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The effectiveness of a leader often depends upon an
ability to communicate effectively to his or her followers. In the
'Art of Waking People Up', Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith point
out that the only way to measure the effectiveness of any communication
is to determine whether or not the listener understood what the
speaker intended to communicate. This depends on the degree of awareness and attention the speaker gives not only to the words but to the invisible elements that influence the listener's interpretation of the communication: The authors recommend paying close attention to the following ten elements: Literal Meaning
Environment
Process
Relationship
Understanding
Intention
Emotional Effect
Acceptance
Awareness
Congruence
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In Leadership A to Z, James O'Toole points out that
to some the central task of leadership is change while to others
it is continuity or coherence. For those in one camp, change is
not an option in today's hectic world and leaders must envision
and lead effective change to stay ahead. For others, what can be
more important for a leader than to gain the behavioural alignment
of followers with an O'toole suggests that we should reframe the way we think about leadership … that true leadership has two primary, and equally important, dimensions: Alignment and Adaptability. Alignment He states that "the first task of a leadership team is to create Alignment between its vision and the behavior of all the individuals in the organization. This means nothing less than creating coherence among all operating systems in a business-including planning, budgeting, measurement, and rewards. Well-aligned organizations succeed because all their efforts are focused toward a common end. " Adaptability But he goes on to point out that "Alignment contains the seeds of its own undoing. Well-aligned organizations ultimately fail because they lack the capacity to respond to the inevitable changes that occur in all operating environments. Thus, Alignment, by itself, leads to inflexibility and, eventually, organizational extinction. That is why the second, and equally important, task of leaders is to create the institutional capacity to engage in continuous renewal" - in other words Adaptability. O'Toole maintains that Alignment requires the disciplined, left-brain tasks of present performance whereas Adaptability demands the creative, right-brain tasks of preparing for tomorrow. At a minimum, therefore, leaders must be mentally ambidextrous. Seamless, Parallel Operation In O'Toole's view, effective leadership is a dynamic process of Alignment and Adaptability working seamlessly in parallel to create organizational Alignment around current activities while at the same time initiating new activities-and sloughing off, or abandoning, dying ones. In contrast, poorly led organizations seldom get Alignment
right and even more rarely do they manage the trick of Adaptability.
And they never get the two elements to work in parallel. Instead
they are characterized by distinct periods of inflexibility, crises
and revolutionary change. —————— |
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organizations
values, principles, vision and mission; to focus the activities
of followers in a consistent, useful direction? |
by Mickey Connolly and Richard Rianoshek "I can easily show hundreds of millions of dollars of additional profit directly attributable to our work on high-performance conversation." - Greg Marten, Vice President and General Manager of Supplies Operations at Hewlett Packard. This is the kind of return on investment
that Connolly and The authors define Greg Marten's 'high-performance conversation' as 'well-designed listening and speaking that creates high-velocity value'. And they define 'value' as 'what customers and investors are willing to pay for, that employees are willing and able to provide'. They maintain that you can accelerate that kind of value if you:
The fundamental starting point in their approach is to focus on what the authors term 'Intersection' conversations. In other words conversations built around the common ground where the purposes, concerns and circumstances of all parties overlap. Of course, this means being willing to research the point of view of anyone whose support you either desire or require. However, Connolly and Rianoshek maintain that Intersection conversations are only a starting point - to achieve high-velocity value you have to go further and, like an architect, consciously design your conversations. They point out that most people make the mistake of thinking that they already know everything they need to know about communication and conversations. |
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But the authors have learned through their work in process transformation that the greatest results come from examining a system with two characteristics:
They maintain that we need to have an awareness of how conversation generates perception, meaning, action, and learning and craft our conversations with this awareness for the specific purpose of creating value. With this as their basis, they go forward to provide a conversational model, called 'the cycle of value', that promotes teamwork, creativity, planning, accountability and learning. They also caution against the antithesis, 'the cycle of waste', through which relationships are lost, organizational capability and creativity decline, teamwork diminishes and value deteriorates. The Cycle of Value Connolly and Rianoshek's Cycle of Value is comprised of three primary conversation types:
Align Align conversations unite people to pursue a valuable opportunity and are the launchpad for the Act and Adjust conversations. Poor alignment generally results in problems of teamwork, creativity and resource allocation. Connolly and Rianoshek describe three critical elements
of alignment - Intersect, Invent and Invest. People discover shared
purpose at the intersection of their individual purposes, invent
ideas for achieving those purposes and invest time money and key The authors also describe a tool they call a Conversation Meter that can be used to assit you in seeing where you are now and how to accelerate. |
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Find out more, click
here or call us at (416) 657-2331
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Act Once people are aligned, Act conversations make commitments explicit and initiate action. The three elements of act conversations are engage, clarify and close. Engagement occurs with those responsible for carrying out the action and functions by connecting their best interests to the purposes at stake. Expectations are then clarified and the question of accountability is closed through explicit promises to deliver measurable value. Adjust After actions are undertaken, Adjust conversations turn lessons learned through experience into improvements and ensure that the focus on purpose is maintained. The authors describe two elements of adjustment - review and renew. Accountability occurs through the public and timely review of results and efforts are renewed with the lessons learned. Adjustment conversations are called for if:
The Cycle of Waste The Cycle of Waste starts with Disagree conversations. In disagreement, people:
The likelihood that anyone will fully share another's agenda and is automatically aligned with their desires is small and if people do not actively and intentionally search for intersections, then differences will multiply. Having passed through Disagree we enter the Defend stage. If we win the disagreement, we expect the losers to be committed to the course and if they are not, we defend ourselves and blame them. If we lose in the disagreement stage, we may be compliant but are not committed to the course and will most often lose no opportunity to prove that it was the wrong course to take. Winners and losers end up in a defensive posture anchored in the past - original positions and individual agendas - instead of in a committed team working together toward a common goal in the future. And finally we end up at Destroy. Expectations are not met, failures must be explained, fault is found, poor performers are punished, efforts are undermined and Disagreement abounds - taking us back to the start of the cycle with ever increasing momentum. Once this cycle has started, it takes intentional effort to move conversations to the positive cycle of value and the authors emphasize that unless you change the conversations you will not change the behaviour. In summary then:
Don't let the elegance of this straightforward model lead you to conclude that this is all you'll find in the Communication Catalyst. In fact, Connolly and Rianoshek utilize it to explore the implications on topics ranging from teamwork to change management, offering new perspectives and insights all along the way. And to help demonstrate the principles in action and embed them in memory, the authors have woven an engaging parable throughout the book. An insightful read that will provide a return on investment almost immediately. —————— |
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Rianoshek
maintain can be achieved through an engineered approach to communications
such as the one they describe in their new book, The Communication
Catalyst.
people in the ideas that advance their purposes. If all three of
these elements are present you get authentic alignment rather than
cheap agreement and if alignment is strong so is commitment.
