David Lane and Martin Down
Are these uniquely difficult times? And if they are, how do we coach our clients through them?
We are told we are living in unprecedented times, so what does the evidence have to offer when there is no evidential precedent? What might the leader of an organisation or team do that adds value when facing unprecedented dilemmas? How do we rethink the services we offer as coaches?
The way leaders contend with turbulence and uncertainty is partly a function of how they deal with uncertainty in themselves. Anxiety and fear can lead to retrenchment; confidence and courage to new opportunities. However, if our purpose is to understand turbulence then we are dealing with the non-linear relationships that characterise complex human systems (Lane & Corrie, 2006).
Within this changing context we cannot assume that the future will be a projection of the past. Nor that the structured step-by-step management procedures and processes of the past will address the needs of a world of constant change, risk-taking and ambiguity. A world in which confidence in conventional wisdom results in an inadequate response to competitive pressures. We are dealing with unpredictable outcomes – what Stacey (2007) calls Complex Responsive Processes.
Problems are tough because they are complex in three ways: “They are dynamically complex, which means that cause and effect are far apart in space and time… they are generatively complex, which means they are unfolding in unfamiliar and unpredictable ways… they are socially complex which means that the people involved see things very differently and so problems become polarised and stuck.” (Kahane, 2007, pp1-2)
Kahane argues that we cannot work from fixed positions of “telling” but rather must embrace values of transparency, creativity and collaborative dialogue. The way in which certain stories come to dominate is, however, an important one if we are to manage complexity. Dreyfus and Rabinow (1983) framed the way priority is given to certain forms of knowledge as regimes of truth. Using this concept Lane and Corrie (2010) suggested that too much of our thinking and actions are reactions to what has been defined by others because we have internalised these regimes of truth.
The critical challenge for leadership in this financial crisis is how we can be better prepared to anticipate the unpredictable and overcome the blindness that comes when our dominant focus is so absorbed by the immediacy of the moment or regimes of truth. There is increasing evidence that new challenges can no longer be solved in the conventional leadership paradigm.
In future, leadership will be more about balancing the art of leading uncertainty with certainty – and adapting the approach to address both. We need to understand the impact of the stories we tell in unpredictable contexts as well as tell better stories.
This needs to be balanced with a greater focus on the leadership of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity as well as certainty, which typically focuses on short-term goals.
This has fundamental implications for the leadership coach. Traditional skill-based and performance coaching focusing on specific skills or performance gaps are more appropriate to certainty. The leadership of uncertainty requires the coach to take a systemic and transformative approach to support the linked needs of the person, their key relationships, the organisation, the customer and the external environment, recognising that they are all interconnected.
How does your approach as a coach deal with that complexity?
David Lane is a coach and trainer of coaches at the Professional Development Foundation, David.Lane@pdf.net
Martin Down is an executive coach and organisational change consultant. He is founder of the Executive Coaching Partnership www.executivecoachingpartnership.com
References
- S Corrie and D A Lane, Constructing Stories, Telling Tales – A Guide to Formulation in Applied Psychology. London: Karnac Books, 2010.
- H Dreyfus and P Rabinow, “The subject and power”, in Michel Foucault: Beyond Stucturalism and Hermeneutics: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
- A Kahane, Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Listening and Creating New Realities, San Francisco: Berrett Koehler, 2007.
- D A Lane and S Corrie, The Modern Scientist Practitioner: A Guide to Practice in Psychology, Hove, UK: Routledge, 2006.
- R Stacey, “The challenge of human interdependence: consequences for thinking about the day to day practice of management in organizations”, in European Business Review, Special Issue – Views from Global Thought Leaders: Current Status and Future Direction,19(4), 2007.
Volume 5, Issue 2