the anxiety and leaning into your discomfort assures that you will grow and develop new skills and abilities.

This entry is a work in progress. For me, authenticity remains one of those things that we all know when we see it, but is hard to describe in words. Your suggestions and thoughts on how to improve this description of authenticity would be appreciated.

Peter Block - Servant-Leadership

Peter Block is an author, lecturer, and organizational consultant who has some very intriguing thoughts about service. Below you will find excerpts from the keynote address Peter gave to the 2005 International Servant-Leadership Conference in Indianapolis Indiana. Links to the full address, and the Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership are included in the text below. (Visit http://www.peterblock.com/ for more on Peter Block and his work)

Note:  I realize that some of the links on this post are broken.  At this time I do not have links to the text for the full address given by Peter Block.  If you would like more information, I am sure Peter would be happy to share his thoughts with you directly.  You can reach him through his web page http://www.peterblock.com/ .


Excerpts from the Keynote address, 2005 International Servant-Leadership Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana Published in The International Journal of Servant-Leadership, Volume 2, Number 1, 2006, by Larry Spears and Shann Ferch (Gonzaga University in collaboration with The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership).  Unfortunately this information is no longer available on line.  
More information on Servant-Leadership can be found at http://www.greenleaf.org/

Servant Leadership: Creating an Alternative Future

Change the conversation, change your thinking, change your life.

…[M]aybe the audience creates the performance. Maybe the listening creates the speaking. Maybe citizens create leaders, maybe employees create bosses, maybe students create teachers and children create parents. Maybe the purpose of problem solving is to build relationships.

The only way the future gets created … is through invitation.

I’d rather have two people in the room who chose to be there than a thousand who were sent.

…[T]he idea of invitation is very powerful. What constitutes a powerful invitation? One that says, “Please come, and if you come here’s what’s required of you.” Most invitations are too soft, there are elements of begging: “Please come, it’s going to be great, nothing much will be required of you, it’s not going to take long, we’ll be fast, it’ll be organized, Robert’s Rules of Order, there’ll be food, there’ll be drink, the seats will be comfortable, and if you can come late, come at all, leave early, whatever, please come. God bless you.” A powerful invitation is one that says, “We want you to come! Now if you choose to come, here’s what will be demanded of you. You’ll have to show up. You’ll have to engage with your peers in powerful conversations. You’ll have to leave your interests at the door. We didn’t come together to negotiate; the future’s not created through negotiation, it’s created through imagination. It’s created from a dream… [A] possibility creates an alternative future. We’re not coming to negotiate. Leave your interests at home. You’re coming to engage in the primary actions between you and other citizens, you and other people who came. If you’re willing to live by these requirements, please come.”

To me servant-leadership… is a leadership that confronts people with their freedom.

… [T]he act of love is to confront people with their freedom, is to assemble, lead, in a way that says the choice resides in all of us. What greater gift can you give somebody than the experience of their own power, the experience that they have the capacity to create the world?

The skill of servanthood to me is to get good at questions that no matter how you answer them, you’re guilty. No matter how you answer this question you’re on the hook for being a creator of the future. You’re on the hook for being accountable. You create questions so people will choose accountability. We can’t hold each other accountable. We think we can legislate accountability. We can do performance management, we can have rules of the road that we’re (going to) enforce, but people talk about empowerment when all they really want to talk about are boundaries and limits, what will happen to me; we talk about consequences, there’ve got to be consequences; all of these are forms of patriarchy and they have no power. They have no power to create an alternative future. They have no power in the world. The question is, “How do I engage people so they choose to be accountable?” Well, questions do that. There are certain questions that if you start to answer them, you’re in trouble. No matter what you answer, you are responsible for creating an alternative future. The task of servant-leadership, in my mind, is, “Change the conversation, change the future.”

…[T]he questions have to be ones that have embedded in them the notion that choice resides in the world. It doesn’t reside in leaders; it doesn’t reside in the cause. It’s not in the performer, in the parent, in the teacher; cause resides in people’s connectedness to each other, in individuals.

Most of our organizations and communities are parent-child, boss-subordinate, mayor-citizen conversations — we think that matters. We think the boss-subordinate relationship matters, but I don’t think it does.

We think bosses are responsible for the emotional well being of their subordinates. If they have a depressed, low-morale team, it’s their fault! ...Maybe people are responsible for their own emotional well-being. What would it be like to be in a world where individuals were responsible for their own emotional well being, and we didn’t pretend that the boss was cause and subordinate was effect?

Here are some thoughts about conversations that have the power to create an alternative future. One’s the conversation of possibility. What’s the possibility I came here to live into or to create?

There’s a conversation of ownership. Take whatever you’re complaining about and say, “What have I helped do to create that situation?” Beautiful question. “What’s my contribution to the problem? What have I helped do?” It means I’m an owner. Whatever I complain about, let me turn that question and say, “How have I created that thing?” It’s a conversation of ownership.

There’s a conversation of commitment. Commitment means, what’s the promise I’m willing to make with no expectation of return? That’s a commitment. …“What’s the promise you’re willing to make with no expectation of return?” … Now who do I make the promise to? To peers. If you’re in a leadership spot and you want to create choice, engagement among people working for you, then you say let them make promises to each other. Let them sit in witness of those promises, peers, and say, “Okay, is that enough?” and that shifts the focus from boss-to-subordinate to peer-to-peer.

[W]hy not ask each individual, “What are you here to create? What’s the vision you have?” Now people get nervous: “Suppose we don’t have agreeable, compatible visions,” but I’ve never heard a vision that wasn’t embraceable. I’ve never heard an individual say, “The possibility I’m living into is to walk over people. To succeed at the cost of others.”

“Well, suppose my only purpose in leading would be to bring the gifts of the margin into the center. I just love that thought. I have no idea what it means, but I love the thought. And suppose when we come together we agree for the next six months we’re only going to talk about gifts. And we do it in the moment. We do it with each other and say, “You know, here’s the gift I’ve gotten from you in the last ten minutes.” And you teach people to breathe that in. Most people, when they’re given love or given a statement of gifts, exhale. And they begin a story. And so that’s the thought. And then you devise ways of doing that. So the gift conversation has a lot of power to it.

…[H]elp is just a subtle form of control. People want to give advice to each other. They want to tell you what they did when they were at your stage of life. They have an answer for you, and it’s called generosity; for me it’s mostly a conversation stopper. Whenever you engage people in powerful questions you have to set them up very carefully and tell them, do not help each other. Do not give advice. Do not mask your advice in questions: “Have you thought of this, have you thought of that?” Do not tell them what you did at this stage.

I want you to substitute curiosity for help. Every time you have the instinct to be useful, helpful, to have an answer, to give advice... Ask the other person, “Why does that matter to you? What’s the meaning that that has to you? What’s at stake for you?” In a deeper sense you say, “I came here to serve you by valuing meaning over speed. Meaning over efficiency. Meaning over problem solving.” People say, “I’m a problem solver.” I know you are, but it’s only a part of who you are. You have to inoculate people against the search for the quick answer, by asking them: “What does this mean? Why does it matter to you?”

Free Will

Leadership begins with recognizing that we are free to choose; free to choose our beliefs and attitudes, free to acknowledge our anxiety, and to turn the energy that anxiety creates into a positive force for change. This freedom is, in and of itself, a force to be reckoned with. Once free will is accepted and embraced, you become fully aware that you are accountable for the choices you make. You are accountable for how you exercise your free will.

Now this all sounds very dark and negative - all this talk about anxiety can be a bit oppressive. However, the interesting thing is that once you become comfortable with the idea that you have free will, and that you have the ability and the right to choose your path, a huge burden is lifted from your shoulders. You no longer are the "victim of circumstances"; you are no longer "just an employee" with no say in how the organization is run; you are no longer forced to follow others to ends that you do not support. This is an extraordinarily empowering experience. And, it is an experience that has its roots within you, within your decision to embrace your free will and accountability.

That is the philosophical part of this post...

I would be interested in hearing your comments on:

• How free will and accountability work for you
• How you have dealt with those who would take away your right to free will
• What difficulties this concept of free will poses for you
• Or, other comments that come to mind.

Thanks for participating in the Leadership Diamond Blog.

Jim E