An Experience with the Center for Creative Leadership

Opportunity does knock from time to time. This blog, set up in December 2006, was found in February by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) in Greensboro, NC. They were planning a day and a half event wherein leaders who had experienced Hurricane Katrina would share their experiences in the interest of uncovering lessons for leading in times of crisis. Among the ways that CCL wanted to capture the event was through the use of a graphic recorder, and we subsequently agreed to work together.

Funding was provided by a private donor who asked that CCL consider something “edgy,” so the event design was a lesson unto itself. Ten leaders who had dealt with the storm and its aftermath were joined by a “discussant” team of about twenty made up of CCL faculty and representatives of various agencies. The work day began with David Horth leading a Fish Bowl, wherein participants took turns observing and participating in dialogue. That was followed by a Visual Explorer exercise, wherein participants selected an image that conveyed meaning about their experience in the storm, and then conveyed those feelings comprehensibly to others. This first day ended with an abbreviated form of Open Space Conversation, and then the next day began with a Mind Map created by the entire leadership group.

The event concluded with a summary of the lessons learned, using a method of dialogue in which everyone could “talk and listen” at the same time. When the event began, the discussants were on networked laptops connected to each other by groupware. They could do things like keep personal journals and text message others in the room about what they were seeing and hearing. Eventually the leaders were able to join in, and this final morning concluded with everyone live and online. Specific questions were framed by a second facilitator, Jerry Abrams, and as individuals typed their thoughts into the system at the bottom of the screen, they could see what everyone else was saying at the top. Literally, about thirty people were all talking and listening at the same time.

At back of the room, things were a little simpler: markers, chalk and wide roll of paper. Usually I have to either lead the facilitation or at least co-facilitate while also producing the images; it is rare that I get a day and a half to just draw, so I made the most of it, filling about 70 square feet of paper, including the sketch pad used during the Open Conversation. In the presence of all the sophistication and technology “just drawing” felt pretty crude – at first. I was absolutely unprepared for the reactions that were to come.

As the day wore on, there was constantly someone watching what I was doing, and there were small crowds at breaks. There would be comments like “That’s how it was!” Near the end of the day, David Horth asked if I wanted to talk about the work. I suggested instead that he invite the participants to take a “gallery walk” by it all, and that he might even invite them to sign it. That’s what they did, over the course of several heart-felt minutes. One of them observed “The technology certainly captured the facts, but the drawings captured the emotions.”

What Can Planning Learn From Design?

If you ask for volunteers to participate in the design of a new building you’re likely to have plenty of takers, especially if your audience has a stake in it. Now, imagine asking that same group to help with a strategic plan – odds are the response will be much less enthusiastic. Why is that?

In my still-limited experience, it’s because architecture is generally approached with high expectations of creative endeavors, whereas when planning involves the non-physical the images that come to our minds include boring meetings, wasted time and nice books that end up on the shelf. For purposes of this discussion let’s narrow our field of reference: the setting is a university campus, the design involves a prominent new building and the planning involves the institution’s strategic plan.

What could the planning learn from the best of design?

• There’s an evident commitment up front: someone believes in what’s about to take place, money has been put on the table and there WILL be results. Can we say that about most strategic plans?
• Processes are in place to facilitate creative activity. The selection of designers is based on talent, for example. And what’s the favored mode of communication? Visual images! What do the best teams do? They “draw” our thoughts and dreams out of us right before our very eyes. How was your last strategic planning conducted?
• The act of construction requires a thorough assessment of context, as it is recognized that the building interacts with and depends upon its immediate environment. Think of what’s considered: soils, materials availability, weather patterns, local trades, traffic and sight lines. What was in the last environmental scan that your campus did? You did do one, right?
• In recent years the entire idea of context has taken an additional form that merits a bullet on its own, and that’s Sustainability, where higher levels of thought are given to the life of a structure and the demands that it – as well as its uses – will make on systems, resources and future generations. How would most university planning look different if we believed – especially in the public sector – that we had to sustain ourselves rather than assume someone else would carry the freight?

Let’s not be totally one-sided, however; what could design learn from the best planning practices?

• When planning is committed to discovery, generative processes are often used that forestall “problem-solving” in the interest of problem design. The result is a level of authenticity that creates shared visions and a belief in the possible outcomes.
• The resulting shared visions are maintained as a frame of reference throughout the work. Many design teams begin this way, but few can keep it alive for the duration. Architects become overwhelmed by tradespeople, the campus leadership that began the work gives way to bureaucrats, and contracts become inflexible barriers rather than the enabling tools intended. Before you know it, participation and collaboration are equated to herding cats, and the most important goals are to be “On Time and On Budget!”
• Planning can be an iterative process, continuously involving large groups. Agreed: the expense of design and construction dictate that iteration is eventually ended well before completion, but there is room for improvement. In an article entitled “ChangeIsNow,” AIArchitect describes how a disproportionate number of decisions are made late in design, when possibilities are constrained and mostly the “experts” are involved. The author suggests it is time to “shift the curve to the left.”
  
• Planning can actually use prototypes that can facilitate the early wins suggested by John Kotter. There is an opportunity to try something out, see if it works and either make adjustments or proceed with confidence. In most design projects, the building IS the prototype. What design practices are out there that will let us take an idea out for a spin?

Change and the Past

End times are tricky things to deal with, Bear said. – Charles Frazier, Thirteen Moons

If end times are tricky, the past is even more so. When we are working with change, it can take varying roles but one constraint applies to all: our pasts must be respected.

Sometimes the past has to be confronted so that we can be released to move forward. Poignant examples can be found in Adam Kahane’s Solving Tough Problems, where leaders and change advocates had to face painful memories and their individual responsibilities in them before all could focus together on new futures. Situations far less resolved can be found quickly if you live in the South, where some of us have yet to get over the Civil War. “Southerners are funny about that war” said the late Shelby Foote.

Sometimes the past is restated by those who profess to lead change but are fearful that they need an edge in the process. Past leaders are denigrated and their efforts are condemned, the good with the bad. Decisions from a very few years before are proclaimed as poorly thought through and inconsiderate of stakeholders. Whatever the initiative now at hand, it’s might be called “Our first ever…..” Maybe the accusations are true, or maybe they are designed to eliminate any risk that the achievements of the past might cast current projects in an unfavorable light.

In this latter case, harm is done in several ways. In the mystery Mister White’s Confession, by Robert Clark, Mister White has a lifelong defect in which he cannot accumulate memories of any duration. Clark observes that we cannot possess the future as it is not here yet, and the present is even more resistant. The only thing we truly own is our past.

If we succumb to the temptation to tarnish the memories of others to brighten our versions of the future, several kinds of harm can occur. Past relationships and accomplishments are suddenly a dangerous topic of conversation. Stories that hold people together with their “tribes” can no longer be told.

You don't have anything / if you don't have the stories. / Their evil is mighty / but it can't stand up to our stories / so they try to destroy the stories - from Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

Far from honoring while also departing from the past as described by William Bridges in Managing Transitions, the foundations of our present are good for nothing but the dustbin. Grieving, a natural part of change, cannot take place, and healing and renewal are impeded. Changing ourselves in the interest of a different future is hard enough without also having to make needless changes in our memories.

Not only might we do harm to others, we can also shoot our own selves in the foot. Kahane quotes Bill Torbert: “If you’re not part of the problem, you can’t be part of the solution.” That theme is expanded upon in Presence by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers, where the point is made that by disassociating ourselves from ownership of the present by blaming it on those who came before us, we externalize the situation and resultantly those who are truly a part of it. By taking this low road we do not empower ourselves as change agents, but become powerless instead. In addition, those who have had success with methods of Appreciative Inquiry know that the past typically holds successes that can fuel momentum toward the future.

As stated at the beginning of this piece, sometimes the past and our relationships to it have to be confronted, but it has to be done with respect. For those of us who hope to lead change:

1. Don’t castigate the meaning that individuals attach to the past only as an effort to lure or prod them to your vision of the future;
2. Don’t diminish your ability to lead change by separating yourself from those who need your help by failing to respect the past and its place in our present and future;
3. Where a group’s view of the past merits hard and painful reconsideration, they have to do that for themselves. As leaders of change we can help them, but we can neither force it nor do it for them.

Concepts from Graphics

I think I just had a first-time experience with a graphic producing a totally new concept. I was asked to record a meeting about a possible new research center. 70 people had been invited, but there was no way of knowing if even 5 would show up. The meeting's leader didn't want to commit to any form of process, so it was agreed we would play it by ear.

That's a tough approach for me. Frequently accused of being anal, I prefer to go in with at least one plan that will work, and then alter as needed based on circumstances. On this occassion I had recently been reading some of the Grove material about the improvisational aspects of this business, so I decided to give it a whirl. I also decided to try harder to "build an image" as opposed to just large scale note-taking.

47 people showed up - really great for the issue at hand. The leader gave an overview, and then invited the attendees, almost all of whom were research active-faculty, to introduce themselves and describe what they were doing. As you might expect, this consumed the entire meeting. What I did not expect was that the energy level never went down. No one left during these endless monologues, and the last to speak was as enthusiastic as the first. As all of this was going on I was recording at the front of the room on a 4' X 16' sheet of paper. Several people came up afterwards and commented on how much they liked it, and in reply I asked a few questions to ascertain how helpful it might have been.

Near the end of the session there were key comments made about the overall goal and about the use of "other people's money." I began to regret that the goal item was so far away from the start-up notes, as it seemed really central. Then it occurred to me that the money item was extra-significant as well. All this bubbled up in my brain about 15 minutes before a follow-up meeting two days later with the meeting leader. I can't work that fast in Photoshop, so I used a scissors and some scotch tape and away I went.

I showed my paste-up, and asked if this was all about improving health care in eastern North Carolina and using other people's money to do it. "That's a mission statement!" she exclaimed. The Photoshop version of what she was shown is here to the right.

How they do it at the Stanford School of Medicine

I've been talking to various medical colleges about how they manage their planning processes. Recently I spoke with David O'Brien at Stanford, who shared a very generous amount of his time describing their background and processes, and answering my questions. Below is a diagram made to help with future recall of the conversation.

Thoughts on Heifetz, Kahane and Lewis

The opening session at the 2006 IAF Conference in Baltimore featured a panel discussion around the relationship between leadership and group facilitation. Strong cases were made for the possibilities that could lie in combinations of the two, and the demand for “facilitative leadership” was heard. Those chickens have all come home to roost as I have recently read two books and part of a third in sequence and over just a few days. What follows is much less a review of them than a suggestion to go and take a look.

I have always been circumspect if not cynical about the importance that so many organizations attach to leaders and leadership. Just a little reading about the likes of Horatio Nelson and Thomas Jefferson is convincing that even the “great ones” are at least as flawed as the rest of us, and we should be careful to use the broader society to assure that most of what emerges from leaders is good. The first book added some necessary layers to my simplistic view.

In Leadership Without Easy Answers, Ronald Heifetz describes leadership as “mobilizing people to tackle tough problems.” A distinction is made between “technical” and “adaptive” leadership, terms also used in the Baltimore discussion. Whereas technical leadership is a matter of knowing what to do and when to do it, adaptive leadership involves conflicts in values, or gaps between values and reality, neither of which lend themselves to easy answers. In adaptive work, change and transformation are the preferred outcomes, and these require work by the many rather than the few or the one.

Beginning with an assessment of “the gap,” a leader can take a path of shifting and/or sharing the work of major change to those being led, taking care to provide a productive environment and to match the rate of the presentation and discovery of issues to the capacity of the collective to deal with them. From a facilitator’s standpoint it makes for fascinating reading as it provides insights to a leader’s constraints and risks that actually come from both stakeholders and subordinates, as in the final analysis both are the sources of the leader’s authority.

Two of the case studies Heifetz uses are the Civil Rights movement and the Viet Nam War, issues – as well as leaders - seemingly far larger than most of us in this business will face. The relevance of the messages was improved, however, by the next book, Solving Tough Problems. Adam Kahane has not been involved in the Viet Nam War, but has instead dealt with national-scale issues in places like South Africa and Guatemala. His book describes his experiences in dealing as a facilitator with large-scale adaptive issues, involving groups both large and powerful.

Kahane describes his experiences and the lessons learned in how groups can come together to talk and listen meaningfully. The huge challenge and subsequent value of adaptive processes such as “generative dialogues” comes through in the quote from one participant: “We did not put our ideas together. We put our purposes together. And we agreed, and then we decided.” If there are doubts about the feasibilty of the approach described by Heifetz, Kahane begins to show what actually occurs among people that makes transformations possible. Of particular note were the ways he describes “listening,” such that I’m now trying to relate that to occasions when I was using graphic recording as a tool for tuning in my own attentiveness.

The third book in the trio, Excellence Without a Soul by Harry R. Lewis, sharpened the messages of the other two by way of contrasts. I may try again later, but so far there has been little appeal in what comes across – to me at least – as a hatchet job on Harvard. (Oddly enough, Ronald Heifetz works at Harvard.) In all fairness, this is a book about the issue of purpose in great universities and not about planning or leadership per se. The book has value, however, at least as a reminder of the inability of much of the world to appreciate facilitative leadership.

“They discovered that a great curriculum does not crystallize out of scribbling by bureaucrats or squabbling among professors if the leaders cannot breathe into it direction and purpose.” Should we not think of a leader as someone who can mobilize the discovery of direction and purpose? Compare the quote, and its implied dependency upon leadership for purpose, to the experience described above, where a group put its purposes together. The need is argued for a leader whom “others will follow, not unquestioningly, but with confidence and respect.” Faculty, students and staff are then compared to “volunteers” who need motivating accordingly. It recalls Kahane’s broadened description of apartheid systems as well as Heifetz’s explanations of how adaptive challenges can be mistakenly treated as technical issues.

The need for enlightened and enabled leadership proclaimed in Baltimore is ever-present. Some of the tools for creating it, however, are before us in two of these books.

Experiences with Different Visual Methods

My post of December 23 broached some of the questions I have about graphic facilitation and its use. At the same time that I’m in a hurry to see how really good I could become at it, I still seek an adequate understanding to make sure that groups really benefit from it. It would seem way too easy for it to become a slick trick that electrifies everyone on site but is immediately forgotten “back at the store.”

I’ve talked to a couple of faculty in our School of Art and Design. Gil Leebrick teaches photography and is also the gallery director, and after meeting Jennifer Landau I asked him if this stuff is real. His response: “What is the root word of imagination?”

Mike Dorsey, a painter and dean emeritus, was also encouraging, citing the emotional power of images. Mike suggested that the fact that the wall graphics are being produced live and with the risk of error adds a way of capturing attention. For this reason, he suggested caution in facilitating with digital tools: they lend the ability to fix an error, a group knows that and the effect is diminished. Hmmmm…..I’m not totally positive, but it does add to the worry I feel over just how few blank flat walls are available on a college campus.

I wonder too if a group shares the experience of the facilitator’s contact with the paper. In an earlier post I told of the experience of artist William T. Williams touching a canvas, and occasionally I experience something sensual when I really mash the wide side of a stick of cheap chalk across clean white paper. Can a group have that same kind of feeling, and obtain a sort of affirmation not only from seeing the record of their thoughts but also from a near-tactile experience of the recording?

In recent months I’ve had opportunities to graphically record and facilitate, and I have also used The Workshop Method on a Stickie Wall. I don’t understand the difference in the way groups respond to each method, and an experience in a session in Tempe is one example.

I co-facilitated the meeting with Phyllis Grummon for the Society of College and University Planning. After a lot of discussion she and I agreed to begin the session with the Stickie Wall and cards, and then move more loosely into an open-ended discussion. Thinking that we would do everything with cards, I was without my roll of paper and had to “collage” with easel sheets instead. A “final report” with a little PhotoShop work is shown here.

The card session was rather detail-oriented. We pulled a lot of information out of our participants, and then worked through a process of getting it organized into meaningful content. As usual I was amazed and impressed with how well it works. Following that portion, Phyllis led a very open conversation exploring a broader context, and I recorded what went on. At the end of the day, we had produced a distinct but unanticipated rationale around which we will undertake the task at hand. We were all pretty pleased.

Before letting everyone get away, I asked for reflections on the methods we had used and their effectiveness. I don’t believe anything was volunteered about the Stickie Wall and cards; I asked a question or two about them, received a short positive answer and then the conversation floated right back around to the graphic recording, which went on for a while. One comment that stands out in my mind was that no one had ever seen notes AND relationships among them coming together at the same time.

From a personal standpoint, that recording session let me go off into some other world. Phyllis managed the conversation, so all I had to do was act like a “flow-thru tea bag.” So, yes, it was good for me. I’ll keep trying make sure this kind of effort is as good if not even more beneficial for the groups contributing to it.