LIBERATING THINKING AND FEELING
Most of us are familiar with the image of the iceberg. It may even have become overused in organisational learning events and feel somewhat passe. However, I believe that it serves us well when we are thinking about organisations through a systems lens; all of the complexity, the rules of belonging, the assumptions and blind spots live below the horizon line. Equally hidden is the deep thinking of individuals, including fears and aspirations, which could transform belonging, learning, innovation and performance.
In this respect, the iceberg represents the head/body split where the ‘heads’ of the organisation are visible above the horizon line, and their thinking (or at least the homogenised corporate version of it) is visible and audible. The visible part often includes the espoused values of the organisation, the posters about commitments to customers or service users, and the published policies and strategies. The audible part often comes from that parental communication place: ‘it’s not up for conversation, this has been decided above my level, it’s a financial decision and the one that crops up a lot in public sector organisations, it’s a political mandate.’
Beneath the horizon, a sense of learned helplessness develops as ‘the body’ assumes it has no say; its role is to implement the instruction of ‘the heads’ in a parent/child type of relationship. Add in hierarchies, ego, status, fear of speaking out and a general lack of assertive behaviour, and you have a fair representation of most organisations that build around a post-industrial model of ‘management’ that no longer serves the needs of the people within the organisations or the customers and communities they serve.
This invisible part often includes silo thinking and micro-cultures that are part of most large systems and the associated patterns of established behaviours that have become acceptable and the norm. The inaudible part is often those internal voices of fear, judgment and cynicism; keep your head down, don’t rock the boat, here we go again, and other well-used deficit-based expressions which in themselves mask a layer of disconnection from self, the team and the wider system.
The idea of a Listening Experiment is closely tied to the strategic aim of Creating a Culture of Learning and Belonging. This section of the toolbox introduces a variety of ways that we can listen and value others, engage in their lived experience and reflect that back to ourselves and in our impact. Focussing on Listening as the central tenet to all of this will shift the system in terms of relationships, processes and ultimately culture.
The idea of an ‘experiment about listening’ might seem far-fetched, a waste of time or so intangible that it doesn’t warrant our attention. First, let’s understand what we mean by an experiment in this context. Often in large systems, change comes from above and is a reaction to political, financial and other external factors. It is not something to be ‘tried on for size’. It is something to get done in a specific way with deadlines and milestones.
An experiment, on the other hand, comes from the language of science. It feels altogether more practical, more flexible, more opportunistic and a fluid process. We are not making mass changes of policy or procedure but shaking up the stuck systems and practices that stifle the very idea of experimentation.
People often ask about the amount of extra work this will make for them. In truth, the ask is that you try to do the things you need to do anyway but in a different way. Trust that learning will emerge, see where you get to and watch with amazement as things change. A reminder of the old adage: ‘If you do what you have always done, you will get what you always got.’
The next question is, why is it about listening? In truth, it is about liberating energy that is currently untapped within the system. The best ways to do this are to help people reach their potential and belong in a way that creates a safe space for them to really engage in a heartfelt way with the future.
Two transformational activities that have zero cost implications are:
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- Changing how we listen
- Changing the questions we ask
To successfully make this transformation, we need to truly accept that we don’t know everything and we don’t always know best.
This section of the Toolbox and the associated reading and workshops will begin to provide underpinning knowledge about how this works and why and, most importantly, provides a series of practical tools and frameworks that we know work and are sustainable. This way of engaging others is not a one-off, but a complete shift to leading in community instead of leading in hierarchy.
CHANGING HOW WE LISTEN
Thinking Space and Thinking Environments
At the heart of the idea of Thinking Space and Thinking Environments is the work of Nancy Kline. This is the reason we have given you the book ‘The Promise that Changes Everything’.
A central part of the Listening Experiment will be for you as leaders to create the time and space for yourself and for others to think. This instils a belief from you that people can and will think for themselves when the environment and pattern of inquiry are designed as enablers to great thinking.
This differs from meetings with agendas, team plans and performance conversations. It is a space and time that gets to the heart of thinking and feeling within the organisation and discovers how this can be harnessed to deliver real transformational change. The Thinking Space challenges the old world and creates space for ownership, engagement and personal accountability. The Thinking Space is enabled by the creation of a Thinking Environment and the associated rules of engagement that you have already experienced in our workshops.
Resources: Thinking Space
Helpful additional information
Watch some fantastic clips of Nancy Kline speaking about what has inspired her work on Thinking Environments.
Empathy Journeys
Empathy journeys are conducted to enable us as leaders and change-makers to really understand the thoughts, feelings and experiences of others. This is strongly linked to the development of excellent powerful questions and the work around levels of listening and rules of engagement.
Empathy journeys find out what is going on for people in the system. They get underneath titles and dismantle assumptions through genuine inquiry and listening. These empathy journeys can take many formats, from a one-to-one conversation to intensive shadowing, to graphic recording and films.
Whatever the methodology, the purpose remains the same to discover what you can’t see and feel.
Resource: Empathy Journeys
Levels of Listening and Inquiry
Otto Scharmer and his colleagues at MIT have identified four levels of listening and inquiry. This is linked to the work on Powerful Questions and Appreciative Inquiry. The four levels of listening are:
Downloading
Listening from the assumption that you already know what is being said, and therefore listening only to confirm habitual judgments.
Factual
You pick up new information… factual, debates, speak your mind. Factual listening is when you pay attention to what is different, novel, or disquieting from what you already know.
Empathic
You see something through another person’s eyes. Empathic listening is when the speaker pays attention to the feelings of the speaker. It opens the listener and allows an experience of standing in the other’s shoes to take place. Attention shifts from the listener to the speaker, allowing for deep connection on multiple levels.
Generative
This deeper level of listening is difficult to express in linear language. It is a state of being in which everything slows down and inner wisdom is accessed. In group dynamics, it is called synergy. In interpersonal communication, it is described as oneness and flow.
Resource: Levels of Listening
CHANGING HOW WE ASK QUESTIONS
Powerful Questions and Appreciative Inquiry
We have all read the books and done the workshops about questioning techniques. We know about open, closed and leading questions, and that is all helpful. However, the idea of Powerful and Appreciative questions takes the idea and impact of questions to a whole new level. Sadly, in organisational life our sense of curiosity, our open-mindedness and our natural inquisitiveness is not engaged. We ask rhetorical and mundane questions as a way to pattern communication, not really from a sense of genuine interest. Questions are often ‘loaded’ by who is asking them and shrouded in assumptions about why they are being asked. As a result, responses are ‘safe’ and inside the rules of what it is ok and not ok to say around here.
How many times have you asked, ‘What are you looking for?’
This question and others like it are borne from the linear idea that there is always a right and a wrong answer and that is predetermined. None of this creates an interest in the quality of thinking and ideas that lie beneath the surface of every person, every team and every organisation waiting to be liberated.
Questions that have the power to make a difference are the ones that engage people in an intimate way, confront them with their freedom, and invite them to co-create a future of possibilities. Achieving accountability and commitment entails the use of questions through which, in the act of answering them, we become co-creators of the world. It does not matter what our answers to the questions are, powerful questions are the ones that cause you to become engaged as soon as you answer them. You no longer have the luxury of being a spectator of whatever it is you are concerned about. Regardless of how you answer these questions, you are involved in the present and have a say in the future with all the responsibility that entails.
Resources: Powerful Questions
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
Appreciative Inquiry is a framework that brings together Thinking Environments and Powerful Questions in a practical way that you can use in almost any situation. It is a central part of how the Listening Experiment will unfold over the next few months as you take the tools into your operational environment and do old things in new ways.
Appreciative Inquiry was developed by David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western University about 25 years ago as an alternative way to bring about change in organisations, teams and individuals. This framework builds on strengths and believes that everyone has greater potential than they currently display, including the potential to be creative with ideas for improvement. There are numerous examples of where Appreciative Inquiry has been used in Healthcare.
Appreciative Inquiry invites us:
- To recognise the best in people and the world around us
- To perceive those things which give life, health, vitality, and excellence to living human systems
- To affirm past and present strengths, successes, assets, and potentials
- To increase our own value and the value of others by doing more of what works
The philosophy is built on the following principles:
- The Constructionist Principle: We do not see the world as it is, but as we are
- The Poetic Principle: We all have a story to share, and those stories have value and possibility
- The Simultaneity Principle: We can create powerful positive questions that will unlock powerful positive stories
- The Anticipatory Principle: We can imagine more than is currently real; tapping into imagination gives us more to think about
- The Positive Principle: We can choose to have conversations about a positive future
So what about problems?
This is one of the most frequently asked questions about Appreciative Inquiry. We are not saying deny or ignore problems or that problems don’t exist. What we are saying is that if you want to transform a situation, a relationship, an organisation or a community, focusing on strengths is much more effective than focusing on problems for all of the reasons we have already explored.
We often work in situations where there is anxiety, tension, stress, apathy, and low morale and motivation. Frequently, when we invite people to turn their attention from what is wrong to when they are at their best, conflict can turn to co-operation and a willingness to move forward.
We do not dismiss conflict, problems or stress. We simply do not use them as the basis of conversations about the future. We listen when they arise, validate them as lived experiences, and seek to reframe them. There is always another way of looking at things and all Appreciative Inquiry does is ask you to start the conversation about the future from a place that believes that people want something better and, given the chance, will step up and make that happen.
This is likely to be more sustainable than management-led problem solving that can be deficit based and blame orientated. People may do what is asked of them in that situation, but only because they have been “told” and not because they have the desire or ownership of the future.
Please take 15 minutes to watch the 2 videos below and note any questions. The first is an overview from a UK psychologist Sarah Lewis who has written and practised AI extensively in the UK and worldwide, the second a practical introduction to the 4D model, which is ‘how’ you do AI.
Resources: Appreciative Inquiry