informal coalitions

Muddling through – with purpose, courage, and skill

Several months ago, I spoke briefly with a manager during the lunch break in a senior management workshop. This followed a presentation by the Divisional MD, in which he had comprehensively overturned the performance projections that had been presented only a few minutes earlier by the local finance managers. This sudden 'about turn' had taken managers by surprise and sparked many such informal conversations during the break.

I suggested to the manager that, despite outward appearances, what he and his colleagues were actually doing, day-in-day-out, was "muddling through"¹. And that this latest intervention was just another example of the messy reality of real-world organizational life - both a product and producer of that ongoing messiness.  Muddling through, I suggested, is simply the best that we can do, if we are to take seriously the complex and uncertain dynamics of organization in which we are all participating.

I was not meaning to suggest by this that managers can't make a difference by their actions. Clearly they can. Less still was I arguing that they should throw up their hands in despair. But I did remind him of what we'd discussed on many previous occasions: That is, that managers need to pay attention to what they actually find themselves doing in practice, rather than being overly fixated by the formal structures, rituals and routines of organization. This was, after all, the essence of our many previous discussions on what I call "the wiggly world of organization".

Making progress by paying attention to the everyday realities of leadership practice ahead of idealized prescriptions

In a new LinkedIn Group associated with the Centre for Progressive Leadership, members were recently invited to answer the following question:

"What are your top five 'must haves' if we are to see progress in the field of leadership?"

In response to this, and echoing my recent paper for the Centre entitled Taking Organisational Complexity Seriously, it seems to me that meaningful progress depends on the willingness and ability of managers to:

• understand and engage more insightfully with the complex social reality of organizational life;
• avoid the lure of simplistic, “if you do this, you’ll get that” prescriptions; and, in the words of Ralph Stacey,
• accept that "Managing and leading are exercises in the courage to go on participating creatively despite not knowing." 

At present, there is a wide gap between the established ways in which people understand and talk about organizational leadership, and the current reality of what leaders actually do in practice. Rather than prescribing some idealized future state based on prescriptive 'must haves', therefore, I thought I would respond to the question by offering five ‘already haves’. That is, five ways (amongst others) in which people's experienced reality of organizational life and leaders' actual behaviours already run counter to the ways in which these are supposed to operate according to conventional management 'wisdom' and common discourse.

These five 'already haves' are reproduced below.

Thoughts on “soft power” and the dynamics of informal coalitions in organizations

Over the years I’ve had an aversion to the use of the adjective "soft" to describe anything associated with the dynamics of organizations.

Most particularly, the use of the term "soft skills" to describe the people aspects of leadership capability tends, in my experience, to subordinate these in some managers’ minds to what they see as the ‘real work’.  More importantly from an informal coalitions perspective, the association of 'the people side of organization' with what is often dismissively referred to as the "pink and fluffy" stuff means that the very fundamentals of organizational dynamics – the complex social process of human interaction – get lost.

This process is far from ‘pink and fluffy’. It is power-laden and political. It involves the coming together of people with differing and often competing interpretations, interests, ideologies, and identities. Much of the process takes place informally, ‘in the shadows’ of the formal structures, systems and procedures. And it is influenced by taken-for-granted patterns of assumptions that have arisen over time as a result of past sense-making-cum-action-taking interactions. All of these factors, and others, arise because organisations are dynamic networks of people interacting with each other. So it seems to me that an understanding of these dynamics, and how they impact upon business change and performance, should be at the heart of HR practice. Sadly, it isn’t.

"Soft power" exercised through coalitional activity

So what about the notion of "soft power"?  Mark McKergow has identified this as one of the central characteristics of "Host Leadership" that he advocates in his related website, and about which I blogged earlier. Is this similarly tainted by the use of the adjective "soft"?

Leadership communication - the conversations are the work

In a recent couple of posts (here and here), Johnnie Moore explains why he so dislikes panel sessions at meetings and conferences. And why these – like other formats that marginalize ‘audience’ participation - fall so far short of common-or-garden conversation as an effective and engaging mode of communication.

“They [the audience] probably deep down want conversation, but the whole format deprives them of it. Starved of relationship, of course they struggle to relate successfully to others in the room.

I'll go a bit further with this. The panellists themselves probably want a conversation too, but are onstage and self-conscious, so they give a performance of a conversation instead of having
a real one.”

I agree wholeheartedly with Moore on this. And with the general thrust of his argument.

Facts never speak for themselves

This morning, I happened to catch a brief exchange on Radio 5Live's "Your Call", hosted by Nicky Campbell.  The topic of the day was the Government's plan to change the way it deals with the funding for children who are deemed to have Special Educational Needs. The proposed approach would allow parents to choose alternative forms of expert help for their children, rather than support being restricted solely to that provided by local authorities.

One of the callers was irate at what she described as an attack on local authority funding and "a tax on our children". Campbell interrupted her to point out that, earlier in the day, Children's Minister Sarah Tether had categorically denied that the change was aimed at withdrawing support from children.

"Well she would say that, wouldn't she?" the caller responded curtly - seemingly oblivious to the ideological basis of her own comment. That is to say, it would be equally valid to state in response to the caller's own remarks, "She would say that, wouldn't she?"

Onus on Liberal Democrats to prove that coalition politics work

Following an indecisive outcome to Thursday's general Election in the UK, talks continue on the potential for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to work together in some way to deliver successful government.

It is obvious that differences exist between the two parties on many of their policies and their core ideologies.  However, it seems to me that the onus is primarily on the LIberal Democrats to demonstrate that different parties can work together effectively "in the national interest". 

It is presumed that the main 'sticking point' in the negotiations is likely to centre on electoral reform, with the Lib Dems wedded to full-blown proportional representation and the Conservatives remaining steadfastly in favour of the current, "first past the post" system.  One result of the former arrangement would be perpetual coalition or minority governments. And so, it is in the interest of the Lib Dems to show that 'strong' (in the sense of credible and workable) government can be forged by different - and otherwise competing - parties working together in partnership. 

Coalition government? We’ve never had anything else!

As election fever - or, depending on your perspective, election fatigue - grows in the UK, the prospect that no single party will have an overall majority after the 6 May General Election is dominating political discussion and media comment.

Following the first-ever televised leaders’ debate, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg won viewers’ acclaim for his performance. And, in these ‘instant fame’ times of The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, his party’s prospects rose dramatically – at least according to the post-debate opinion polls. That surge in potential support has been halted to a degree, following the second debate in the series. But the Lib Dems still appear to be running a close second to the Conservatives in voter popularity.

Overall, then, this promises to be one of the most interesting election nights of modern times. But why are politicians and commentators so exercised by the thought of the Nation waking up on 7 May to what – in UK terms – has traditionally been viewed as a weak, indecisive result?

Rogue leader or change leader?

In a recent post, When A Leader Goes ‘Rogue’, Allan Kelsey argues that what he calls “rogue leadership” occurs …

“… when a person of influence begins to cause others to follow them away from the originally agreed ideal. …a departure from the intent of the original focus or the intent of the originator.”

Kelsey maintains that this practice is destructive “… because it portrays an imbalance of power, it dilutes or even derails the corporate vision and it breaks alignment”. And he therefore calls for “swift and decisive action” to deal with it. 

At first sight, the dysfunctional nature of the sort of behaviour that Kelsey describes appears self-evident. But are things as clear cut as he suggests? Is movement “away from the originally agreed ideal” (or even the current one) necessarily a sign of trouble? Or is it instead the very way that change happens in organizations?

What is the leaders’ role in OD?

This is the penultimate post in a short series, which looks at the nature, relevance and management of OD/change during the challenging economic climate. It builds on my responses to questions posed by HRZone's Annie Hayes, which feature in her article Downturn downtime? Organisation development in a recession.

This post focuses on how leaders can increase the likelihood of achieving successful organizational change and development.

More on the psychological and emotional impacts of change

In a previous post, I commented on Stephen Billing’s interesting and informative series of posts on the work of Patricia Benner. In them, he draws insights for the leadership of organizational change from Benner’s work on patient care. This explores the practice of professionals in dealing with people’s experience of health and illness, growth and loss. And, as Billing points out, people going through change similarly experience growth and loss.

In my commentary, I suggested that I could see parallels between the dynamics of change as set out in Informal Coalitions and Benner’s four "aspects of humanness" (embodied intelligence, background meaning, concerns, and situation) that informed Billing’s posts. And I want to explore those further here.