Tackling the Undiscussables:

Taming the Elephant

Without Getting Your Head Bitten Off

Sherry Schiller, Ph.D.President, Schiller Center

sherry@schillercenter.org

www.schillercenter.org

801 Duke Street, Alexandria VA 22314 USA

703.684.4735

Goals for this Session

• Review key elements of Collaborative Strategic Leadership

• Share effective strategies for addressing the most common “undiscussables”

• Offer ways to frame “undiscussable” issues that benefit all

2

Best/Worst Exercise

• What are the traits of the best/worst social systems you’ve experienced?

The Essence of Collaborative Strategic Leadership:Spirit & Order

The Collaborative Strategic Leadership Loop

Define

DesignAlign

Refine

What are the Elephants Sitting in Your Organization?

Lack of transparency?

Rumors about cutbacks?

Leadership issues?

Low morale?

Lack of clarity about where we’re going?

Internal hunkering down/competition?

Not much fun any more?

Expected to keep doing more with less?

?????

Are There Any Elephantsin Your AFP Chapter?

• If so, what are they?

• What are they costing the Chapter?

• What could/should be done about them?

The Three Biggest Elephants

1. Culture

2. Leadership

3. Change

1. Culture Elephants

• Culture:– The totality of socially transmitted behavior

patterns

• Organizational Culture:– The basic assumptions, shared values and beliefs

that guide the way organizational members behave toward each other and approach their work

1. Culture ElephantsUnderstanding Culture Styles

1. Culture ElephantsStrategies to Build a More

Constructive Culture

2. Leadership Elephants

• Failure to lead?

• Wishy-washy?

• Personal agenda?

• Manipulative?

• Authoritarian

• Micro-manager?

• No drive?

• No vision?

• Worse?????

2. Leadership ElephantsStrategies for Helping Your Leaders Lead

• Motivators in the workplace

• Understanding communications issues

• Confusion about leadership

• Competing leadership roles

• Others?

2. Leadership ElephantsSummary of Leadership Skills

Key Points

1. The two basic objectives of any group are to:Achieve its goals

Maintain the relationships among members in good working order

2. Leadership Is the performance of any actions that help the group achieve its goal and maintain

cooperative relations among members

2. Leadership ElephantsSummary of Leadership Skills (cont.)

Task Behaviors

1. Share information and opinions.

2. Seek information and opinions--ask questions.

3. Give direction and guidance to group work, keep group focused.

4. Summarize.

5. Give energy to the group.

6. Diagnose group difficulties.

7. Encourage group to move beyond normal boundaries and to be creative.

8. Make sure that group has the information and resources needed.

9. Test reality--how practical are solutions?

10. Evaluate group products as compared to group goals.

2. Leadership ElephantsSummary of Leadership Skills (cont.)

Group Maintenance

1. Help members know what is expected of them, and how to plan

to accomplish those expectations.

2. Encourage others to participate.

3. Relieve tension.

4. Clarify communications.

5. Monitor and evaluate emotional climate about work and each other.

6. Practice active listening.

7. Harmonize and compromise--search for common elements in conflict, be a peace-maker.

8. Set standards--keep the group's goals in focus.

9. Solve interpersonal problems (constructively keep anyone from dominating

the group, keep the group comfortably moving toward its goals, etc.

10. Communicate with group members between meetings--send e-mail notes,

follow up with promised or relevant items, greet others in passing.  

2. Leadership ElephantsCompeting Leadership Roles

Internal Focus External Focus

Flexibility

Stability

Domain: The OrganizationDomain: PeopleRole: The Motivator

Domain: The FutureDomain: InnovationRole: The Vision Setter

Domain: The Operating SystemDomain: EfficiencyRole: The Analyzer

Domain: The MarketDomain: PerformanceRole: The Taskmaster

From Deep Change, by Robert E. Quinn

2. Leadership ElephantsInfluence & Roles

• What are the issues?

• Can they be re-framed?

• How can you increase

your influence?

• Some basic truths…..

3. Change ElephantsUnderstanding the Change Process

• Holding on

• Ending and letting go

• Void, Abyss, Wilderness

• Renewal, Moving On

3. Change ElephantsHow Change Occurs

• Incremental change

• Transformational change

• Tipping points

• Transformational change as a subversive activity

3. Change ElephantsOften-Used Strategies that Seldom Work

When Dealing with Resistance

• Break it down

• Avoid it

• Discount it

3. Change ElephantsStrategies for Dealing with Resistance

• Share Change Agenda Widely

• Act on change agenda

• Heighten awareness of resistance

• Honor and support

• Inform

• Engage, Explore and Learn

• Check and modify

• Establish organizational accountability and support

3. Change ElephantsSuccessfully Communicating Innovations

The Cardinal Rule for Introducing Innovations

The key to successfully introducing innovations is the perspective of targeted users.

The innovator's perspective is irrelevant and often counterproductive.

3. Change ElephantsWhat Adoptors Must Perceive in an

Innovation• 1. Values compatibility• 2. Perceived advantage• 3. Significance• 4. Simplicity• 5. Trialability• 6. Communicability• 7. Reversibility• 8. Relative Costliness•  9. Credibility• 10. Observability• 11: Reliability• 12. Safety

3. Changing ElephantsRecommendations for Effecting Positive Change

 • 1. Involve and empower all stakeholders as early and as completely as possible.

 • 2. View every communication as an opportunity to "sell" the innovation.

Communicate about it differently with different audiences, depending on their needs and perspectives.

 • 3. Focus on the quality and effectiveness of implementation activities as well as

promoting the initial idea.

 • 4. Give it time--remember, different people and institutions have different rates of

acceptance.

•  5. Be ready for the unexpected--and ready to capitalize on crises, which often cause people to seek innovations.

3. Changing ElephantsRecommendations for Effecting Positive Change

(cont.)

•  6. Stay flexible and adjust to changes in leadership.

• 7. Keep your eyes on the goal, but stay open to modifications in how to get there.

 • 8. Take advantage of temporary and informal systems in building support for

your innovation.

• 9. Expect more of yourself than you do of others; periodically reexamine your goals and methods.

• 10. Remove your ego and personal identity from the "sale" of the innovation.

Applying it all without Getting Your Head Bitten Off