insights

Part of the rich experiences of 2007 was the opportunity to be a member of the inaugural cohort of 24 students from eight countries who participated in the foundation year of the Master of Arts in Integral Theory degree at John F. Kennedy University.

The Certificate program comprising the first 12 months was a 48 week course in four semesters covering 10 units to provide a sound grounding in Integral Theory. The course was conducted on-line 24/7 with two residential intensives held in Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California and faciltiated by a remarkable faculty of practitioners.

The courses in the foundation Certificate program covered:

Integral Theory and AQAL
Integral Methodological Pluralism
Integral Applications
Integral Spirituality
Integral Life Practice

Applied Phenomenology
Developmental Psychology
Psychological Assessment
Multiple Intelligences
States of Consciousness

What was unique for me, apart from the opportunity to work with some of the best minds and facilitators in this emerging field, was the chance to research some papers on topics that I would not otherwise have had the chance to look into and integrate into my practice. These were:

1. An AQAL reconstruction of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of countries
2. Reconstruction of Integral perspectives on radical feminism (Radial Feminism)
3. IMP analysis of Indigenous Australian cosmology and the spiritual dreamtime
4. AQAL Integral Ecology analysis of an eco-conservation and restoration project
5. Spiritual Kosmic Address analysis of Jelalludin Rumi and the emergence of 13th century Sufism
6. The harmonisation of trichotomies in ILP using Developmental Action Inquiry
7. A meta-perspective on Integral thought and practice using A.H. Almaas’ Nine Holy Ideas
8. Generation of the self-other line from birth to enlightenment with reference to Buddhist Lojong practice
9. Holarchy of subtle state consciousness progressions in navigation of the self-sense through archetypes
10. Integral applications and the shadow-psyche in principles-based sustainability management
11. Meta-reflections on the major modes of applied phenomenological inquiry (Husserl to Mahamudra)
12. The nine base energy-aikido forms in the 180 combinations of subtle-body-mind psyche-interactions.

That sure was a big (but delicious) meal to swallow in one gulp …

- burp!

As 2006 fades into the memory there is a brief chance for reflection. This year marks the close of a five year period for FCG and a busy year itself. The theme for the year was large systems change. The insight is into the impact of unseen leadership.

There was the focus nationally on water sustainability with the community consultation for the State Water Policy Framework, the development of the Water Reform Blueprint recommendations, moderating the Water Forum at the 2006 Future Summit and the design of Water Sustainability simulations to enhance our response capacities. In other places where the community is in surprise and needing urgent water management approaches, the proactive continue to prepare for the certainty of an uncertain future. Now holding over 3500 perspectives on water I know what a fully recharged aquifer must feel like.

There was travel to Sydney, Melbourne, Denver, San Francisco and Perpignan, France to continue participation in the Integral Community and the emergence of different aspects of integral practice globally. In August the initial Integral Theory program offered at John F. Kennedy University in San Francisco was launched, which I was accepted into. In September I gave a brief presentation at the second Integral Sustainability Seminar. In October I was invited to attend the first Integral International Development (Integral Sans Frontieres) group meeting in France. In December the initiators of Integral Africa began the next stage of their inspiring leadership journey. It is a great credit to the leaders of these groups who have been working for several years towards this point to now see the calibre of people attracted from all corners of the globe to continually contribute to these spaces.

The year in statistics was 41 flights, 56 workshops, involving 1,350 people, working in teams with 85 people from 16 countries, travelling over 106,000 km and also emitting 36 tonnes of CO2 (now offset as FCG is a carbon neutral organisation). The statistics mean little. The people mean a significant amount. This blog is an honoring of the invisible leadership that was clearly apparent in all the events mentioned. What continues to engage my attention is the passion and commitment of the people with whom I have the good fortune to work. While the knowability of when the work they are doing will be complete is distant, their clarity in the reason why is for them completely present.

Read more:
Integral Africa Case Study
Future Summit 2006 Report
Integral Sans Frontieres - Resources

In the myriad of management theories regarding motivating people in their work there appears one approach that holds a combination of truths. In 1971 Dr. Clare Graves delivered an insightful (but obscure) paper titled “How Should Who Lead Whom to Do What?” (Read). It suggests that motivation theory may not have found the answer because we have been asking the wrong question.

The paper was before its time as it takes an integral systems view - looking at the psychology of the leader (I), the values of the led (WE), the policies in place (ITs) and the work to be done (IT) - so as to develop a whole approach to any management situation. His proposition: If any one of the four are out of alignment at their different levels, effectiveness is threatened.

Graves, in integrating many fields of personal and industrial psychology, concisely summarizes his conclusions on the styles needed for the management of the most talented:

“In this system the means to the end or organizational goals are restructured to fit the individual characteristics of the organizational member, rather than attempts to restructure that person to fit the organizational needs. The manager’s role is to rework the organization so that its goals are achieved utilizing the people as they are, not as someone wishes them to be or perceives they should be (1981:8)”.

Graves acknowledges here a subtle but profound premise - that people are already motivated. The perceived problem is that we would prefer they were motivated to do the same things we are - and in the same way. The paper goes on to ask the very different question about motivation theory. Rather than how to adapt people so as to motivate them, it asks how should we adapt our leadership to enable people who are already motivated to contribute at their best. It asks a question of us about our true motivation - not theirs.

The essence of his understanding has two truths. The first is that leadership is the art of leading people as they are. The second is to recognize when we are leading as we are. Which of the two approaches is easier: adapting our leadership style to the many ways people find meaning in their existence or requiring people to adapt to what we find meaningful? Not only is the second extremely difficult, in large and diverse organizations, it may also be unconscionable.

In Graves’ own words:

“This proposition is well represented in many managerial situations today. In many firms that I have observed I have seen training programs wherein the policy was to change the beliefs and ways of behaving of the manager. These firms developed managerial training programs designed to modify the beliefs of the manager as to how work should be conducted in order to bring them more in line with the organization’s preexisting methods and beliefs. (Seilers, 1968, p.134) These programs do not try to fit managerial development to the beliefs and ways of behaving that are those of the managing person. They attempt instead to get the managerial person to change his or her beliefs. When organizations foster this kind of incongruency they cast the managing person into a severe value crisis – a crisis which more often than not, reverberates to the detriment of effective performance in his managerial situation.”

In the emerging field of values management there is an enticingly real risk that while ostensibly respecting peoples’ values we will instead seek ways to manage those values. Seeking to manage people by managing their core values will have its own problems. Only those blinded by cleverness will walk into this trap. As any manager knows, people have a great resilience to being how they are.

To assist the unsuspecting, Graves has pointed us to a truth that helps us discern our own leadership motivations and the appropriateness of our leadership style - before we inquire as to the motivation of others.

For the leaders of Generation Y, and also for the new Generation Y Leaders - this simple truth is becoming increasingly apparent, as both seek to manage, and be managed, as they are.

Learn more:

Gen Y Talks - (Link)
Talking Down to Gen Y - (Link)

I was asked to give the closing lecture to this years graduating class of my old alumni last week. Something to allow reflection on their leadership journey and to help prepare for the next stage was the request. So we worked with Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey Cycle.

What was interesting was that some of the Masters graduates had travelled far and wide and had many more paths to explore on their journeys. Others were not on a journey. They had covered a great distance, but without travelling too far from home. Each had got different benefits from the experience. So what is it about leadership development programs that make them work - and work for different people in different ways?

The answer came at the same time as an accidental reunion of fellow journeymen from the Kimberley Odyssey we completed in May. Between us we have trained and worked with hundreds of leaders and read thousands of books and research articles on leadership development and all the questions they raise. That doesn’t mean the answers came easily.

At the Breakfast Brainstorm on Leadership we attended, all the participants had the opportunity to work through the same questions: about leaders being born not made, the role of mentors and false guides, the importance of development through challenge and trials, the role of self-awareness and why only some answer the call.

Within the many elements of the many stages of the complete leadership development cycle touched on in this forum in many parts - there emerged one theme. ‘You can not hope to lead others if you can not lead yourself.’ Leadership is different in its style and form in different environments, but it is the same in essence. It is about personal leadership first.

This gave me cause to reflect on the essential nature of leadership and the perspective required to lead, with the conclusion: ‘If you are ever to lead others you must be prepared to go on the journey yourself.’ That is your journey - not anothers.

From this we learn that leaders are both born and made, each person having their own unique leadership potential, that they must choose to find in themselves, before it can be developed. In the rush to develop leadership we sometimes take the ‘person’ out of the personal development component. In finding another’s style of leadership we may never find our own. When we understand this can we cease looking for ‘leadership’ and begin to find the true leaders.

The failure of leadership programs are rarely in their intent, but often in their design. When we realize that any program that does not ’see’ the unique complexity of each individual within its form will only develop a type of leadership - but not the leader within, we begin the real work and a journey into the unknown.

For those that have commenced their actual journeys - Go safely and with courage (and enjoy the view).

(More on the Hero Monomyth)

I recently was doing work with Rio Tinto’s project management team for the Yandi expansion and as an aside we looked at the 3 A’s of stress management.

To alleviate a stressful situation it helps to decide if it is something you can Alter, Avoid or Accept. Different strategies apply to each. Knowing which approach is appropriate doesn’t change the circumstances, but does mean you do not have to stress about it. This marks a shift from the management of stress to the questionning of whether the stress should exist.

Today the latest Journal of Humanistic Psychology (Vol.44/No. 3) arrived and in it is an article on ‘hardiness’. Hardiness is the ability to embrace an ambiguous future rather than just do what is done in the past. Essentially it is the ‘courage to be’.

Researcher Salvadore Maddi has conducted a 12 year longitudinal research project into the multiple components of hardiness which he groups into three C’s - Control, Commitment and Challenge. What is interesting is the link between the 3 A’s and the 3 C’s. The A’s are the approaches, the C’s are the capabilities needed to execute them. Both are needed as different facets of the whole.

Paraphrasing Maddi’s conclusion: “To tolerate and resolve stressful situations one must see them as:
a.) natural developmental pressures (Challenges to Accept)
b.) resolvable rather than unmanageable (Control to Alter) and
c.) worth investing in (Commitment or Avoidance).”

Those managers with high hardiness scores thrived on stressful situations and outperformed other groups. Those that had low hardiness scores, when faced with a new challenge, chose the past and were at risk of eventually entering an inescapable cycle leading to meaningless and boredom. As a result Maddi and his colleagues have been working out how to develop ‘hardiness’ and existential courage in organisational leaders.

The next stage is when an organisation itself develops this existential courage (avoiding a similar cycle of decline resulting from the acceptance of a stressful workplace).

All of this links back to the role of coaching in leadership development and the process of reversing ‘learned pessimism‘ in organisations - where the stressful actually then becomes the meaningful quest. This leads us to the insight that to find purpose in the challenges of our work, we must learn to break the cycle of belief (and acceptance) that life is meant to be stressful.

Understanding the 3A’s, (the 3B’s - see below) and the 3C’s is a simple way of beginning.

(and for those who understand the Enneagram - here is a way to manage the whole complexity- FCG Stress Enneagram)

Leadership Excellence is “insights” name for finding out who in an organisation is going to be there to lead when the organisation needs them most.

When an organisation’s efforts create new growth the organisation expands. From a holistic leadership and management perspective, growth is not two dimensional (like a line of a revenue chart) but more like an expanding balloon.

While the rest of the world profits and complains from high executive and staff turnover, or instead are busy searching to find leadership from within, others confidently know who will be their new leaders.

Will every organisation eventually suffer a crisis of leadership? Leadership Excellence is where that question is answered.

Leadership Excellence is also FCG’s way of being able to know who are tomorrows leaders and “whether they will be ready when the organisation is there?”

Interesting questions ~ but what is surprising is how many find themselves too busy and stretched to be able to work out the answer before time?