Arena: Self-Knowledge for Leading and Supporting
Where Do I Need to Build Capacities?
The more we know ourselves, our habits, current practices, and worldview, the more confident we can be. We have found that unassuming leaders enable teams to thrive. Supporting is what is required, yet what are the key skills? Listening and observation, as well as designing effective meetings are all part of what is needed.
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Self-Knowledge for Leading and Supporting
Catalog updated 2.21.21
Self-Knowledge for Leading and Supporting explores soft skills and self-awareness in organizational life.
- Aligning with our Human Nature
This lab explores a framework that identifies core gestures of the human being, sense perception, thinking, feeling, and willing. How are these related? The path toward health, morality, and a self-organizing vitality lies in the balance and integration of these gestures. We so easily get out of balance. Learning how to self-audit these gestures help us recognize how to chart a path to returning health.
Balance and integration of core human gestures lays a pathway to health. - Self-Knowledge Backspace
Taking initiative to participate in or lead change efforts requires courage and determination. Often, pioneers will be knocked back, and yet we can call to our aid individuals who personally or through their writing or speaking have modeled courage and determination. They live in our “backspace” and catch us when we are falling. Calling up those in our backspace strengthens us.
Influential individuals have our back and we can call on them. - Striving to Become Fully Human
We are besieged with images, words, bargains, and stories that undermine our sense of our human potential. Power and control are the aim of many of these messages. There are themes and the themes interact in ways to sap our confidence in our original thought, our generosity of spirit, and our capacity to change the toxic systems we’ve built. Recognizing these messages and their patterns helps us to see behind the veils.
We must fight for our individual and collective humanity. - Archetype of Transformation
There are patterns to how things change, how change appears to happen. We can learn from these and approach transformation with sharper eyes to see what matters, with a clearer head, a more calm heart, and a willingness to work where we can to support what we care about.
There are patterns to how things change and we can learn to see them. - Rewards and Punishments
The extrinsic motivators in our culture have a huge impact on our thinking. We are signaled to think this, to not think that – or even to look away and not think at all. Until we awaken to how we are being manipulated, we will not develop true self-determination and freedom. Intrinsic motivation, living from the inside out based on our values and purposes, fuels a life of meaning.
We can rise above external rewards and punishments. - Punished by Rewards
Carrots and sticks, as Alfie Kohn shared with us in Punished by Rewards, make us into domesticated “humans.” How do we learn to build an internal locus of evaluation? How do we develop confidence in our own judgment if our thinking is still undisciplined and confused? What steps can we take to become more fully human?
We can shift to self-control when we recognize how controlled we’ve been. - Free and Fear Human Groups
The ethos, the understood culture in human groups, is based on fear or on freedom. The ability to speak in public without sanction is a signal of a free society or organization. In a fear society, most individuals become “double thinkers” and withhold their true thoughts. Gaining moral clarity, speaking openly about moral issues is essential if we are to preserve a free society.
Moral clarity is a duty of individuals seeking to live in free groups. - Ways of Knowing I
Goethe taught us that we use language differently for living things and non-living things. The words we use carry meaning and deep implications. Standardization works for many nonliving things but is inappropriate, even ridiculous for living things, such as people. Ways of knowing what we know is enriched by Goethe’s ideas. We can optimize both “thinking about” and “living into” material and immaterial realities.
Thinking about versus living into, living and non-living language. - Ways of Knowing II
We shape our thinking and communication with the words we use. We shape how we think and experience by “living into” or “intellectualizing” about what is before us. There are important insights to gain by seeing these two lenses together.
When do we feel most human? Living into things using living language. - Purpose and Motivation Spectrum
As humans, there are predictable attitudes and behaviors that appear when we have to do something but we do not know the purpose. We are a purpose-driven species. Our motivation is directly tied to our understanding and alignment with our purposes. Disengaged staff often reflect confusion or moral inconsistency with purpose. Choosing our purposes, sacrificing for our purposes are unique capacities of human beings.
When we choose a purpose, our motivation is high. - Self-Knowledge Taking Stock
Our future can feel chaotic and out of control. We can identify patterns and interactions, using our imagination and current best understandings. We can map these “senses of what is real or possible” and gain insight as to where there are big deficits and where there are likely to be big surpluses. We can clarify many of our assumptions and develop a stronger sense of certainty.
Mapping key elements of our immediate past, present, and future. - Capacity of Our System
We invite others to share their knowledge when we do not pretend to know more than we do know. We seek diverse perspectives and are willing to explain why we think what we think. In a complex world, it is a rational posture.
To be intellectually humble is the signal of a reasonable person. - Worldview and Change
What is the connection between our worldview and how we can make change within ourselves? Through our senses, we merge percepts with concepts. This creates a unique mental picture. Some pictures become accessible as memories. Often feelings influence our memories. Our experiences and memories become our stories of self. Our stories weave together forming our worldview. Worldview reflexively shapes our concepts and our senses.
Each of us has the capacity to change our stories. - The Wardrobe
We all have experiences in life that make deep impressions, and often leave us with some prejudices or emotional baggage that is easily triggered. The Wardrobe is a metaphor of our consciousness, filled with thoughts and generalizations that we’ve picked up along the way. It also holds valuable life lessons we’ve crafted from our experiences. Taking responsibility for what is unique in Our Wardrobe is often not so easy, and yet, it can be done.
The Wardrobe is a metaphor of our consciousness. What beliefs are we carrying and how can we change them? - Assertiveness
We can see patterns of behavior along a spectrum, from passive on one end and aggressive on the other. Sometimes extremes are called for, but rarely. To be assertive and receptive is to hold a balanced poise and posture. What does this ask of us? How can we become more conscious of the self that we want to share with colleagues, family and friends?
Striving to be assertive and receptive indicates a path of maturity. - Accountability Does Not Equal Assessment
One of the ways we are controlled in schools and organizations is by the experience of being assessed by others. As a free individual, we strive to be accountable to ourselves and to what we think is true and good. In society, what we want is mutual accountability, yet what we buy is assessment. Assessment, in general, undermines accountability and individual initiative.
We want accountability; we focus on assessment. - Accountability and Assessment ~ Organizations
In organizations, we have infrastructure and departments that focus on assessment and performance reviews. We assume that assessment will yield accountability of individuals and project teams or departments. The illusion is that if we measure, we can control or influence someone for our benefit. Performance review is a big and powerful industry with very little evidence of productivity.
We want accountability; we buy assessment. - Self-Accountability and Self-Assessment
What do I look to if I want help in holding myself accountable? How do I design things to assess in a meaningful way to guide me toward the development I seek? If I want a healthy relationship with my friends, where do I modify my habits or invest more time or attention?
Self-assessment can support holding ourselves accountable. - Responsibility, Accountability, Commitment
Independent, free and mature human beings are working toward showing responsibility, which means to respond with ability. To stand behind our word and show up is part of being accountable. To choose commitments based on clear intentions, and to live up to them, is a signal to others that you are a person who is reliable. Striving in this way reduces fear of the judgment of others and supports freedom.
Demystifying a free, independent, and mature human being. - Learning and Assessment
David Morse’s ideas in his book, Triad Education, identify three modes of learning: dependent, interdependent, and independent. Who gets to decide what is to be learned, how is it to be learned, and how is it to be assessed? The authority figure? The learner? Both in a negotiation? This powerful picture has great implications for our ability to sustain a democratic form of government.
Triad Education lays out foundational issues about balance to support effective learning. - Methods to Assess My Learning
Imagining we are outside ourselves, assessing our attitudes, habits, and behaviors, we can strive to get an objective glimpse of how we are operating. If we want to be free and independent, reliable and confident, we need to be able to assess whether or not we are learning from what is appearing before us. We can do this as a practice.
To assess our own learning can work to liberate us from outside influences. - Red and Green Listening
Listening is by far the most difficult among speaking, listening, reading, and writing. How we listen often determines the health of a relationship. We can Red Listen, listening for the faults, inconsistencies or errors a person makes. We can Green Listen, listening to understand both the ideas and the speaker, listening for the strong thread and the insightful. Listening practices can be cultivated, depending on who you want to be and how you want to interact with others. It takes work.
Choosing how we listen, to snipe or to support, is up to us. - Critical Listening Skills
What should we be able to do if we have been listening with a critical thinking mindset? What difference will it make to our relationships if we are able to think into and with the speaker? How can we test ourselves? What can we do if we are able to discern what we understood and what we didn’t?
Critical listening requires us to wake up and stay awake. - Deeper Listening
Deeper listening is a creative activity, where one is co-shaping a space for the human spirit to grow between the parties. This can be the beginning or an ongoing part of a healthy, thriving relationship. One puts oneself in service of the other, suspends judgment, and remembers that love is patient.
Deeper listening can take us to where we truly seek to go. - Deeper Listening Specifics
Becoming increasingly conscious of our demeanor, our posture and movements helps us convey our intention of service. We become storykeepers as our partner is the storyteller. We block out interference, and discipline our racing minds to be a calm center and welcome the silence as well as the speaking.
To be known as a great listener is to be known as a mature human being. - Deeper Listening for Managers and Team Leaders
Through becoming deep listeners, managers and leaders can accomplish far more indirectly than they could ever make happen directly. Deep listening conveys deep caring, and asserts the worthiness of the speaker. Staff feels seen, recognized, and valued in ways that no other communication form or act can offer. Failing to listen is a display of contempt, evidence of the “non-listener” operating from a superior plane.
Deep listeners release energy and thoughtfulness for their staff. - Asking for Feedback
As we strive to learn new things, it can be helpful to ask for feedback from those with more experience. To enable this process to be effective, we need to ask ourselves “What is my purpose?” We need to ask ourselves, “What, specifically, do I want?”
Once we are honest about this, we can help prepare our more experienced helper to contribute toward what we truly need and want.
Asking for feedback requires deliberate and candid preparation. - Receiving Feedback
To fully benefit from effective feedback requires that we see this not as an event but as a process. There is preparation, there is the presentation, and there is the reflection, adaptation, and appreciation. Effective feedback can be invaluable but we need to help those giving us feedback, and we need to show our appreciation by demonstrating how we have improved as a result of their help.
Receiving feedback is a process, not a solo event. - Giving Feedback
What is my purpose in giving feedback? Is it solicited or unsolicited? Is it scheduled or spontaneous? Is it private or in a group? What are the possibilities and what kinds of feedback help most?
Giving feedback can strengthen or wound relationships. - Leading and Supporting
With the complexity of today’s issues, “command and control” leadership is both toxic and oppressive. Hierarchy can work for routine issues but, in general, we cannot afford to have followers: we are either leading or supporting the organization’s various activities. This is a much higher standard and requires higher levels of consciousness and maturity.
The time for followers is over; we are either leading or supporting. - Beyond Control
Our habit life and residuals from paradigms in place over the past 60 years need to be addressed. “Command and control” was justified and accepted as a form of organization. What assumptions lie under our worldview, and how can we raise these deep feelings, or hidden expectations to the surface? How do old habits of “command and control” impact organizations?
Control issues and muddy expectations continue to haunt organizations. - Aspects of Leading
When in a leading role, an individual needs to take on four main areas of focus: modeling, providing instruction, building trusting relationships with the operating environment, and inspiring all those involved. Because of our history with conventional leaders from the past, people are sensitive to every gesture, omission and expression given by their leaders. As Thoreau said: wake up and stay awake!
It is an art for the individual who is leading to blend the four main functions. - Descriptors of Managing
Managing is different from leading. It has more to do with hands-on, shoulder-to- shoulder rhythmic work to keep operations moving forward. It is about building healthy, trusting relationships with staff and other managers. Skilled managers are crucial and, generally, Millennials don’t quit jobs, they quit managers.
Managing is about indirectly supporting the flow of work. - Leading and Managing
In many organizations, individuals are playing diverse roles: leading at times, managing, and supporting at other times. It can be helpful to audit one’s areas of work and the time invested in each, to see how your work functions are playing out relative to each other. Do your colleagues see what you see? Do your supervisors or staff understand what you are seeing?
It can be helpful to audit areas we are leading, managing, or supporting. - Total Quality Management
W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993) was a pioneer of the first rank. His thinking and continuous improvement methods are more appropriate for complexity than competing approaches dubbed “managed by objectives.” His work revolutionized Japan’s prowess in quality products, technology, and his 19’ statue stands in the Toyota pavilion in Tokyo. US business leaders simply could not tolerate the change his methods required.
Achieving quality requires profound knowledge of human nature. - Designing Effective Meetings I
Design is the first signal of human intention, according to William McDonough. Our intention in meetings needs to be focused on the experience of the participants. We can let meetings happen or we can design them. The design elements include process, culture, and content.
Most meetings, virtual or in person, are poorly designed. - Designing Effective Meetings II
Effective meetings include design that incorporates our human nature as thinking, feeling, and willing beings. There is the pre-meeting, the set meeting time window, and the post-meeting. All three have opportunities to enrich the experience of the participants and strengthen the capacity of the organization by building trusting relationships. Process, culture, and content all need to be shaped by clear purpose.
Designing effective meetings takes knowledge and consciousness. - Adult Learning
Coenraad von Houten, in Awakening the Will, identifies the path for adult learning, and articulates how different it is from how children learn. If we are serious about developing original work as adults, we have a series of steps to consider. Mastery, by George Leonard, also identifies patterns of how adults learn, and clarifies the path of mastery.
Today’s complexity calls responsible adults to step up their self-education. - Equity, Equality, and Fairness I
As we try to come together, to understand each other, words can get in the way if we are not clear about what we mean. Equity and Equality are commonly interchanged as if they meant the same thing. Fairness is hooked to them in a hodgepodge way and we are talking past each other. Expanding these core concepts and their relationship can support meaningful conversations.
Equity means something very different from Equality. - Equity, Equality, and Fairness II
Fairness, justice, is essential if we are to live together in peace. Yet, is it our intention to do so? What about historic and chronic injustices? How is this related to inclusion? What is my part in the perpetuation of injustice?
What is my role and relationship to chronic injustice?
Why Invest in Self-Knowledge for Leading and Supporting Now?
Read Co-Founder Jane Lorand's Reasoning.
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Key "soft" skills and practices that humans in the world need today provide the focus of the Catalytic Thinking Labs in this Arena. We put “soft” in quotes because that word leads people to think that these skills and practices are easy to acquire. Not so!
It has been said that many of the ideas and skills you will meet will be familiar but here they are raised to a level of consciousness that is both helpful and practical. We all know that listening matters; there are five skill-building Labs on various aspects of listening and its role within organizations. We all know leaders and managers, but do we understand the differences in the roles? When are we leading? When are we managing? What does the task need right now?
2020 - Not a Time for Followers
It is our view that we can’t afford to have Followers in the decades beginning in 2020. We need humans who are either Leading or Supporting. Followers can be dangerous merely because they do not care if they know why they are doing what they are doing. They are too easily manipulated. We need people who are engaged in the work of the society or organization or family – people who care enough to show up for what is needed.
Clarifying Key Concepts
Whether we are leading or supporting, we need to have clear concepts that are appropriate to the issues. For example, there is a lot of talk about accountability. There is a lot of time and money headed to assessment. If we think that accountability and assessment are the same thing, we are confused at the most fundamental level. What we buy, from a powerful and lucrative industry, is assessment; what we want is individual and group accountability, which is not for sale at any price.
Similarly, if we think equity and equality are the same thing, fairness and justice will elude us. There are Labs to help us realize that equity is almost the opposite of equality in many, many situations. Occasionally, they align, but it is rare. Until we know what we are talking about and the meaning of the words, we will be flummoxed and easily turn on each other.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Another industry sells us information about compensation, performance reviews, and extrinsic attractors for new talent and retention. In the Labs we explore the relationship between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. People want meaningful work. They want to be able to have some control over how they work. They want to work in a social and warm cultural environment where they can grow as professionals.
All the carrots and sticks cannot make people stay if their intrinsic motivation is not nourished by these conditions. All the raises, bonuses, trips, and promotions cannot make up for the lack of them. Over time, (and we want productive people to stay,) they ring hollow just as did the A’s, gold stars, and praise that came our way when they were used to manipulate us.
The system of performance reviews introduces so much toxicity into organizational life, all under the cloud of fear that people won’t give their all so we have to monitor them as if they were reckless children. Of course, performance reviews help management decide who gets which carrots and sticks. It is a divisive force and what, exactly, does it accomplish? What are the actual costs when viewed systemically?
Assertiveness
Assertiveness can be challenging in organizational life. We recognize when we are being passive or aggressive, for the most part. Each has an upside and a downside, short–term, and long–term. Yet, to build a habit of being assertive, giving, and receiving ideas through effective speaking and listening – this is an important set of reminders and practices.
Studying a spectrum from passive on one end and aggressive on the other – where are we normally in our daily practices? What difference does that make to our capacity to build healthy relationships with colleagues?
Soft skills? Easy to learn and integrate? Not exactly!
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Contributing with Self-Awareness
There is a significant amount of cynicism about leaders today and for many, a strong sense of betrayal. Yet, what if capable people fail to step up? What if we have too few capable people, who could grow into the role but lack the self-knowledge and the confidence. To build a solid foundation in the so-called "soft skills" enables us to lead a gesture of spiraling up to more and higher accomplishments.
We live in a time where self-knowledge is in short supply. Technology has sapped many of the social "trials and errors" in real time "in person", of previous eras as today we are so often behind screens. Yet, we need authentic leaders. We need astute supporters, which is a far, far more challenging role than being a follower or spectator. These Labs bring us face-to-face with the "how to" of these specific challenges.
Catalytic Thinking Labs
It's time to move beyond just talking about change.
We'll change how we act when we change how we think. Strengthening my thinking now is something tangible I can do.
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