Collaboration Catalyst has a New Home!

We have moved to a brand-new blog at Wordpress.

(The new blog includes an archive of ALL the posts from this blog.)

Please visit and bookmark now. The new URL is easy to remember: 

www.ico-consulting.com/blog/

What is a “Learning Organization” & Why do You or Your Business Even Care?

Let’s start with the second part, because that’s what’s really important…

Why do You Care?
Learning organization methodology looks at interactions and connections that surround issues, not just individual issues. This allows your business to expand it’s scope & produce results faster. That means less time & less money spent to produce better results. Great.
Learning organizations inherently have awareness of the dynamics of change & the ability of people & organizations to transform. This gives a competitive advantage. The company that learns as it goes can handle change because it sees it coming & is prepared for it. That’s good for investors; its easier on management & great for the bottom line.

So, What is a Learning Organization?
A learning organization is not a college or university, as its name suggests. It is not a group of people studying the best techniques or the proper way to educate. Instead it is, well, jargon. It is a business management term given to a company that continually transforms through facilitating knowledge & awareness in its personnel.
The company does this to maintain fluidity, to address the fact that the frameworks of industry, markets & methods change. Companies are involved in continually expanding global & cultural parameters & increasing competition. Encouraging evolution of this framework allows for more efficient adaptation.

Doesn’t that sound good? A group of people growing, increasing their value which is increasing the company’s value, which is in turn growing. It’s a beautiful thing, in theory and in practice. And, theoretically, it contains 5 features.

5 Key Components:
1. Systems Thinking: Seeing how things interrelate and interconnect and are part of a common process.
2. Personal Mastery: Education for each individual to help them to develop.
3. Mental Models: Assumptions that must be challenged because they shape and limit our thinking.
4. Shared Vision: Common goals and desired end-state that motivate teams and groups to learn and act in concert.
5. Team Learning: Learning how to learn and develop potential collectively.

Peter Senge developed it. [See The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook by Senge, Kleiner, et al] The business management world adored it. And you should know about it!

3 Tips to Maximize Team Learning

Part 5 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

If teams learn more effectively, they can get more done, and they make better decisions. Here are 3 tips to help the team maximize what they learn:

1. Pay attention inside
2. Pay attention outside
3. Take action

Tip #1: Pay attention to what is going on inside you
Paying attention inside is listening to your own thinking; are you tracking what’s being said, are you resisting, opposing? Paying attention to your inner discourse is useful to help you be present. Your presence helps others be more awake and attentive.

• Where is your mind? Are you wandering outside in the sunshine, thinking about your shopping list, wishing you were back at your office? If you catch yourself drifting, bring yourself back to the room and to what’s going on right where you are.

• Notice your emotions. Emotions help us connect with others, and if we are aware of your emotions, it helps us relate and connect. Understand why you have an emotion: knowing when and why you feel anxiety, pressure, pain, or light-heartedness can help you be more present with yourself and others.

• Know and identify your triggers and reactions. When you know your triggers and don’t act on them you have a bit of wisdom. Knowing and speaking about triggers and reactions honestly and openly without attacking anyone takes real skill. When you are triggered, being able to identify it is half the battle.

• Understand what you want to say and why. If you have something to say, want to say something, or can ask a question to help the group learn, is something holding you back? Helping ourselves be in the flow of conversation enables us to contribute in ways that are helpful and needed.

Tip #2. Pay attention to what’s going on outside and around you

When you notice what is going on, it helps you and others have more opportunities to engage and support the group to maximize their learning. When the team is learning and interacting better, they make better decisions and create better results.

• Attend to what the group is saying and talking about. Notice if the group is talking about the topic they are supposed to be talking about or not. If the group is off-topic, sometimes it is helpful to lead them to get back on track. Other times it may be a worthwhile conversation. Discerning the difference is useful to the whole group.

• Pay attention to how the energy of the group is moving. Is there a “stuckness” in the group’s conversation? “Stuckness” means a repeated pattern that takes over and limits the openness and flow of conversation.If the group is going around and around a topic, it helps to notice and name it for the group, and this can help break the repetitive pattern. If people are stuck, you can help to guide the group back on track.

• Are one or two people talking rapidly; are some people turned off and not talking? If only a few people are talking, you can help include more people in the conversation. Sometimes a silent person has a great deal to contribute and is struggling to make an entry.

Tip #3. Take action that supports the team’s learning.

It is helpful to make the best move you can to help the group and yourself. Here are some different kinds of moves & examples:

• Suspend, which means to hang something out there, for the group to look at
  
  -tell the group what you’re thinking or feeling
  -if you are reacting and it feels right to tell the group, do so
  -if you see a stuck pattern, name it to help the group see how stuck they are. When the group can identify when they get stuck, this helps groups work with collective patterns of stuckness and limit constraints on team effectiveness

• Ask questions to deepen the group’s learning and improve their collective thinking. Ask about assumptions, data, barriers, and success factors. Explore themes and agreements and identify disagreements.
  
  -What are the group’s assumptions? If you help a group or team notice assumptions, usually it will have a big payoff in increased understanding and coherence
  -Is someone out on a limb without any data to support them? Helping the group clarify the data that they are working with and that they agree on will ground the group in something real
  -Explore barriers by asking, “What could get in our way?”
  - Identify some success factors by asking, “What do we need to do to ensure we are successful?
  -Notice themes and help the group reflect on what they’re talking about and learning.
  -Clarify themes and agreements to the team will be more successful

Jack Mezirow, the father of transformative learning, said that without reflection there is no learning. Without learning, we just repeat the same mistakes over and over—isn’t that a definition of insanity?

4 Things NOT to Say in a Meeting: False Questions & their Consequences

Part 4 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

The last three blogs have been a serious look at the power of questions to get better results. In this blog we are working with the flip side—the power of questions to derail and harm.

Questions are powerful: they can open or they can close; they can invite or they can shut down. It is important to recognize 4 types of questions that can shut down the conversation. These destructive questions are known as “false questions,” as they are not actually asking anything but are instead used to express distaste often in the guise of humor.

4 Examples of False Questions, What NOT to Say in Meetings:

• Cheap Shot: Cheap shots are a fun banter for the 2 or 3 people involved. For the rest of the group, it is boring and uninviting. A cheap shot is a cutting comment, like a verbal spitball. “What idiot dreamed this up?” “Is English your second language?”

• Sarcastic Rejoinder: Sarcasm has its place—mostly outside a meeting. “You think anyone cares about this?” or “Who dreamed this up?” are sure ways to shut people down. Maybe a few people will keep talking, but the best ideas are often behind a buttoned lip.

• Disbelief: Just registering a question of disbelief criticizes the person speaking. “Are you kidding?” when obviously someone is NOT kidding is a clear put down. “Did you say what I think you said?” After a couple of these questions, who will be brave enough to bring an important issue forward?

• The Barb: Like the cheap shot, the barb is demeaning. “How many drinks did you have before you designed this?” “Who died and made you boss?” are questions that stop everyone from bringing anything new or innovative forward. Asking: “What were you thinking?” is just plain unproductive.

Though meant as a form of humor these questions actually harm more than uplift. Everyone has different ways to respond to cheap shots, sarcasm, disbelief, and barbs. If a shy or sensitive person is the brunt of these kinds of questions, they may never express their great ideas or share their thoughts to help solve tough problems, open new markets, or come up with an innovative way of doing things.

For the most part, these things don’t all show up in the same meeting. Destructive or false questions are posed every now and then. When they are present, false questions distort the quality of the conversation, preventing the team or group from thinking well together. False questions shut down divergent thinking, preventing creativity and innovation from emerging. The only good response to a false question is to say, “Ouch!”

Please don’t take my word for it. Just pay attention. What happens when people are using cheap shots and barbs, disbelief and sarcasm?

Inviting Other Opinions & Supporting the Team through Two Types of Questions

Part 3 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Our last blog looked at clarifying questions and questions that seek information. This time we’re looking at 2 additional kinds of questions:

• Questions that invite other perspectives
• Questions that enable collective learning and understanding

Questions that Invite Other Perspectives

Why?
Questions that invite different perspectives help us understand complexity. Questions that invite other perspectives are extremely valuable in helping groups make good decisions, understand complex issues, and create collaborative action. When we invite other people to give their ideas, we are able to see more of any complex system or issue. Our own perspective is limited, and we need to broaden our view to get a sense of what is really going on.

Examples.
We can invite other perspectives to enhance our thinking. Here are some ideas:

• What are your thoughts?
• What have I missed?
• How else can we do this?
• Who sees this differently? How do you see it?

How?
Reach out to others with an invitation for them to share their perspective. Martha has an opinion about how things need to be done. She says, “We have to include our assumptions in our budgets. If we don’t we won’t be able to align them. How do you see it, Bill?”

Bill is invited into the conversation to think through how to include assumptions in the budgeting process. Everyone in the room listens and participates in the conversation. People collaboratively align their actions in a meaningful budgeting process.

Questions that Enable Collective Learning and Understanding

Why?
Understanding things better leads to better decision making. The idea is to look at things together. Questions that seek to enhance collective learning help us engage collectively so that there is meaning among us. And, because we understand things better, we make better decisions and act more effectively.

Examples.
Helping a group learn together with good questions is the apex of inquiry. It helps to be in a conversation that has a level of openness and trust. Here are some possible questions:

• What have we decided in this meeting?
  
• What have we learned here?
  
• What is most important for us to remember about what we talked about today?
• What do we understand differently after our conversation?
• How will we hold ourselves accountable for the agreements we have made here today?
• What was different about today’s meeting? What worked for us? What didn’t work so well?

How?
Listen to what people say in response to a good question. Inviting other perspectives is not a hollow exercise; when we listen to peoples views with a willingness to be influenced, we see a bigger picture and broader horizon.

Welcome Dissent. If someone disagrees with you, say, “That’s a different perspective,” and ask, “Can you tell me more about what you are thinking?”

Making a Valuable Contribution to Meetings by Asking Good Questions

Part 2 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Asking questions is an important way to contribute to a meeting. Most people know how to give their point of view without hesitation. It is more difficult to ask good questions. When we do, it enhances teamwork, group understanding, and positive action. To insert a good question, listen carefully to the conversation. Track what is missing or needed as people talk, and add your question in the flow of the conversation.

Here are some overall guidelines for questions:
Make questions open-ended, so the question can’t be answered “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.” A good question requires a thoughtful response, at a minimum a sentence.
Listen to the answer: inside and out. What was said and what did it mean? What was our reaction? Listen with a willingness to be influenced.
Respond. Engage in the conversation.
Ask another question and engage the group in an inquiry that leads to greater understanding

There are several kinds of questions:
Questions that seek information
Questions that clarify
Questions that invite other opinions and points of view
Questions that support collective understanding

Not all questions are useful. Sometimes, questions are phrased in a way to advocate a point of view and not necessarily to invite a response. I like to call these “false questions”, and will talk more about them in the fifth blog of this series. The focus of this particular blog will be on questions that seek information and to clarify.

Here are a couple of examples of questions that seek information. Guess which ones are the open-ended questions:

a. What do we need to do to complete the project on time and under budget?
b. What can get in the way of our completing the project on time?
c. Do we need to complete the project by the 15th of this month?
d. What tasks or deliverables have we overlooked in our project plan?

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Question c just clarifies the date—it’s answered with a yes or no, do we have to complete it by the 15th or not?

Questions a, b, and d are open-ended questions that seek information to help the entire group. The conversation the follows will lead to answers that will help the whole group understand the task at hand and how to avoid potential obstacles. Once you get the hang of it, open-ended questions become second nature and will play a valuable role toward giving your team needed traction.

Now that you’re seeing how important questions really are, how would you respond to the following statement:
A frustrated project manager throws down her pen: “This project is going off track in a hurry.”

The easy way out would be to just button your lip and let someone else take the heat, but that won’t solve anyone’s problems. This would be a perfect opportunity to ask a clarifying question, which helps to gain perspective from another. Again, good questions asked in an open-ended manner will help provide more information and determine what is truly needed. You might ask one or more of these clarifying questions:

What is going on?
What is making you so concerned?
What can we do to get it back on track?
What are the consequences of the project being off track?

The 4 examples are all open-ended, and the project manager can express why she is frustrated. These questions help the project leader and everyone present understand what has happened. Then with additional open-ended questions and ideas about possible actions, people know what to do to get the project back on track or how to mitigate the damage.

Clarifying questions help flesh out the information so that unanswered questions and concerns can be addressed. Clarifying questions are not only used when things are going wrong; they can also help clarify a new idea or potential solution.

Here’s another application of a clarifying questions. George presents a new idea for a process improvement at a group meeting. The following questions will help clarify the nuance of this proposed improvement:

How will your idea impact our bottom line?
What do we need to do to implement this idea?
How would we test this to make sure there are no unintended consequences?
What are the benefits and risks of implementing this?

Clarifying questions are a useful tool to ensure that their are no uncertainties or missing information that leave people guessing about what to do next.

In conclusion, when we ask good questions, we contribute to a group process that spurs conversation and helps us find collective answers. The best approach is to experiment. Try out open-ended questions and see what happens. If you have examples of how you’ve used open-ended questions to seeking information or to clarify, then please feel free to share them as a comment. Your participation in this blog is more than welcome and will enrich our collective engagement.

Please join us for our next blog as we explore questions that invite other perspectives and questions that support group understanding.

Increasing Efficiency in Team Meetings: The Importance of Asking the Right Questions

Part 1 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Without questions, meetings rapidly degenerate into posturing and positioning. One point of view is countered by another point of view. Sometimes the points are in opposition; sometimes they are points about completely different tracks that never come together.

To come to some kind of shared understanding and agreement that endures longer than the life of the meeting, posturing doesn’t help. Someone makes a point; some people nod with agreement, and maybe they agree, maybe they disagree, but you won’t find out what they really think in the meeting. Some people just keep their mouths shut, keeping their opinions to themselves. When people walk out of meetings shaking their heads, the lack of agreement is tangible. Sometimes the lack of agreement shows up at the water cooler.

Where it shows up and really hurts is when a group has important work to do that requires collaboration and everyone has a good opinion, but no one is asking questions like:

"What will get in our way?”
“How do you think this solution will work?”
“What do we agree about?”
“What are our areas of disagreement?”
“How did you arrive at that solution?”

All the opinions can be intimidating, especially when people with power have strong points of view and don’t understand that they also need to listen to get a different perspective on things.

I have worked with teams that argue their way to missed deadlines, overrun budgets, and team conflict. All the finger-pointing in the world can’t dig some groups out of the hole they are digging themselves by not seeking agreement, but by plowing ahead with multiple disagreeing points of view without asking questions that help to move a group closer to shared understanding. One team I knew with critical responsibility for developing software that was essential for the next generation of products disagreed their way to failure.

It is easy to point fingers; it is easy to believe in your own rightness and to get mad at the people who disagree. But when we have complex work to do and we really need to understand how to accomplish it, if we don’t ask questions, we don’t go in the same direction.

Is it important to go in the same direction? Silly question. In this age of “doing more with less,” the “new normal,” has us stretched pretty thin. Being courageous enough to ask a question to help people understand things the same way is important for creating alignment. Without it, it’s just another lousy meeting. We leave the meeting and do work arounds as best we can, trying to do what we think is needed from the best knowledge and understanding we have.

We all have good intentions. We all have good opinions. What we need to develop is the ability to ask the questions that move us and others toward shared understanding. When our collective intelligence gets cooking, no feat is too challenging. When our intelligence is isolated in our own heads that are full of opinions, the group’s IQ plummets.

Many of us have battle scars from trying to help groups be productive and work together better. Questions work most of the time; but every situation and group is different. Complexities abound. Without good questions, the complexities become disjointed. When questions open the space up for listening, the multiplicity of viewpoints alive in each moment can begin to sparkle and gain a laser focus.

Ask a question. Make it simple. Seek to understand, not to make a point. See what happens. Tell me how it goes.

Collaborationg with Questions: Introducing a Short Series on the Power of Asking Questions

Introduction to a 5 Part Series

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Once I worked in a telecommunications company that was growing by leaps and bounds—growing so fast things were breaking down. As we grew, the sales department fought with operations; sales over-promised and then blamed operations for under-delivering. Operations shot back: “Don’t sell what we can’t deliver!” IT tried to support the exploding growth by putting limits on it, cutting back the number of employees working at home, and our work-at-home employees were our lifeblood. We didn’t have enough employees to serve our customers. Customers complained that they weren’t getting what they paid for.

I was idealistic and wanted to help the business be successful and for the people to have good working relationships. I volunteered for a big assignment to lead a cross-functional team to improve interdepartmental communications. I was naive; I thought it would be easy to do. Boy, was I wrong! The team was a reflection of the larger organization; we struggled at every step with different points of view and approaches. No one had a corner on the right answer. Every meeting was filled with conflict, because everyone thought they were absolutely right.

The stakes were high and I felt like I was the captain of a sinking ship. I was forced to find a way to make it work, or it would cost me my job and possibly plunge the company into greater despair. As we moved forward, I learned by experimenting, failing, then by picking myself up and trying something new. I never gave up, and stayed one step ahead of the team to support them. This was truly a laboratory where I first learned how to help groups do good work together. Fortunately, I had a crew of team members that were sincere and well-intended; everyone wanted to help the business. Our conflictive dynamics could have destroyed us, but instead we pulled together and made it work by taking the time to listen and learn.

While leading this team, I learned the value of asking good questions and getting multiple perspectives on the table as equal voices. Another valuable concept that I learned from that experience was the importance of reflection. If you don’t take time to reflect upon what you have learned, then those meanings will not be added to your collective behavior and intelligence. Only when we understood each other, were we able to create an approaches that facilitated cross-departmental communications. It wasn’t easy. There was no silver bullet. It was hard work that was painful at times, but worth every effort.

Over the years with many other teams, I have refined my approach, learning new ways to create conditions that help people achieve the success they have dreamed about but feared impossible.
In the next few posts, the Collaboration Catalyst Blog will talk about some of the things I’ve learned about the power of asking good questions. I’ll give you tips, how-to’s, and also make you aware of some potential warning signs. In addition, I’ll share some insights into challenges of leading in a virtual environment and describe ways to create collective engagement with a globally dispersed team.
I hope you’ll join me and add your voice to an inquiry on how to get work done better by igniting collective capacity and strengthening relationships.

How Collaboration Helps Innovation

It's no secret that collaboration helps in the formation of good ideas, but this charming little video from writer Steven Johnson explains why it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=player_embedded

How to Invite Multiple Perspectives

When we come together to accomplish important work, the pressures of the workload and time often inhibit us from opening to differences—of perspective, opinion, or thinking. It is natural to try to avoid arguments or disagreements, and often we think that conflict will occur if we ask people to share what they really think.

In our efforts to get stuff done and avoid conflict, we miss opportunities to expand possibilities and increase our abilities to work with complexity. Inviting in multiple perspectives helps us deal with complexity, and it is not as hard as we think.

Here are some tips for leaders to welcome multiple perspectives:
1. Listen to others before giving your opinion. Sit back and listen rather than talking, even (especially) when you want to charge ahead and decide for the group.
2. If someone states a strong point of view, ask, “Who sees it differently?” and ask the person with an alternative perspective to share their view.
3. Listen, listen, listen. Encourage others to listen.
4. Reflect back the different points of view; synthesize the different perspectives for the group
5. Ask, “What have we missed?”
6. Wait for someone to answer the question, and listen again.
7. Surprisingly, when we need to make a decision, we have more valuable possibilities for action.

This may seem confusing, but actually when all the perspectives are welcomed, the best action emerges in collective thinking that is much more powerful than individual thinking.

We need to learn how to expand possibilities to deal with the complexities of our situation. Things are less predictable, more complicated. When we put our heads together, we are smarter together than we are individually.

The Leader as Collaboration Catalyst

Leaders can be catalysts for change because they can help bring people together to create new ways of working. Leadership that fosters a collaborative culture helps an organization interact and interconnect in more productive and mutually-beneficial ways. By igniting collaborative capital, working relationships can flourish with creativity, innovation, and effective action.

Our situation is increasingly complex: economically, socially, environmentally. Methods that worked in the past don’t bring predictable results. According to a study on leadership conducted by IBM, in which IBM interviewed over 1500 CEOs, leaders feel unsure about how to deal with this complexity. Creativity is needed, as well as dexterity and the ability to develop new kinds of relationships with customers. (IBM’s study is very interesting: find it here: ibm.com/CEOStudy)

From my perspective, building new relationships with customers is not enough. Leaders need to put forward additional effort to foster connections with employees, partners, vendors, local and global communities. Thoughtful cultivation of relationships is crucial for future organizational success. By building relationships that are committed to integrity, focused on mutual support and on providing timely and accurate information flows, collaboration becomes possible. The power of relationships enables effective and aligned action.

By improving how well people work together, leaders enable their organizations to move beyond the status quo and co-create a mutually sustainable environment for work and community. The role of collaboration catalyst is a role we all need to play. Instead of isolating ourselves, we need to remember our interconnections and interdependence with each other and our world.

We limit ourselves by believing there is one answer or one solution. With an open invitation to other perspectives and a willingness to be changed by others, today's leaders can adapt to the complexities of our society and collaboratively develop creative responses and actions.

Missing the Mark

What happens when you set a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal (BHAG – much more accurate description than a “stretch” goal – always hated that term…) for yourself and you don’t… quite… make… it? Close, but just not quite the entire distance? Where do you focus? On the distance covered, or on the distance remaining?

At the beginning of this year, I committed to walking with two high school friends in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. “Sure,” I said, “What it is it, 10K?” Nope. It’s 39.3 miles in one weekend, a marathon (26.2 miles) on Saturday and a half-marathon (13.1 miles) on Sunday. What did I get myself into??

For someone who has fallen down as many times as I have, this was truly a BIG, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS GOAL – a BHAG to top all BHAGs. The only way I could hope to succeed was to train hard and take it more seriously than I ever had. So I did. My first two-mile walk back in January had me flat on the floor, on the phone to my teammate expressing my doubts about the wisdom of this forty-something klutz taking on this challenge.

What did I do to improve my chances of success?
• I walked. A lot. Over 300 miles between January and June. I practiced the skills I needed to get to the finish line.
• I tracked my progress. We found a great website that tracked where we walked, how fast we walked, and how many calories we burned (always a great incentive!) I also had a hard copy of my log on the fridge, and saw it multiple times each day. Seeing those weekly totals climb was inspiring.
• I talked to my teammates often; we commiserated about turned ankles and sore feet and encouraged each other to get out there and walk again tomorrow.
• We competed a little bit within our team – who had done their first 6-mile walk, who had completed their first 10-mile walk, etc.
• I got help from experts for areas way outside my expertise. I worked with a physical therapist to learn how to take care of my flat feet.
• I talked about the event and my participation. The fund raising requirement made this necessary, but it also helped to keep me accountable in my training.

What was the end result of all this preparation?
• A great long weekend with old friends that never would have happened if we hadn’t taken on this challenge. Renewed friendships with women who knew me when we were just girls, getting ready to take on the world. We’re not as smooth and shiny as we were then, but we are so much stronger and wiser than we were then – and we understand what it means to support each other in ways we never would have grasped in high school.
• Strong legs. Seriously, my legs are in the best shape since 1991. I wish a few other body parts were as strong and toned, but I’ll be working on them next…
• Fund raising for a cause – I raised $2,350 towards breast cancer care and research, and the total group of walkers and crew for the event raised over $5.5 million. Each of us on our team far exceeded the minimum fund raising requirement and earned “Fantastic Fundraiser” hats to wear on the walk.
• A deep understanding of what I as an individual and we as a team were able to accomplish with a lot of preparation and hard work, which was far beyond what I expected at the beginning.

So did my team finish all 39.3 miles?

Sort of. I had intermittent trouble throughout my training with my feet; I knew I was pushing it to attempt walking these distances. It was clear to me on Saturday that if I tried to push through and finish the route I would not only hold up my team, I would also not be able to walk on Sunday. So I made the incredibly difficult choice to take the bus from the half-way point on Saturday and leave my teammates to finish the day without me. They finished successfully, but the route was very demanding and ended with five miles of steep San Francisco hills – there was no way could I have finished that route, when I was already struggling at mile 13.

I didn’t feel like a failure, because I knew what I already had done to get to that point, and that I was making the right choice… but I did feel pretty empty as I sat on that bus. It was so hard to watch my friends head out and know that I couldn’t do it with them. I kept up with them through the rest of the day through text messages and cell phone pictures, and at my friend’s request ordered pizza and beer that would arrive after she made it back to the hotel. I had a couple of hours to recover, so I was able to take care of her that evening, which felt good.

We set out Sunday morning with everyone feeling energized, but also sore, tired, and a little beat-up from the demands of Saturday’s route. The volunteers cheered us on and then took care of us throughout the day. My teammate struggled – her knee was aching and her blisters developed blisters. At the rest stops I was able to fill her water bottle or pick up her lunch while she was at the medical tent getting her feet taken care of and her knee wrapped and iced. It was definitely a team effort, but together we crossed the finish line.

So when you aim for but don’t quite hit the mark on a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal you still end up making progress. Maybe not as much as you hoped, but still progress, and this is good.

What about those smaller, everyday kind of goals & commitments?
What about when you don’t hit the every day goals? I’ve been struggling lately with these smaller commitments & goals – sometimes as small as a phone call to a friend, sometimes as big as a commitment to my team to finish a piece of work by a certain date or time. What happens then? I let my team down, I feel frustrated and like a failure, the list of things to do gets longer… Progress is slowed or stalled. So my new Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal is to figure out how to get out of my rut of procrastination and avoidance.

What am I doing to improve my chances of success?
• Fessing up and asking my teammates to help me stay on track.
• Going back to the basics – something that helped me tremendously a number of years ago was David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done.” So I’m re-reading it and his new book, “Making It All Work.”
• Practicing the skills I need to get to the finish line. While I am re-learning Allen’s incredibly effective method, I’ve gone old school. I make a list each day. I have a big, fat black marker to cross off items that I’ve finished. Anything unfinished goes at the top of the next day’s list in red. A list that has every item completed goes on the fridge to remind me of my success.
• Reminding myself that most of the things on my list are not things that I dislike, or that someone else has imposed on me – it is my choice to stay engaged with my family & friends and to work with a great team to build a new business.
• Really thinking about the consequences of not getting the things on the list done – not just the immediate gratification of not getting off the couch, but the longer impact on my life and this wonderful new adventure we’re on with ICO.

How well is it working? Well, writing this blog entry has been at the top of the list for a week, and it sure feels good to cross it off with my big black marker! I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks if I’m making the kind of progress I’m aiming for, or if I’m still stuck in that rut.

Collabor-NEAH/Collabor-YEAH Bernice Moore-Valdez & Eric Belluche

In the last installment of this two part series on the do’s and don’ts of collaboration, Eric and I lead you down a rocky road of a project with challenges at every turn. Sometimes it is necessary to experience setbacks, as painful as they may be, to understand how we truly want to be treated and how best to treat others. Unfortunately, collaboration took a knock on the chin in this project, but thankfully it got up, dusted itself off, and is ready for the next engagement.

Part 2 of Collabor-YEAH / Collabor-NEAH is a story about collaborative success. The key to this success is based upon a balanced equation of an equal part effort plus a mutual openness toward co-creation, as we developed our presence on the internet. Admittedly, our website is not complete, but we have created a good foundation for it to develop and reflect our values about the importance of collaboration.

To create our website, we had a clear, tangible product and deliverable. ICO had the text; the web designer and our visual content developer partnered to develop the graphics. We kicked off our meeting with our aspirations for we wanted from the website and for our business.

We set up a collaborative space in the Cloud, and shared thoughts, files, graphics, and got right to work. There was openness, mutuality, responsiveness, and we shared values of doing good work that does good in the world.

We started off on a good footing. The proposal was clear. The commitments and deliverables focused on what we wanted to achieve. We talked through timelines to accommodate commitments, and we all gave our best effort. We launched a bit behind schedule, but we were in very close contact with each other throughout the process so we knew where we were and what was needed at every step. We were able to over deliver on the initial presence of our website, including 2 pages, links to our blog, twitter, and email, and a privacy policy--elements that we hadn’t expected to be able to complete in the first iteration.

We had the makings of a beautiful website up in record time. It is just the beginning of our presence on the internet. Our visual content developer purred with contentment because he was loving the partnership with the web designer. The web developer also valued the process. He took our ideas, shaped them, shared them with us at every turn.

The end-result was pleasing to all. More than pleasing, we were thrilled to see our ideas come to life almost like magic. But, it wasn’t magic. Here’s our recipe:

1. Clear goals and outcomes; purpose and values in alignment
2. Agreed upon deliverables and timelines
3. Collaboration established up front; collaboration was a value, a principle and a practice
4. Tools to facilitate collaboration: online space for sharing files and communicating; online meetings at critical junctures with webcams (it is important to see each other)
5. Processes that build collaboration: check-ins, open communications, asking questions with skillful inquiry, sharing ideas freely, inviting feedback, welcoming and accepting it. Listening to each other with a willingness to be influenced.
6. Feedback invited, accepted, valued. We built on each other’s ideas in a creative process.
7. Shared leadership; no one was boss; everyone’s ideas and opinions valued. Everyone did their own piece of work, met their commitments, and communicated effectively with the rest of the team.

So why did this project work so well and the other didn’t? Well, there were some mitigating factors that exasperated the proposal process for GPM project. There were also more people involved with and effected by the GPM project. Regardless of the size of the project, the underlying reason for success can be contributed to an overall willingness, openness, and commitment to working together with shared leadership. Without that fundamental component ideas don’t get conveyed, deadlines don’t get met and projects don’t come to fruition.

Collabor-NEAH/Collabor-YEAH Bernice Moore-Valdez & Eric Belluche

As an organization who’s purpose is to enable collaboration across distance and difference, you would think all our interactions would exemplify the values of open communication, clear understandings, and cooperation. Even with the best intentions, effective collaboration cannot be achieved without struggling through hard times and learning from mistakes.

In this two part blog series, Eric and I are contrasting two experiences; one that worked beautifully and another that failed miserably. By providing you insights into both ends of this collaborative spectrum, hopefully we’ll illuminate some of the do’s and don’ts of this invaluable process.

Here’s Part 1 of Collabor-NEAH / Collabor-YEAH; A slap in the face vs. a pat on the back--hypothetically speaking of course!

The project that went awry was a proposal to develop global project management (GPM) capability for an international team with project managers in Sweden, Germany, Canada, the US, Korea, and China. I was brought in by a consultant and colleague to work with the leadership team. Because I had worked with the international team several times and had coached many of the executive team, I had gained a a strong working relationship with the executives and a basic understanding of what was needed.

Problem # 1. Communication with my consulting colleague was fraught with challenges. He kept telling me, “I want you to lead this project,” while insisting that all communications with the client funnel through him. This limited free flowing communications and collaboration. While developing the proposal, I was unable to talk or communicate directly with the director of the international team to clarify his needs and expectations. Often it would take 2-3 weeks to get a response to emails and revisions to the proposal. It would also take weeks to schedule a conversation and often schedules were not honored.

I partnered with a project management expert in the US to create a proposal that met the client’s needs to the best of our understanding. That expert had a long-term relationship with a project management training and consulting group, (I’ll call them PMPlus), and they had the ability to provide tools, templates, training materials, and consultation around the globe, so we brought them into the equation.

Problem # 2. Unfortunately, PMPlus did not share our values of openness or have a similar commitment to collaboration. Ideas from the expert project manager were not welcomed. The project management expert and I worked hard to break through PMPlus’ roadblocks with our own close collaboration and tag-team insistence on what we felt would be best for the global team. We pushed in concert. PMPlus finally listened and reshaped their proposal.

Problem # 3. The proposal I submitted with PMPlus was seen as too expensive, which was a valid concern. Unfortunately, rather than working together to reshape it, my colleague leveraged my background analysis and framework to create an alternate proposal without my knowledge. He made changes in finances, scope, and resources directly with PMPlus, brought in a project management group in China, and in essence reshaped the project.

When I finally had the chance to review the revised proposal with new players, scope, and financial benefits for my colleague, I was dumbfounded. I was concerned that this new direction would create great expense for the client without developing the company’s ability to manage a global project in real time. The focus of this new proposal provided classroom training for primarily one region, China, and I was afraid that this would exacerbate cross-cultural difficulties the team was already experiencing, undermining their critical need to work as a unified global project management team.

After additional misunderstandings, missed communications, and lack of collaboration, I walked away from the project.

What went wrong?

1. Autocratic leadership; decision making structures that were not open to shared leadership
2. Unclear goals and outcomes based on the client’s perspective and inability to clarify them
3. Restricted access and limited communication with key stakeholders
4. Delays and gaps in communications. Slow responses to critical communications.
5. Lack of openness to ideas and feedback. Often ideas or feedback were received with resistance or rejection
6. Lack of demonstrated respect for the value individuals brought to the project
7. No use of collaborative tools, practices, or processes. In fact, collaboration was not a shared value or practice

While a long read, this post has some critical lessons about ineffective collaboration. Stay tuned for next installment, when Eric and I share a much more positive example of the power of collaboration.

Looking for a silver bullet; needing a systems approach

When dealing with complex situations people look for a silver bullet: “If we can just find that high-leverage, that will fix the problem(s): everything will be OK.”

Looking for just one thing is a hangover from the reductionist mindset of the Industrial Age. Systems thinking is the practice of looking at the parts of a system, the interdependencies between the parts, and the whole that is created by the parts working together. Reductionist mindsets are good at looking at the parts of a system, taking them apart and optimizing them. We need to learn how to look at the interdependencies between the parts, as well as the whole that results.

Teams are generally set up to be responsible for specific parts of a system, so they often don’t consider the impacts of any changes they make to their parts on any other parts of the system. When teams start to consider the interdependencies between the parts during designs and subsequent revisions, they have a much better chance of creating fully functioning systems.

The benefit of systems thinking has been proven over and over again at such companies as:

· Ford Motor Company on numerous car designs and launches,

· Boeing Corporation & the 777 airplane design team,

· Harley-Davidson on their production floor,

· Shell Oil Company in understanding how to avert oil platform tragedies,

· Interface Technologies in how to shift their products to 100% recyclable commercial carpeting,

· HP generating fully recyclable inkjet printer cartridges,

· Intel when bringing up several simultaneous chip fab facilities, simultaneously,

· The former First Lady of the Bahamas in understanding the changing socio-economy & political environment in her country,

· The US Army in understanding the changing nature of wars rooted in terrorist practices,

· The Racine Public School District in understanding how to create a school system where every member of it is focused on scholastic improvement.

My next blog will talk about what these companies and organizations have learned to do to enable their successes with these very complex situations.

Systems Thinking

By Jean Tully

On June 4, at Saybrook University in San Francisco, an introductory 4-hour presentation on a valuable systems thinking method will be offered through the Bay Area Society for Organizational Learning. This introduction will be followed by a 2-day workshop in July

Why is Systems Thinking important? It helps you see interconnections and interdependencies, and ultimately manage complexity better.

What can it help you with in today’s increasingly complex organizational settings? It helps you anticipate unintended consequences, make changes that stick, and manage multiple levels of complexity.

A recent 2010 study by IBM of 1541 Global CEO’s identified “complexity… as their primary challenge; and, a surprising number of them told us that they feel ill-equipped to succeed in this drastically different world.” (www.ibm.com/CEOStudy)

If CEO’s are feeling the pressures of complexity at their level, imagine what the Directors, Program/Project Managers, individual contributors are feeling down in the trenches? With outsourcing, off-shoring, and right-sizing as cost-cutting strategies, teams are distributed across continents, time zones, cultures, languages, operating paradigms , processes/procedures, and leadership norms. The thinking and management practices that have created the organizations of today are no longer sufficient to deal with these levels of complexity, brought on by the pressure for ever-increasing monthly and quarterly results through these cost-cutting strategies.

Einstein said:
The thinking that created today’s problems cannot be the thinking that will also solve them.

Most of today’s leaders have advanced through the ranks using the traditional, linear thinking that made the Industrial Age of the 20th century so successful. Divide and conquer; optimize the parts; ensure quality control and consistency. Because teams were more often co-located, it was easier to work out problems that arose between the parts.

It is a different world now from 50, 30, even 10 years ago, with global interconnectivity, parts being built in distributed locations and then brought together for assembly, social networking becoming marketing tools, 3-4 generations of employees working together (each generation with its own set of values and drivers for success).

Systems thinking is valuable because people at all levels and backgrounds can work with a complex issue, find leverage points for change, and create actions to support moving the system toward a desired future state. In systems thinking you consider the parts of a system, the interrelationship between the parts, and the whole that is created by the combination. What is often missed in traditional process improvement efforts is the interrelationship between the parts, and the beliefs and assumptions held by the members of the system about how it could, should, and would operate, if only . . .

The method of systems thinking to be offered June 4th uses the stories of the system to evaluate the current situation and future opportunities. This method maps the underlying structures that drive system performance, the interrelationships between those structures, the beliefs and assumptions driving people’s actions, the leverage points for change, and creates an action plan to resolve the structural tensions and breakdowns, generating the desired system of the future.

Join us June 4th in San Francisco and bring a complex issue you are dealing with to explore.

Captivate/Articulate

As a start-up company, our enterprise relies on good tools to create online learning, which is one of our core capabilities as part of a suite of offerings we provide to help people work together collaboratively.

We had chosen Adobe’s ELearning Suite as our vehicle for online learning development. Over the last month, Captivate and the ELearning Suite were problematic at every turn. Adding PhotoShop layered files lost critical visual elements. Running quiz previews crashed the system over and over. Navigation was stodgy; flash animation was rudimentary.

Although Adobe tech support was on the spot and helpful, there was no good solution to the problems we encountered. Captivate has community support, but the community is out-of-date, with the exception of a few wide-awake and talented people. Captain Captivate was especially helpful when I tweeted him, and he got back to me quickly with an understanding of the problems that had us mired in technology mud.

In desperation and with a deadline looming ever closer, we turned to Articulate, and it seemed to have great finesse with PowerPoint integration, keeping graphic elements separate so we could work with them. Articulate has a robust and vital community of Articulate experts. They are responsive, proactive, and provide helpful support.

Still, our design and development team missed the time line functionality of Captivate. The time line is useful for developing a learning program so that it moves forward and keeps the learner engaged. We also found we need the integration of the Adobe products such as Sound Booth, PhotoShop, Flash, and Bridge.

It came down to a choice between two quite adequate online learning suites of programs, one with a long-term possibility of integrating with the Creative Suite on the Mac, the other with good functionality, but not the best solution for our long-term goals and immediate business direction. Our decision to go with Adobe Captivate is largely due to the dangling carrot of a pending release of Captivate 5, e-Learning Suite 2 and future Mac integration. The new features in this upgrade appear to be solutions to the shortcomings of the current version of Captivate 4. However, with a general release date of June 2010… we’re left in technology limbo!

As the clock continues to click towards project deadlines, we find it necessary to go forward using using the ill-fated Captivate 4 in a Windows environment, which is plagued with numerous bugs and incompatibilities. This short term work-flow required an investment in hardware, upgraded operating systems, and a move away from our beloved Macs. With our fingers crossed and list of work-a-rounds, we move forward creating an online employee development program that is a fabulous program. We have a vision of how it is suppose to be… and a commitment to complete the project sooner than technology glitches will allow. The tools we have chosen must help get us there!

Leading as if Life Depends on You

In honor of Earth Day, it is helpful to remember our dependence on the natural world. Leaders at all levels and locations have a special role in guiding sustainable practices, helping people work together in ways that affirm life. Like geese, we depend on each other for our survival.

Leaders take turns guiding the team, helping others lead when the leader needs to reflect before acting. Geese fly together in a flexible formation that changes to meet the needs of the situation. Geese talk together to stay connected.

6 tips for greater collaboration

Collaboration is a needed capacity for working together, and here are six tips for collaborating more effectively wherever you are, whatever you do.

The first three tips are about inquiry. Please don't take my word for the value of asking, listening, and being influenced. Practice, experiment, and see what happens. Here are the inquiry tips:

1) Ask questions to understand and clarify.
2) Listen deeply.
3) Be willing to be influenced by others.

Three steps. You can do this online, face-to-face, over the phone, wherever.

The next set of tips are about advocacy. Sometimes you need to advocate. Collaboration depends on your good judgment, your willingness to stand for what you value and believe in. Here are a few tips for stating your point of view in a way that builds collaboration. Once again, try it, don't just believe me.

1) Say what you believe and why you believe it. Explain how you got to your belief, and why you adhere to your point of view.
2) Describe your belief and ask, "What did I miss?" or "How do you see things?" "Where do we see things differently? Where the same?"
3) Be clear that you have a point of view, explain that you are advocating and why it's important to you.

Good luck! Let me know how your practice goes.

Virtual Team Meetings

Meeting virtually is a breeze. Webcams and video make meetings come to life. The disembodied voice becomes personal when you can see each others' faces.

Seeing the person you are talking to prevents that attention drift that happens when people become bored with the conversation. When the camera is on, it is harder to read email, surf the web, play with your PDA, or text someone (whether they're in the room or not).

Seeing each other, even with small pictures on a screen, improves the sense of connection. You can read body language and even see when someone doesn't feel well or disagrees with something somebody said. People who don't know each other get to see each others' faces and this helps build trust and friendship.

There are lots of different options for virtual meetings: Skype is free for online calls with video and works internationally and within the US. Most of the time it works well, but in my experience, it can be unstable. Because calls drop off unexpectedly, it disrupts conversations and meetings. For example, tonight on a call to China, the Skype connection went out several times. We ended up speaking on cell phones.

WebEx is stable, and provides great meeting and learning tools for a modest monthly fee. I have tried a lot of online systems, and I keep going back to WebEx. When my team and I are working on a project, we can share documents, whiteboards, generate ideas through mind mapping, and even work on the same document together. For training purposes, WebEx is good as well, although the cost for their training center bumps up quite a bit.

Many people recommend Elluminate, and a friend of mine created a fabulous dialogue training through its platform. Elluminate has a breadth of services that are comprehensive and competitively priced.

Some applications provide a bit less than a full solution. Maestroconference includes telephony with breakout rooms, but you can't share slides or other visuals; freeconference call is a free and easy solution to telephone meetings and it includes only conference call capability. There are lots of solutions available, and it takes awhile to find the right solution at the right price.

Virtual team meetings are essential for working these days. We need to collaborate with people around the globe, in the next town or state, and around the block in a home office. For me the right solution includes video, an ability to present and share documents, and the capability to work together on applications, whether its an online learning, writing, or international collaboration.

Our relationship with all things

At dinner the other night some friends and I got to talking about the health of the world's oceans. It was painful to think of the dead spots, the pollution, the mass harvesting of sea life with its collateral damage to so many species. Long lines do not discriminate. Fishermen go after sharks and kill sea turtles and dolphins and sea birds and much, much more.

I began looking at shark fishing and ran across a wonderful series of videos Sharkwater by Rob Stewart. His film moved my heart and shifted my thinking. I learned that 90% of the world's sharks are gone. When the top predator that shapes ocean life is gone, it is very hard to imagine the potential impacts. One possibility is that the animals that eat phytoplankton will proliferate and decimate phytoplankton supplies. Phytoplankton absorbs CO2 and produces O2 (if I understand this right). Without phytoplankton, what will happen to the oxygen levels that we depend on to live?

From a systems perspective and from a Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness, we need to act from a high enough perspective to hold and protect the whole. No one protects the oceans; and sharks are considered by so many as harmful and dangerous. And shark fin soup is so prestigious.

With the shark's demise and the crashing populations of sharks all over the world, the web of life is damaged.

With a great hole in the web of life, all life suffers. It may not seem like our lives depend on the sharks, but in the interconnectedness of all things, we don't have a separate existence. Without the sharks, I am less, we are diminished, and life has an absence--something missing in the web.

What will we say to our grandchildren about how we lost the life of the oceans?

Guanxi

It's really all about relationships. In the US we aren't so explicit, and in China, guanxi is everything. Business lives and breathes through guanxi. Actually, all our lives interconnect in relationship.

When we are aware of the centrality of relationships, do we act differently?

Synergic Leadership

As I prepare for a visit from a friend and colleague from China, I marvel at our different approaches to leadership and our synergy as well. My friend and I have great respect and appreciation for each other, and those go a long way toward developing synergy.

When we can work together in ways that build on our differences, we actually strengthen and expand what we can achieve. The hard part is when our differences clash and we shore up our positions to make ourselves Right.

Being right is a trap that catches us over and over. Anyway, that's my opinion and if you disagree, I'll argue with you!

Learning to inquire when we're triggered isn't easy. Synergic leadership says, "Wow, you disagree with me! Where are we different? How can I learn from you?"

Even if we take it on as an experiment, I think it's a helpful practice to inquire rather than to become rigid and Right. Where do you disagree? What can I learn here?

Crossing Cultures

Working with people from around the world is remarkable. The nuances of meaning that shift across cultures requires an openness of mind and flexibility that we often underestimate or take for granted.

How do you build shared understanding across differences of language, religion, orientation, age, etc?

For me it's a constant desire to create shared meaning, checking things out, recapping what we're learning, and asking good questions. When we create shared understanding in a multicultural, multidimensional team, it is awesome!