Reflections on Management: Recent Episodes
Tom Galvin
Reflections on Management blends theory with practical insight of Dr. Tom Galvin - a career military officer turned scholar-practitioner - to offer a series of in-depth reflections on how key management ideas play out in practice. What is the actual meaning of competitive advantage? How do organizations deal with death? Why is change inherently paradoxical? Tune in to hear Tom reflect on these, and numerous other questions by drawing on his long and eventful career as senior military leader!
In this episode, I address a couple of critical points that drive what information is retained and what is withheld -- Who owns the information and who determines its value? And do our methods of establishing ownership and appraising knowledge make sense?
In this episode, I present the process-based meta-narrative that addresses organizational actions. Going beyond the simple models of flowcharts or sequences of steps, these metanarratives capture the ranges of possible outcomes and the paths to get there.
In this episode, I present the preference-based meta-narrative that helps explain the way that decision makers deal with complexity -- both in terms of developing and selecting alternatives and in terms of the emotions that the decision generates.
In this episode, I present the stream meta-narrative that helps capture sequences of interdependent processes that naturally flow from some sort of inputs to some sort of outputs. These metanarratives help explain complex decision spaces. I'll also give relevant examples.
In this episode, I talk about how I streamline the corporate vocabulary in the previous episode and use it to develop a meta-narrative that summarizes the full set of experiences in the organization by levels of deviation from the norm. Sound complicated, but hopefully you'll find it isn't.
Words matter, and sometimes the terms used in an organizational setting differ from common definitions and therefore create confusion. This is doubly difficult for an outside observer who is trying to understand the organization's behavior. I present an icebreaker exercise in this episode I use to help expose how different people define things.
How does one tell the difference between information meant for beginners versus information meant for experts? The short answer is the level of abstraction. What is meant for beginners tends to be more detailed or more prescribed than what is meant for experts. But there is more to it as the usage of the information is equally important. In this episode I talk about how to put these two ideas together -- levels of knowledge with their function.
There's an inherent challenge between the organization's preferred narrative that may drive how it organizes its corporate knowledge and the way individuals sort their component parts. One narrative may not fit all perspectives. What then?
When reviewing old archives, it occurred to me that the archive serves as a window into the organization's behavior, but while the products of knowledge are present, much of the meaning behind them get lost. How did I think about rebuilding that knowledge?
Busy professionals are so awash with information, much of it irrelevant or uninteresting, that they rarely have time to go back and sort through it all and make sense of it. Instead, all this stuff ends up occupying storage space or sitting somewhere in the cloud. Well, I undertook a project to dive through an archive holding fifteen years worth of information on DVDs stored in a closet, and I learned a lot about what it means to gain, sustain and use expert knowledge.
In this final episode of the series, I ask what does 'right' look like in how we solve social problems and re-negotiate the social contract. What must we do once we decide to get people to come to the table? The short answer, as I reveal here, is rooted in classic pragmatism. Classic pragmatism, which is geared toward practical solutions to practical problems, and eschews theoretical or ideological approaches. But this is not easy to do, and it requires that we stop treating those we disagree with as enemies.
I complete the list of principles for re-negotiating the Social Contract and setting the stage for what constitutes the idea conversation for solving a complex social issue. What are principles that suggest the ideal ways that collectives deal with other collectives in the environment? Or how individuals should deal with each other?
Along with the ideal collective that acts with justice, equality, and fairness comes the ideal member, one who fulfills the principles of duty, member responsibility, and loyalty -- principles that leaders also must fulfill while setting proper conditions for their members.
To resolve and efficiently and effectively renegotiate the social contract, we've got to find common ground. But we have to first change the way we react to things that we strongly disagree with. That begins with finding a language that sustains our emotional commitment to what we believe, but opens the door to shared interests with those we otherwise disagree with. I will explore one part of this common language associated with the ideal collective and how it benefits its members -- through principles of justice, equality, and fairness.
How does our assessment of how one "wins" drive us to throwing social competitions, and thus the social contract, out of balance? And even if the social contract is fixed, how can we prevent other forms of injustice from working their way in?
This episode expands on the previous episode to explain the influences of power and communication over the competitive environment. What are the characteristics of the strategies used to shape such competition and what effects do they have on the social contract?
Our focus on interpersonal relationships, though valid, is insufficient to overcome the problems in the social contract. We must also look at how we view competition and its role in societies and organizations.
This is the first episode in a multi-part series about renegotiating the social contract we globally share to addressing inequality and spur dialogue between parties who present view each other as adversaries.
Turnover can be a devastating thing to some organizations, the loss of expertise and experience, if not transferred in some way to existing members, can disrupt the organization's ability to perform at the highest level over time. I discuss two types of brain drain that organizations may experience when its experts walk out the door (whether departure or retirement) with their knowledge and propose a 'grand narrative' approach to establishing a culture and climate favorable to knowledge retention.
Mandatory training serves important purposes but can be painful and ineffective in execution. Are there ways to do it better? Here I run down some of the common failings in the development of training materials for mandatory requirements, often developed for online delivery, and offer recommendations to better align these materials with the overall purposes set by leaders.
In this episode, I dive further into the ideas of "responsibilities" of leader. I argue here that a leader's responsibilities are more than accomplishing missions and caring for members -- it is that the organization itself acts responsibly. For a professional organization, this meaning is clear -- that members naturally act professionally even in the case of extreme duress (e.g., war in the military, rioting or extreme strife in law enforcement, extremes in pandemic response for medicine). Individual professionals may act properly under such conditions, but instilling this in the culture of a whole organization takes leadership -- especially the right skills and attributes of the top leader in the organization.
Tells a vignette about how a wonderfully crafted, innovative display wound up earning a last place trophy for not following the rubric. Rules may be rules, but can they sometimes get in the way of the purpose for the event?
This is a follow-on to an episode on Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Y, reflecting two different set of assumptions that managers operate with when running an organization. I recount the theories here and the assertion that Theory Y -- where managers assume workers are trustworthy and wish to be active participants in organizational success -- is preferred. But why then do managers tend to default to Theory X assumptions -- is it learned behaviors or is it innate, part of so-called "human nature"? What do we do about it?
Sometimes change efforts success despite poor communication, or great communication doesn't lead to successful change. Why is that? I argue that the communications campaign operates one "phase" ahead of the change effort, so the levels of success in both are independent and not correlated to one another.
I argue that we need new co-ed sports designed to emphasize capabilities that men and women share equally while also being fun to watch. I discuss the origins and social factors that brought about a number of existing team sports, many designed by men for masculine purposes. I believe these sports contribute to notions that women's sports are inferior to men's, which carries over to gender stratification in the workplace.
A recent Talking About Organizations episode addressed contemporary challenges facing professions due to expanses of technology, growing distrust toward professional workers in some areas, and media coverage; all of which are challenging the autonomy and status of professionals and their work. Anti-professionalism is essentially the breakdown of the profession due to internal and external pressures. I argue in this episode that the way to strengthen professionalism is to re-kindle the sense of honor in serving in a profession -- how to do that is difficult, because one has to agree on what is meant by "honor."
The process of migrating one's teaching from resident to remote has been a popular topic due to the pandemic. But what about the content? If you are using stuff off the shelf, not such a big deal. But if you are the creator of a course designed for a specific professional purpose, then it becomes a massive undertaking. I had to do this for multiple courses this year, crossing both resident-distance and synchronous-asynchronous boundaries. I learned some tough lessons which I will share with you in this episode.
As this program enters its 5th season, I wanted to announce some upcoming changes to the program and the website to improve your experience
Sometimes, leaders decide to bring in external consultants with whom they have worked with before or they have prior professional relationships with. Sometimes that works out great for the organization -- the consultant knows what the 'boss' wants and is uniquely positioned to deliver, helping the leader foster change. But in the two cases I discuss in this episode, the opposite happened. Each consultant leveraged their relationship with the leader in the wrong way. What happened and what did I learn from it?
A common thread I have found in popular change management literature is how to initiate change. Find the problem. Build the sense of urgency. Get things started! This is because change really is hard to start. But the fact is, many of us will not necessarily be starting change efforts ourselves. We may first walk into a new job and be handed responsibilities over change already occurring in the organization, sometimes as a working group member, sometimes as a project lead. We can’t always count on having a good continuity book or record of the change effort thus far. So how should you proceed? How does one ‘inherit’ a change effort?
There’s an old saying that the higher you climb the flagpole (or the corporate ladder) the more your butt shows. It’s a none-too-polite way of saying that being a senior leader or top executive means that you are magnet for criticism. I previously talked about counternarratives against organizations, but I argue this is a multi-level construct, thus there are also counternarratives against leaders which feed into an opponent's or competitor's strategies for attacking organizations.
We all want to be ‘change agents,’ don’t we? The competitive pressures that many of us feel can cause us to want to make a mark, make a difference, be bold. In contrast, we are warned about the changes going around us – in societies and industries, and technologies- and that not getting on board means we are complacent, falling behind the times, losing our competitive advantage. But there’s a good side to continuity, is there not? Are not reliability and predictability important qualities in organizations?
From work to education, much of what we do is measured in individual achievement and assessment of individual outcomes. Job performance, grade-point averages, final examinations, so many things are individually based. For some time now, collaboration has become much more important and group-based work the norm. But we really haven’t figured out how to assess group effort apart from the sum of individual efforts. In my experience, group assessments run up against some very strong barriers. Can we overcome them? Perhaps one experience from my educational background provides a baby step forward.
Many of us have worked around (occasionally for) leaders who fall from grace, either due to personal misconduct, embarrassing the organization, or something else above and beyond mere poor performance. The leader becomes a pariah. Sometimes that fallen leader did things that made a lasting positive difference in the organization, and the accomplishments may be worth retaining and retelling. Unfortunately because of the leader's sullied reputation, the accomplishments may be discounted, ignored, or even repudiated. Is the appropriate? Are there times when we should separate the person from their deeds?
How often have you been in organizations that placed high value on conceptions of unity? That everyone needed to 'row together' like a crew team or exercise 'unity of effort' like a military organization? And then, how often does it seem like the organization is utterly incapable of putting unity into action -- that there are persistent or recurring problems that appear causing the organization to fracture and remain fractured in some way? In this episode, I use theoretical works on paradox and dialectic change to provide suggestions for leaders.
This podcasts's 4th season begins with a closer look at the idea that organizations should celebrate success when undergoing change. While there is utility in sharing good news stories, should change agents go along with the celebration or curb their enthusiasm? After all, there's the possibility of the organization also punishing failure. Is the best reaction no reaction at all?
In a previous episode, I talked about counternarratives, which are narratives that refute or alternatively explain dominant narratives. In an organizational sense, counternarratives represent offensive tactics, ways to refute another actor’s narrative, or in turn, the narratives used by opponents to attack or discredit the organization. The obvious implication is that organizations defend themselves in some way from these counternarratives. But notions of defense is not well represented in the literature, so there’s some room for asking what does ‘defense’ means in a communication sense? How do organizations ‘defend’ themselves strategically?
Communicating on the defense is not being defensive! It is fending off the opposing messages without resorting to a constant game of ‘whack-a-mole,’ reacting to each event individually. This is not a strategy, and the result is frustrating and expensive (e.g., money, time, energy). A strategy recognizes that many of these messages are stemming from a common counternarrative, and thus the strategy amounts to deciding the organization’s main response — to refute it directly, to essentially blow it off or treat as irrelevant, or to acknowledge it and change the organization (on the organization’s terms as much as possible). From this defensive story, it is easy to generate defensive messages as you need them. The challenges are ensuring that you have characterized the counternarrative right in the first place — not always easy.
Did a change effort succeed or fail? Most change efforts never achieve their original goals, but is that really “failure”? Opponents of the effort certainly like to think so, and claims of failure are really easy to make, even in instances where the change demonstrably succeeded. Empty claims of success don’t always help, either, and they rarely quiet the critics. So, if determining true success or failure is important, and it certainly seems to be, then how do we measure it? Or is ‘measuring’ even the right idea?
Earlier in this podcast, I discussed some concepts from my experience in artificial intelligence, and one that is particularly applicable here is abductive reasoning. This is a way of asking if something is the best explanation why something else occurred. Best explanation may mean A caused B, or it may mean that A possibly caused B but there is a possibility it did not.
Over time in my work in organizational change, I developed a test based on abductive reasoning to help cut through the rhetoric of success and failure in change and ask whether or not there it is plausible that the change effort contributed to outcomes seen. In other words, is A the best explanation for B? I call this the plausibility test, and has three components:
Does the change effort explain the effects perceived?
Does the absence of the campaign means that the effects would likely not have been perceived?
No other actor or factor in the environment better explains the effects?
So how can one use this? Listen and find out!
The commitment of members to their organization and organizational commitment to its members is an important on-going discussion that I have covered both in this program and in the main Talking About Organizations Podcast. In this episode, I want to further discussion about the member’s side of things – because traditionally the construct is about the member as a single individual, when in practice we may be talking about something more – like the member’s family. This has become a significant economic issue, as family considerations (from health care to parental leave) has an impact.
But this is about far more than just money. It would seem too easy to rely on existing constructs whereby an organization’s commitment to its members is based solely on incentives — that is, provide enough benefits to families and the members are more likely to stay. Of course, this assumes that members are committed (a la Meyer and Allen, 1991) through cost-benefit analyses. Also, in high-risk organizations where the members face routine danger, bringing about stress to the families, psychosocial safety plays a role in a member’s willingness to stay. So, what is the conversation that should take place between the organization and its members regarding the care and benefits of the member’s families?
Warning! Overusing smartphones can be detrimental to your health! We might hear warnings like this, and perhaps even believe them to be true. Perhaps the claims are supported with solid scientific evidence on things like overdependence and addictive behaviors, sleep deprivation, information overload, and severe stress and anxiety. And yet, we pay them no heed, and continue to overuse personal technologies in unhealthy ways. Why? I think part of the reason is because we aren’t necessarily equipped to ask the right questions, and we simply allow ourselves to succumb to the attractive idea that smartphone technologies will simplify our lives, despite the mounting evidence that suggests the contrary.
As I explain in this episode, we have seen this before — those who remember flip-phone technologies and their descendants can probably recall how the promises of convenience would eventually be tempered with unforeseen costs and inconveniences. Moreover, the increasing complexity on how we use and adapt the technologies (witness the incredible diffusion of collaboration apps, for example), and it should no surprise that these devices can become incredibly burdensome — we fell like can’t stop using them even if we wanted to. Can this cycle be broken? Can we step back, stop, and think about what we may be doing to ourselves in the name of convenience?
Change is complex and difficult, no matter the context. Although sometimes they may be overly simplistic, change management tools are plentiful and can help someone kick-start the process of making change happen. Culture change, however, is doubly hard. The simple approach has been to impose ‘strong’ cultures. But several episodes of the main Talking About Organizations Podcast have shown the several downsides of trying the strong culture approach, including resentment and rebellion. Is there another way?
The short answer is ‘yes,’ but that is indeed a short answer. The fact is culture change is not something that is often done in an instant. Thus, our desire for certainty and simplicity often leads us down the path of treating culture change instrumentally — like a series of knobs to turn or levers to pull. Such ideas conflict with my own experience, where culture change only succeeds through persistence and the use of different metaphors. In this episode, I present the metaphor of Van de Ven and Poole’s (1995) teleological motor of change and explain why it is a more accurate representation of how culture change actually occurs in practice. It is indeed not a method for the impatient, but it certainly helps avoid unnecessarily frustration and cynicism if used properly.
Some organizations encourage or rely upon volunteers to supplement its mission or activities. Occasionally, the organization finds that the voluntary efforts are so essential to its purpose that it decides to create a new permanent position to perform it, effectively in-sourcing the role. On the good side, this demonstrates a tacit acknowledgement that the volunteer work is important and appreciated. But it is not always easy or smooth, and could actually create problems where they did not exist. In this episode, I explore two examples from my experiences, with both resulting in changed relationships among the organization, the permanent hire, and the other volunteers. One turned out well, the other experienced a rockier start. What should managers do to make such transitions work more smoothly?
When one embarks on a career as a professional or a scholar, it is commonly spurred by a desire to make a significant contribution to society, through personal service (such as medicine or law) or helping solve a vexing problem. We want to ‘make a difference,’ ‘give back,’ and ‘do something about X or Y.’ But somewhere along the way, perhaps beginning with one’s dissertation or one’s socialization into the field, we narrow the questions down to what is deemed feasible or empirically testable. And that socialization process channels our work from then on, dissuading us from getting back to answering the big questions that brought us to the field in the first place. How can restore the sense of wonder from our beginnings and get after the big questions again?
This is a troublesome question for some, as ordinary academic pressures push us scholars to the culture of narrow questions, staying within our chosen field and communicating primary with those who are like-minded. I take a completely different view — happily pursuing topics that I have little to no prior experience in, so long as there’s a tether back to something about organizations. That’s because of my BIG question … my primary quest that drove me to enter a doctoral program at such a late age. What is that BIG question? Listen and find out!
Branding and brand equity is a competitive sport. No matter what type of organization, public or private, maintaining high brand equity is seen as important. Brand equity is defined in David Aaker’s book Managing Brand Equity as having five components – brand loyalty, name awareness, perceived quality, brand associations in addition to perceived quality, other proprietary brand assets such as patents, trademarks, etc. Getting those components to show high value — meaning that customers and stakeholders think very highly of the brand — is big for an organization’s competitiveness, maybe even its survival. Low brand equity, while not always fatal, is a definite problem. So when an organization is able to turn things around and make its brand suddenly interesting, prominent, even viral — people take notice. But it is hard to replicate.
I use the recent example of the so-called ‘storm surge’ celebrations held by the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes 2018-2019 season to highlight an example of how a team mired in long-term mediocrity suddenly upped its profile. It’s an interesting story of turning an organization’s reputation around, but what does the literature tell us about how this might have occurred and whether or not such an apparent success can be replicated in some way by other organizations.
Last season, I talked about how narrative, as a construct, can represent either the full story of an organization or an intervention into it. But unfortunately, the organization’s own narrative is not the only version of the story. In a competitive world, other actors use counternarratives against the organization – alternative stories that are often adversarial, intended to harm the organization’s reputation or tarnish its images. Popular communication literature plays this image up… a lot. But is it accurate? Are all counternarrative adversarial, or used only by our enemies?
Counternarratives are narratives that exist primarily to “refute other narratives” harbored by organizations, societies, nations, or any other collective group. They often emerge as “stories … which offer resistance, either implicitly or explicitly, to dominant cultural narratives.” But while counternarratives are often viewed or discussed as adversarial entities, they can take many forms as I demonstrate in the analysis of a prominent military case study — the initial phases of establishing the U.S. Africa Command by the U.S. Department of Defense, 2006-2009. Some counternarratives were purely antagonistic, but other emerged from friendlier sources. The contrasts among the counternarratives at play should make us rethink the breadth of competitive stories used to challenge the mission, purpose, or identity of organizations.
There is more than one way to accomplish a goal -- indeed, Katz and Kahn gave this concept a name – equifinality. But some organizations find themselves routinely switching change strategies, especially those that turn over leadership routinely. They enter thinking there is a ‘right’ or ‘better’ way to do this, but does such a thing really exist?
In this episode, I apply a book chapter by Robert Chin and Kenneth Benne to show that all strategies have strengths and vulnerabilities. The moral of the 'Story of the Four Commanders' is to mitigate the vulnerabilities.
Whenever a job opportunity opens at a distant location, a factor that may be taken into consideration is the climate. Not just the organizational climate on the job, but the climate outside. Maybe it isn't so much of a concern for the potential employee, but it sure can be for the family -- like when the opportunity is in Minnesota or Alaska but the spouse hails from Louisiana or Arizona, there could be misery at home! But liking or disliking the prevailing weather is just part of the story. What about prevalence of bad weather events or other natural disaster? How much of the job is outside and how much is inside? And just because one works in an office setting doesn't mean the environment is not a factor.
My experience in organizations where members are forced to move routinely, is that climate factors can weigh very heavily and locations can be separated into 'preferred' and, well, 'not preferred.' To what extent does this knowledge weigh on the minds of those at preferred or non-preferred locations? Or in making moves with career implications?
When we discuss change and change management, the emphasis tends to be placed on ‘starting’ something or ‘creating’ something. But in my experience, the creation of something often must accompany the ‘destruction’ of something else – like the breaking of a bad habit. Also, ‘terminating’ a change effort is rarely discussed, as though it were unimportant – ‘Oh, don’t worry about how this ends, let’s just get started’. But stopping something is an important part of change, is it not? And is it just like starting something?
This tendency to ignore the need for stopping -- whether it means breaking a bad habit or interrupting an organization's process--does a disservice to organizations and their change agents. It increases the chances of change fatigue because the effects of change efforts simply accumulate. In other words, we're adding more work without enough reward. But stopping something can leave a trail of destruction in its wake -- the second order effects of stopping can be great. In this episode, I use theories of de-institutionalization to offer ideas and approaches to effect change by stopping something.
If you are like me, you don't like to hear profanity, and find it difficult hearing conversations where curse words are flowing from people's mouths like water. Cursing, swearing, cussing, whatever it is called -- it has a long history, and for some people it is a natural part of their language while others reserve it for very rare and specific occasions. I have noted over the course of my work life that the purpose, frequency, and intensity of cursing has evolved. On the one hand, the organizations in which I served cleaned up their language over time because of the need to be inclusive and reduce hostile work climates. On the other, popular media and other venues almost seem to need cursing to stay provocative or cutting-edge.
Is there a right or wrong in all this? Does cursing have a real purpose? Has it evolved over time? I address these questions with the help of some literature on cursing and my own experiences listening to how profanity is used among different levels or types of organization. It is a complex topic because there are multiple purposes for cursing, each reflecting different norms and have different effects on others.
While some may view the current state of political division in many parts of the world as new and disturbing, it merely follows a trend that has spanned decades. That doesn’t make it OK, it merely suggests that the deepening divide between those on the “left” and “right” will grow. Organizations risk becoming intellectually homogeneous, and there are studies showing that discrimination on the basis of political ideology is trending up. If so, it could have a significant impact on an organization’s ability to maintain diversity of views and perspectives to remain innovative and competitive.
One must first ask whether it really is a problem, and then what can one do? For me, the challenge is that neutrality — which can be described in many ways as I show in this episode — must serve a purpose and provide a benefit over taking one political side or the other. In a world that does not consider neutrality to be an honorable stance to take, this is difficult. But we must start somewhere…
In a sidecast for the main Talking About Organizations Podcast, I presented several different meanings of ‘efficiency’ and how the pursuit of each creates different behaviors in organizations – including how organizations measure their own performance, and how an organization’s preferred model of efficiency may lead to inefficient behaviors of a different form. But this theoretical argument probably didn't scratch everyone's itch -- it is one thing to complain about ideas of efficiency, what does one do about it? How can one pursue efficiency of organizational performance into practice?
In this episode, I concentrate on a specific conundrum facing public sector organizations -- in which decisions made to achieve efficiencies in operations often pursue improvements in technical efficiency (the government equivalent of productive efficiency based on per-transaction costs of delivering government services) when the real efficiencies are likely found in improving allocative efficiency, despite the problems this may cause as discussed in the sidecast. What is the conundrum, and how can decision makers get beyond the easy path of measuring only what is measurable and make the hard calls on the nature and levels of service provided?
Taking on leadership positions often involves the acceptance of personal risk. There is no finer example of this than the opening vignette to this episode where I found myself reading through an exhibit depicting a line of national leaders over a twenty-year period who were murdered decades later when the nation was conquered by another. The naval tradition of "the Captain always goes down the ship" is another example.
Contrast this with other situations in which the leader is essentially protected from harm, either because of organizational culture or presiding checks and balances that constrain leaders' actions. Not all circumstances demand that the leaders take personal sacrifices but leadership and personal responsibility do not always seem to be aligned. To what extent does this create problems between leaders and the led?
A prominent scholar and practitioner in strategic communication said to a conference of military communication specialists, "The enemy is fast, flexible, and more attuned to the cultures where they operate. We talk Narrative, but Narrative is where they beat us." While the 'we' and 'they' in this context were adversaries in the war of ideas regarding violent extremism, they could have been any organizations in a competitive situation. Some organizations are simply better at telling their stories and aligning words and actions better than others.My view, drawn from experience, is that organizations lose when their attempts at 'narrative' are narrowly focused on what stakeholders want, and then force fed to organizational members whose behaviors remain unchanged (and who might reject the message). That's not how one properly uses 'narrative.' So what is proper? I sift through varying definitions of narrative in this episode and offer my own construct -- that there are two types that serve vastly different purposes.
I believe sometimes we are too quick to jump on bandwagons and assume that something changing in society is going to move forward unabated, when in my experience societal change often spurs countering movements (that is, once retrenchment of the status quo ceases to have meaning). A recent example (about eight years old at the time of this recording) was the Arab Spring, which demonstrated the potential power of social media to bring people together, have their voices heard, and make change happen... very quickly.
Fast forward to today, and social media is now viewed with a lot more skepticism due to tensions with governments, concerns over information assurance and individual privacy, and a splintering of the movement -- platforms coming and going and extraordinary efforts needed by individuals to keep up with all the latest apps (and avoid the latest pitfalls).
In 2011, articles were being written that compared the Arab Spring to the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther's 95 Theses were spread worldwide in a short time and brought about a challenge to the dominance of the Catholic Church. In this episode, I take that story a century and a half further and suggest that the rest of the story of the Reformation has lessons for today.
Oh, the ‘Vision’ thing! Consultants and leaders talk a lot about the value and importance of vision to foster change. According to popular change management literature, good vision statements must be simple, inspiring, awesome. And yet there are really bad vision statements out there that are fodder for YouTube videos and Dilbert comic strips. So we know what wrong looks like, but have you ever actually tried to write a good one? Where do you actually start?
Surprisingly, perhaps, I've seen some good ones that were effective and a few that qualified as great -- spurring on the desired transformational changes. But what made them successful had a lot to do with how one defines a vision. As you will see in this episode, I advocate for what I call visions of action that describe how the future organization behaves rather than what it merely looks like. I also introduce some approaches I use with students to help them write vision statements.
The myth of the heroic leader – the original leader archetype, reinforced by modern bureaucracy! Although some leadership scholars view the archetype with skepticism, there are instances where the presence of someone in a leadership position is equated with effective leadership ("presence," for example, is an explicit quality expected of military leaders). Call it charismatic leadership a la Conger and Kanungo or fulfilling the role of 'figurehead' a la Mintzberg, scholars have been pursuing constructs that capture the essence of a leader who 'looks' or 'acts' like a heroic leader.
And then there is the leader as 'celebrity,' as one whose public presence goes beyond what is typically associated with serving in a leadership position. Steve Jobs may be the best contemporary example as he exemplified more than Apple but he evoked a spirit of innovation. I served for leaders who were similarly thrust into the spotlight (generally unwillingly) and whose name became somewhat of a brand. In this episode, I explore the question as to whether this is good or bad (or even if such measures apply), and when.
To close my first season of this podcast, I wanted to focus on something beyond the boundaries of organization. The Christmas season--traditional celebrated through December and into early January--marks the end of the calendar year and provides opportunities for get-togethers and celebrations of all sorts. For years, the U.S. has seen a lot of commercialization creep into the period, which has generated a lot of controversy. As one who has spent a lot of time traveling around the world, I've had the opportunity to witness and partake in a number of Christmas-related activities elsewhere. In this episode, I relay particular experiences in Germany and Indonesia, where the season is celebrated a bit differently than in the U.S., and perhaps retains at least a little of the holiday spirit that sometimes feels lost in the long lines at the malls. I also include some emergent traditions in military organizations that I have served in that capture the same spirit.
Sometimes reflection can help bring about new insights on an old problem -- and cause one to rethink one's own view. In this episode, I revisit my own sidecast with the Talking About Organizations Podcast from earlier in this year. Titled Milton Hershey and an Organization's Commitment to its Members, the sidecast presented the story of Milton Hershey, who is rightfully lionized in the region where I live -- south central Pennsylvania in the U.S. -- as a good man who founded both a company and the town around it. In doing so, he made special effort to provide for the needs of the people. I showed how he served as a perfect contrast to the seemingly uncaring or hands-off forms of management that one sees nowadays, such as in algorithmic management.
Well, I gave my views some additional thought. Not that my views of Milton Hershey had changed (they have not), but that the idea that organizations have some sort of innate responsibility to provide for its members was too simplistic. There was more to the story -- and that individuals, organizations, and societies had to be considered in the conversation. But in what way?
One of my dissertation subjects told a story about graduating from the War College and going to the new assignment, and on the first day was effectively told that what was learned would not be useful. The exigencies of the moment would consume all available time. The overprogramming of time has been a recurring theme -- whether in the field or in educational settings. A seemingly irresistible trend is to add new requirements to an already busy organization without full consideration of the workload already present. Although organizational members certainly appreciate being told they no longer have to do something, removing a requirement is incredibly difficult. Why is this and what can we do about it?
One clear answer is instituting reflection in one's professional life. Reflective thinking, reflective writing, reflective organizing are all possible if one can make them habits. Starting with the diaries of Eisenhower, I show how important reflection is and introduce several ideas and methods proposed by organizational scholars and practitioners. (This podcast series is about reflection as well...).
I read an interesting article some years back in which a consultant described the experience of his client's passing, and how he had to cope with the situation--both within himself and regarding his relationship with the organization. It was eye-opening and reminded me of a case where a member of the senior leadership team in an organization I served fell victim to Lou Gehrig's disease. Despite the toll it took on the body, the leader insisted that the organization carried on. And it did.
Now that I am older, this episode carries much more meaning. Searching for a term to describe how the members of the organization responded, I came to use the term grace. Grace is typically associated with religion, but is also defined non-religiously as “the condition or fact of being favored.” But grace is normally thought of as an characteristic of the individual. In this episode, I tell my story and explore the idea of grace at the organizational level.
Kurt Lewin famously said “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.” In the past two decades, this quote has been cited hundreds if not thousands of times in the literature, but in recent years there has been renewed attention to the problems of a theory-practice gap and how to resolve it. Yet since 2000 there has been a lot of attention paid to closing the ‘gap’ between theory and practice to limited avail? So was Lewin right, or is something else wrong?
In this talk, I argue the latter -- mainly that we are being misled by the very metaphors we use to describe the differences between theory and practice. I offer a different metaphor from the 'gap.' This alternative metaphor -- that of the 'rheostat' -- suggests some theories are simply not meant to be practical, but they are still good theories. Meanwhile, the inverse is also true in that certain matters of practice have little business being theorized. Below is a graphic, referenced in the episode, that shows how the rheostat metaphor works.
Initiating change is already a big challenge, with all the resistance that change agents face and so on. Therefore, popular change management literature places tremendous emphasis on gaining forward momentum through early successes or quick 'wins' which are to be roundly celebrated. They supposedly convince organizations that achievement of the change goals is possible, all that is needed is more energy and excitement, and hopefully more quick wins. But my experiences suggest that this is where change efforts tend to stall because the organization is unable or unwilling to further invest in it. Instead, the pilot (or experiment) that was supposed to kickstart the change effort becomes its full extent, with the organization repeating the pilot from then on and thereby avoiding the risk of reversing gains. While this sounds undesirable and counter to what traditional change management considers OK, can it sometimes be said that good enough is good enough?
We talk about change quite a lot, and have an incredible array of tools at our disposal. But how complete are these tools and how much is left for us to figure out. For example, a common thread in popular change management literature is the need to motivate or ‘establish a sense of urgency’. But in my experience that is incredibly difficult to do no matter how compelling the change. What’s missing?
My proposed answer is the change story, in which the analysis of the organization's problem is connected to choices between the current path which leads to a degradation of performance and an alternate path representing a decision for change leading to a vision. Writing such a story, however, is not so easy.
‘Competitive advantage‘ is one of those terms that I have puzzled over. It is used so often that I know people believe it means something, but it is rarely defined in practice. Scholars have attempted to derive formulas for it, but do those formulas mean anything or do they just tell us in scientific language what we already knew? In other words, is it just a MacGuffin–a prize or goal that drives a narrative forward but isn’t actually anything at all?
On the other hand, if the term is meaningful, then how can one use ‘competitive advantage’ as a construct to make convincing arguments about the need for change? Several have tried, but those efforts have not always borne fruit.
An important part of an organization’s identity is its ties to the past, claims of temporal continuity as they are known. One type of organization that plays up its enduring historical characteristics are governments at the national, state, or local levels. Evidence of this is quite prevalent in Europe, where artefacts of history are well-preserved and attract tourists from around the world, and in the United States. It requires a lot of resources to preserve the buildings and grounds, sustain the culture (e.g., traditional dress, music, food, dance, and so on), and provide environments for contemporary visitors to immerse themselves in the past. Yet in addition to the risks of environmental damage is the risk that the tourist trade negatively affects the accuracy of the stories being told. Ceremony and ritual may distort the truth.
Using one European and one American location, each of which I have visited and enjoyed many times, I hope to explain the potential impacts on organizations in general. Misremember the history and risk losing the identity!
The story goes that 70% of all change efforts fail, which means I’m sure many of you have experienced transformational change that failed to achieve its goals. While we can debate the precision of the figure but no doubt it is high. But is it really because we human beings are that bad at it? Or are there factors that make it utterly intractable?
In this inaugural episode, I argue that the answer to the second question is probably 'yes,' which makes the first question irrelevant. The design, functions, or behaviors of certain organizations carry persistent tensions that can be paradoxical in nature, such that any transformational change triggers opposition that is invested in one side of the tension or the other. Along with being a natural source of resistance, how might such tensions color the way members assess the success or failure of change, particularly when it is easier to level claims of failure? I will use military organizations as my example, also as a way of contrasting some ways that such organizations differ from private sector or other forms of public sector firms.
In this special episode I go beyond the curriculum vitae kinds of things and tell you about my life history, and my background shapes the stories and ideas I wish to share in this podcast. I am retired military officer who pursued his doctorate late in life as a way of trying to understand what I had experienced as a military officer who spent the latter half of his career working at the so-called "strategic" level. In the military, "strategic" often describes one's place in the environment of a defense ministry (the Department of Defense in the U.S.), a Service (e.g., Army, Navy, Air Force), or one of the major commands within a Service. As I had no prior experience in the humanities, my forays into matters of organizational culture, change, communication, and leadership were essentially learning on the job.
What have I learned, and therefore how do I approach matters of scholarship and practice? That is the subject of this episode. I hope you enjoy it!