VOLUME 9, N UMBE R 1

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change

F E AT U R E ARTICL E S

Organizational Learning
and IFC’s Mission Impossible
Dorothy Berry
Yolanda Hegngi
Marilyn Darling

The Missing Piece
to Building Great Teams
Diana McLain Smith

Inside the Theory of the U:
Interview with Peter Senge
and Otto Scharmer (Part 2)
George Hall

E me r g i n g k n o w l edge

Building Trust and Cohesiveness in a Leadership Team
Deepika Nathpersonal perspective

Love, Language andWorking Relationships
Manuel Manga

Learning to Teach,
Teaching to Learn

Mary Catherine Bateson
Book Excerpt

The Power of LUV: An Inside
Peek at Southwest Airlines
Published by The Society for Organizational Learningreflections.solonline.org
ISSN 1524-1734

Ann McGee-Cooper
Duane Trammell
Gary Looper

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p ub l i s he r ’ s N o t e 9 . 1

As we prepare for SoL’s 3rd
Global Forum in Muscat,
Oman, it seems especially timely that this issue ofReflections focuses on the importance of human relationships. I had the opportunity to
speak with noted anthropoloC. Sherry Immediato
gist Mary Catherine Bateson
about her take on how we “bridge the gulf,” the themeof this year’s forum. She related a story of a session she
designed to improve working relationships between
Americans and Iranians. In the process, she asked them
what they valued most in a relationship. All answered
without prompting that they valued both honesty 		and kindness; however Iranians overwhelming ranked
kindness first, and the Americans ranked honesty first.
She noted that this simple exercise sheds light on someof the roots of our cultural and personal misunderstandings: we assume that others value what we do, and ifthey behave in ways we don’t expect, we often attribute
their behavior to bad intentions. Depending on yourbackground, honesty can be considered as meanness,
and kindness can be seen as lying. In this issue, ourauthors present a range of opportunities and problematic situations in which they are untangling the snags in
our web of relationships to reveal more opportunities
for inspired performance.
In 1998, the International Finance Corporation (IFC),a member of the World Bank Group, embarked on ajourney of transformational change aimed at improving
and expanding operations, while building the capacity
for learning. The highlights of this journey are captured
by SoL members Yolanda Hegngi, Dorothy Berry, andMarilyn Darling in “Organizational Learning and IFC’s
Mission Impossible.” To be successful, IFC’s unique mission of promoting open markets and creating opportunities for the under-served must be continually adapted
in a challenging and constantly shifting global politicallandscape. Using organizational learning methods such

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as dialogue, the organization’s decentralized approach
focused first on creating a shared vision that would
inspire, and shared spaces where innovation could
flower.
After an extended absence, we’re happy to welcome
back SoL researcher Diana McLain Smith as she shares“The Missing Piece to Building Great Teams.” In thisarticle, adapted from her new book Divide or Conquer:
How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength (Penguin:2008), she allows us to peer inside the relationships that
so often make or break the success of teams. Her premiseis that once you understand how relationships actuallywork, develop, and change, you can use that understanding to build relationships flexible and strong
enough to create and sustain exceptional teams.
Deepika Nath notes in her contribution to the Emerging Knowledge Forum that many of us are asked to intervene with groups that exhibit unproductive teamdynamics, and we are often faced with a decision of
how to intervene. In “Building Trust and Cohesivenessin a Leadership Team,” she describes how she applied
David Kantor’s human structural dynamics model in aclient situation. This allowed her to distinguish between
addressing the symptoms and causes of a team’s dysfunction, and to engage the group in a higher leverageapproach. This case is a great example of the reflective
practice that Diana Smith and her colleagues have encouraged among SoL members. Kantor’s framework
can be particularly helpful to interveners in identifying
their own role in the set of relationships they hope to
improve.
In “Love, Language, and Working Relationships,” SoL
consultant member Manuel Manga contends that
language and conversation are the foundation of all
human relationships. Given that conversations are so
important to successful interactions, how can we usethem to help us construct loving and productive
relationships? He reviews some of the literature in thisp ub l i s he r ’ s n o t e | i mmed i at oarea and proposes that we can improve our conversations by recognizing different types of conversations,and consciously engaging in them.
George Hall’s two-part interview with Peter Senge andOtto Scharmer, “Inside the Theory of the U” concludes inthis issue. The authors discuss how we learn about thequality of presence in our interactions with each other.
What and from whom can we learn? In “Learning to
Teach, Teaching to Learn,” Mary Catherine Bateson offersa personal reflection on learning across differences. In
particular she notes that the relationship between who
learns and who teaches has been fairly constant in humancultures, guided by notions of age and hierarchy. She
shares her personal experience about the need andopportunity to learn, particularly across the generational divide.
This issue closes with a book excerpt from Being theChange by Ann McGee-Cooper, Gary Looper, Duane
Trammel. “The Power of LUV: An Inside Peek at the Innovative Culture Committee of Southwest Airlines”
describes how the quality of relationships within thecompany affects how it does business, and the positive
impact that has on employees, customers, and thebottom line.

As we find ourselves more intertwined across the globe,
and less able to rely on some of our traditional structuresand rules to govern our interactions, it becomes crucial
that we deepen our “relationship intelligence.” In addition, if learning is largely social, then our relationships
may either limit or enhance our learning. My concern
is that we think we know this, but our communications
are subject to many mixed messages. I am remindedof the awards ceremony when I got my MBA. With
great suspense the winner of the grand award was announced. As the person rose to receive it, the audienceof classmates looked around and whispered a barely
audible “who’s that?” We concluded that the winner 		was someone who must have lived in the bowels of thelibrary. At that moment, I think most of us were happy
to sacrifice the award in exchange for the pleasure ofknowing each other. We could hardly know that wewould be rewarded with relationships that have grownfor decades – a prize we keep on winning.
It is our sincere hope that our relationship with you,our readers, will also continue to deepen and grow.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Reflections’ new design
debuts with this issue. We’re excited about making
the transition to color, and a more streamlined look.
We’ve tried to balance new elements with familiar
ones, and hope you feel we’ve succeeded. As always,
we welcome your feedback, suggestions, andcomments.
In appreciation of ourrich and reflective relationships,

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fe a t u r e 9 . 1

Organizational Learning
and IFC’s Mission Impossible
by D o r ot hy B e r r y, Yo l a n d a H eg n g i & M a r i ly n D a r l i n g
Beginning in 1998, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) embarked on a journey of transformationalchange aimed at serving more people, in new and underserved markets. IFC founded its change effort on
the principles and methods of organizational learning. Their decentralized approach focused first on using
dialogue to create a shared vision that would inspire, and shared spaces for innovation. Ten years later
the results speak for themselves – and the journey continues.

I
Yolanda Hegngi

t has been another banner year for the International Finance Corporation(IFC), a member of the World Bank Group that promotes sustainable private
sector development. “In 2007, we achieved the strongest financial positionin our history,” observed Lars Thunell, our Executive Vice President and CEO.
Not only did IFC produce an operating income of $2.6 billion in fiscal 2007 (a 6 perMany millions of people incent increase from 2006), but we did it whilesmaller, less developed markets
continuing to grow our staff, decentralize
our operations, and expand into more fronand in conflict-affected countries
tier markets. Most important, we were able
have not yet shared in the beneto show how the private sector creates opfits of private sector growth.
portunities in emerging markets and helps
people improve their lives – whether byassisting small businesses gain access to finance, by making investment thatprovide clean water to water customers; or by helping people receive hospitaltreatment.

Marilyn Darling

After weathering some tough times as the world of international finance went
through a series of major crises, IFC has seen record results for the past three
years. This could lead to a sense of self-satisfaction that “we’ve figured things out.”
But because of our unique mission to promote open markets and create opportunities for people in places where low incomes, political conflict, or lack of resources make life a constant challenge, we must figure out how to continue
to grow in a challenging and constantly shifting landscape.

Dorothy Berry

And that is the crucial difference between IFC and other financial institutions: the mandate for growthdoes not drive us to look for the easiest opportunities, but to look for places where we can make thebiggest difference. This means taking on and managing much greater risks in a sometimes volatileenvironment for international finance. The challenge can seem unmanageable in many different ways.

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As Thunell noted, “Many millions of people insmaller, less developed markets and in conflictaffected countries have not yet shared in thebenefits of private sector growth. Throughout thedeveloping world, the environment, corporate
governance, and social issues all pose challenges
to a private sector seeking to become competitiveand meet international standards.”
	To make that kind of growth possible, we have
had to do four things:
1. Doing more in more places – including
countries and regions that present a higher
business risk.
2. Having a more local presence and not relying primarily on headquarters for businessdecisions, as IFC has done in the past.
3.	Offering new products to meet emerging
needs and focusing on clients’ measuresof success, not just our own.
4.	Creating an organizational culture that
fosters experimentation, reflection anddialogue to create and scale-up innovative
solutions for clients.

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Asking employees to do to more with less is afamiliar mandate. A few years ago, IFC employees
would have responded to these challenges liketheir counterparts in so many organizations:“Too much.” “We can’t do it.” “That’s crazy.”
But because we have been on a proactive journey
to transform the organization over the last decade,our staff now has greater confidence in what we
can accomplish and a “roll-up-our-sleeves” attitude. Whereas five years ago, many of them would
have balked, now their reaction is, “Okay, we cando that.”Jyrki Koskelo, Vice President for Africa, Global
Financial Markets and Funds, agrees. “We havepeople who want to make a difference,” he explains,“and you make that difference in the places andindustries where the private sector is not reaching
the people most in need. We have a critical massof people in the field that we’ve never had before.
We are closer to our clients. There is little doubt
to me that we can respond.”

A Short History of IFC

I

FC was founded in 1956 as a private sector counterpart to the World Bank, investing in private enterprises where
the Bank lends to governments. In its early days, IFC mainly provided financing to firms from industrializedcountries as they invested in emerging markets, and this work was a relatively small part of World Bank Group
activity. For a few decades, the market was quite small, and IFC faced little demand to diversify its products.
Debt crises led to more business for IFC beginning in the 1980s, as many developing country governments
turned to the private sector to address their needs for capital expenditure, maintenance, and management. IFC
developed expertise in infrastructure—including telecommunications, power, transport, and utilities—and grew
rapidly in an expanding market with few other players. By the late 1990s, however, other investors awoke to theseopportunities. The international banks that had helped expand the market started to take much of IFC’s businessaway. This challenge to IFC’s market presence was compounded by a second wave of debt crises that hit Russia
and Argentina.
By the end of the 1990s, IFC saw its cost base going up, but its revenues were flat. The reason was simple. Larger
companies in Europe and North America had enough expertise of their own to invest in developing countries.
Either they did not need IFC, or they did not see big political risk in their emerging market investments.
	This is the backdrop against which IFC has repositioned itself: today nearly two-thirds of IFC’s client firms are basedin emerging markets. As Jyrki Koskelo notes, “When there is more need, and when the political or business environment in a country changes, IFC has two choices. We adapt and find products that are relevant for clients, or we see
our business die. IFC as an organization, with the individuals we have, has chosen to keep up with market conditions.”

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IFC in 1998: The Need for Change

IFC’s Approach to Change

In the late 1990s, IFC was losing market share,even though we had a strong reputation as aproject finance house. In a growing market, ourportfolio had not grown in five years. Moreover,there was increasing criticism from stakeholders
about the way IFC conducted its business. Many
felt that our work was not focused enough on
achieving development impact. In 2000, we werea headquarters-centric organization, with mostof our staff in Washington. Recalling that era, Bill
Bulmer, IFC’s Associate Director for IFC Mining,observed, “Our strategy was really just a list of
business opportunities. It was quite superficial
and opportunistic.”

At IFC and the World Bank Group in the late 1990s,
the initial response to this need for change was toroll out a formal change management process. But
this initial approach was not a good match for IFC’s
culture. Instead of a complex, top-down change
model, what we needed was a more organic modelthat captured hearts and minds and unleashedthe pent-up energy of our people.

Our leadership realized that we had to come up
with a radical plan either to scale down IFC or finda new client base. IFC needed to go directly toemerging markets, and to do that, we needed
more people in these markets who understood
Hurricane
aftermaththe clients.
We Katrina
recognizedthat we needed todecentralize our operations.

What evolved was a journey of organizationalchange with a strong focus on organizational
learning. There was less emphasis at the top of theorganization on planning exactly what the change
should look like and driving it down through theranks, and more emphasis on creating a sharedvision through dialogue, and on creating the spacefor people – especially people in the field – to testout new ideas.
Bernie Sheahan, Director of Advisory Services,
was asked to lead an early phase of change at IFC.
He began meeting with staff every Wednesday.

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This grew from an initial plan for three weeks ofmeetings to hear people’s ideas. “I offered wineand called it ‘Bernie’s Bar.’ Thirty people would
show up each week, so I just kept it going. Thirty
turned into 100 people, and it went on for a year.”Bernie’s Bar was useful for fleshing out issues.
While it did not drive a specific change, it createda dialogue and helped drive a change in mindset
that has become central to our way of doing
business.
This approach to change was very different from“business as usual” at IFC. The immediate experience of our staff involved in those early change
efforts was that “management has no idea how to
do this.” Everyone was looking for a grand strategy
and a blueprint for change. Staff, including someof our directors and managers, would continually
ask for instruction, but as leaders we kept throwing the questions back at them. If these initial forays
were an awkward phase, this was also quite intentional. The aim was to get people to think for themselves and to take initiative. Because staff members
were not expected to sign on to one formal, top-reflections.solonline.org

down change process, it allowed them toinnovate.
Another hallmark of IFC’s approach was that thesenior team took its own medicine. As Robert
Hanig, an organizational learning consultant who
worked with us through this transition, described
it: “The senior team was a microcosm of theculture they wanted to create. It wasn’t subject/
object. They observed that ‘we’re perpetuatingwith our behaviors the very things we want tochange. What about us needs to shift?’”
These early years involved lots of small experiments in decentralizing operations, putting more
people in the field, creating a commercial mindset,
and creating new HR programs that focused onbuilding a high performance culture. Some tookroot, and some did not. But more important than
the individual changes was the fact that everyone
experimented and paid attention to what worked.
Just as deliberately, IFC’s leaders chose not to callour effort an “organizational learning initiative.” Wefe at u r e | be r r y, heg n g i , d a r l i n g

decided it is better to build organizational
learning capabilities rather than to announce
that this is the objective.
Our aim was also to stimulate the same kind ofcultural change in each region. If IFC was to learn
how to adapt to and outperform the market,
all regional teams had to learn how to think forthemselves and innovate by creating new
solutions.
Thierry Tanoh is IFC’s Director for Sub-SaharanAfrica. His approach to leading the region today
reflects the results of IFC’s decade of culturechange: “I delegate a lot of responsibilities to ourmanagers. I rarely order them to do something.
If they consult me, I tell them what I would do if I
were in their shoes. But they are the ones making
the decision. If they are wrong, they come back tome and we talk about lessons learned. I will givethem clear feedback so that we all learn to do
better.”
IFC’s growth in Africa has been especially impressive. As recently as 2003, IFC produced just $140
million in committed investments in the region.
After joining IFC in 2006, Thunell announced that
we should be investing $1 billion a year in Africa.
People doubted this was possible. But just 18
months later, IFC’s investments in Africa hadreached a record $1.4 billion.

A Shared Vision
A long-standing aim of the organizational learning
field is “to make organizations worthy of the highest aspirations of their people.” In fact, IFC’s mission,and the people drawn to it, are at the very coreof our nine-year change effort.
As Jyrki Koskelo describes it, “It is not the organization that made this change happen. It is the individuals. As one person, you can’t assume that you canchange the world or IFC. But we have a group ofpeople who want to do the right thing. By engaging all of us individually to create change, youactually move the organization.”

What is special about IFC is that our vision works
both top-down and bottom-up. What started with aleadership dialogue about vision also tapped into
the personal vision of a lot of people. People cometo IFC because they care about the work. Here theyfind a financial organization that cares about morethan just making money. Our change process has
given a voice to what they want to do.

What is special about IFC is thatour vision works both top-down
and bottom-up. What started
with a leadership dialogue aboutvision also tapped into the personal vision of a lot of people.
Dialogue about IFC’s vision stimulated a staff that
was already passionate about IFC’s role in private
sector development, and much of the focus from2000 to 2003 was on sustainability. “How can wehelp create ethical businesses in our regions?” Questions like this stimulated people’s creativity and gavethem the freedom to experiment in their own work
– a hallmark of an agile organization.
Our dialogue process continues today under
Thunell’s leadership. It uses a strategic planning
process developed in Sweden that provides acommon language and tool for vision and valuesdriven development of business, operations, andprojects. After senior management expresses its
overall corporate vision, values, and strategy, eachdepartment determines its business strategy andbudget for discussion and approval. This process
allows ample space for dialogue and push-back.
In fact, today, unlike nine years ago, our seniorleaders really have no choice but to welcome thecritical thinking of the people who make up IFC.

Bottom-up Collaboration and Innovation
With our markets changing, IFC found that our
traditional, project-based products were notenough. Leaders knew that regional teams would
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evolving needs. This meant that innovation would
need to happen across previously stove-piped
parts of the organization. And innovation acrossdepartments would require collaboration.

worldwide network rather than a headquarters
with satellite offices.”

Sometimes innovation just means venturingoutside of the boundaries of what is considered
IFC’s scope to apply best banking practices in new
ways to the situations that investment officers
face. For most of IFC’s history, investment reallymeant project finance. Combining a shared vision

When crises hit, organizations often “circle thewagons” and become risk-averse, retreating towhat has worked in the past. When IFC was rocked
by the second wave of financial crises in the late
1990s, our response was quite different.

Staff needed the courage to breakthrough old models of how things
get done and the strength to be arole model for others.
and collaboration on small experiments has
allowed us to shift our portfolio and offer services
that are based primarily on what the markets
need, rather than what we traditionally financed.
In the IFC of a decade ago, people in the fieldoften felt micromanaged. Jesper Kjaer is Senior
Manager of IFC’s Advisory Services in the Middle
East and North Africa. “ The thinking was ‘stick towhat we know,’” as Kjaer remembers. “It was awhole shift in mindset. It was not a matter of
issuing a memo and starting to do something
different. It was more about providing the space
to allow operators on the ground – like me –to push the boundaries.”
In Kjaer’s region, IFC invested about $300 million
a year as recently as three years ago. By 2007, theinvestment had grown to $1.2 billion. As Kjaer
explains it, “One of the reasons we are able togrow the business this way is that we have also
been building IFC’s brand in the region. Today’s
IFC presents itself more as a partner and providerof solutions than as a financial institution. A Washington-centric IFC, as we had been in the past,actually drove field-based people into isola-tionand doing their own thing. Washington didn’t
seem to care. Now, we are more like a big,

Using Bumps Along the Road
to Practice Leadership and Learning

Because of IFC’s investments in Argentina, wefaced the prospect of writing down $600–700
million dollars in 2001–2002, which would havecaused the first financial loss in IFC’s history.
As senior managers, we used the prospect of aloss to challenge our operational leaders to cut
costs and proactively go after new business withclients. We used the crisis to focus more on clientsand put more people into the field. IFC’s first downsizing became an opportunity to trim the staff ofunderperformers and begin to identify the top
people to focus on developing.
Partnerships and client relationships are the gluethat holds institutions like IFC together during acrisis. Farida Khambata, IFC’s Vice President of Asia,
Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa,
experienced the impact of Argentina’s financial
crisis of 2001–2002 first hand. “Our first thought
was not, ‘how do we get out’ but, rather, ‘how do
we engage with clients to help them weather thestorm?’” IFC was able to react and mobilize its resources quickly, committing to its first loan around60 days after the crisis began. “The key to responding quickly,” recalls Khambata, “was knowing ourclients, being prepared and being flexible.”
Using these bumps in the road proactively has
helped our staff become more confident of theirability to tackle unpredictable challenges in the
future. “The Asia and Argentina crises actuallytaught us how important it is to be close to themarket,” observed Koskelo. “When you have crises,
you are forced to react faster than you would
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As IFC’s senior leaders, we believe that organizational learning helped IFC weather its first-everdownsizing and create the “muscle” for collaboration. In a complex world, we need to build theability to deal with conflicts. We provided people
with the opportunity to practice by dealing withthese very real challenges.

Leadership Development
Because change was not a fully formed plan being
handed down from our senior leaders, and because
IFC was becoming more and more decentralized,
the success of our effort at transformation depended
on individuals. In particular, staff needed the courage to break through old models of how things
get done and the strength to be a role model forothers.
We supported change with a strong Human Resources program to recruit, develop, and recognize
the kinds of people who could help transform IFC
into an agile market leader. We sent people to thebest external leadership development programs
and created our own accelerated leadership development programs for high performers. In a quasigovernmental institution like IFC and the World
Bank, recognizing high performers is not normallya tool that leaders can use to promote change.
This required a huge change of attitude at IFC.
People didn’t want an “elite” in the organization
and worried about the “middle class.” When we
started the accelerated program, it was very
controversial.
Staff members were initially uncomfortable withdifferentiation. Since 2000, we have aimed to build
a high-performance culture where staff are recognized and rewarded based on performance andresults achieved. We have implemented a robust
incentive program to strengthen the link between
organizational and individual performance, with
an emphasis on accountability for results.

Recruitment and recognition in the field
To reflect our approach to change, IFC leaders
have been very flexible in our recruiting initiatives,

giving each region the room it needed to create a
program that would work in the markets it serves.
For example, IFC had been struggling to succeed
in Africa for years. When the economy there started
to strengthen, it created a window of opportunity.
Thierry Tanoh was able to promise people herecruited that their work would be visible to IFC
leaders, and that they would be strong candidates
for IFC’s leadership development programs. “Thisis not a one person effort,” as Tanoh explained it.
“You need a team of people. The most important
thing is to be able to recruit people who have apassion for Africa.”

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Tanoh was strict about which staff he recommended
to the corporate panel overseeing the promotion
process, but he has built a track record of getting
100 percent of the people he put forward promoted. That has made it easier for him to recruit
talented people. “People here feel like they arepart of a winning team.”

An emerging success: Sustainability
An example of how our organizational learningreflections.solonline.org

approach to change has played out is IFC’s extraordinarily successful venture into championing
sustainability.
In the late 1990s, Environment and Social Development was a department of about 70 people
that had been treated as a sort of policing function. It was seen as a constraint on business, often
blocking projects from happening. As Bernie
Sheahan recalls, “This department and the rest

By 2006, IFC was able to expand its ability to achieve its mission…
IFC’s Reach
Reach indicators give an indication of the people touched by IFC’s activities.
Investments, 2006				
Advisory services, 2002–2006
Hospital patients treated: 4 million			Assisted 1,768 banks
Students educated: 350,000			Assisted 40,000 entrepreneurs
Electricity customers served: 9.5 million
Water customers served: 15.3 million
MSME loans: 5 million
New phone connections: 53 million
Local purchases by IFC clients: $31 billion
Community development spending by clients: $250 million…in “frontier markets” with a higher risk profile…

fe at u r e | be r r y, heg n g i , d a r l i n g…while growing and aggressively decentralizing its staff…
3,500
HQ

Field

3,000

2,880
2,433

2,500
2,000
1,500

3,221

3,134

Total IFC Staff

2,254
1,957

1,331

1,000
626

2,068

1,326

742

2,107

1,240
867

1,291
963

1,351

1,674

1,550

1,498

1,547

1,584

1,082

1,382

FY05

FY06

500
0

FY01

FY02

FY03

FY04

FY07

FY08*

…and still improving its operational performance.
IFC Investment Operations and Resources ($ millions) as of 1/31/08
FY03

FY04

FY05

FY06

FY07

5-year total

Number of projects1

204

217

236

284

299

1,240

Number of countries

64

64

67

66

69

–

5,037

5,632

6,449

8,275

9,995

35,388

4,468

4,115

4,011

5,739

7,456

25,789Number of firms

1,378

1,333

1,313

1,368

1,410

Total committed portfolio2

23,37923,46024,536

26,70630,954

Investment commitments

Total commitments signed2
Investment disbursements
Total financing disbursed
Committed portfolio3

1 Includes first commitment to projects in the fiscal year. Projects involving financing to more than one company are counted as one commitment.
2 Includes loan guarantees and risk management products.
3 Total committed portfolio and held for others include securitized loans.
* As of 01/31/2008** This financing is not included on IFC’s balance sheet.

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of IFC had seen each other as working at crosspurposes for years. People tried to get aroundenvironmental issues.”

ance to an external focus on creating value, sustainability shifted from being a liability to being
an asset.

To respond to a rapidly changing external environment and to respond to the voices of our stakeholders who were urging us to change how we
do our work, IFC’s leaders launched an initiative totransform this constraint into a value stream. Our
vision was to create a financial institution that not
only builds the private sector but does it in a waythat is sustainable for the environment and for thecommunities it serves. We want clients to come to
IFC because we are focused on these issues, notavoid us because we are.

As Sheahan recalled the shift, “Sustainability
helped us articulate more clearly how the public
good fit into our business model, at a time ofincreased concerns around these issues from bothshareholders and clients.” Rather than being a dragon performance, sustainability became an important contributor to growth. It has helped us focus
on our real objectives.

The drive to change IFC’s orientation toward sustainability also changed the tone of discussions
with the Board of Directors and IFC’s key shareholders. By shifting from an internal focus on compli-

Dialogues like Bernie’s Bar helped get the train
moving. “We went through a very involved one-totwo year launch process,” recalled Sheahan. “It wasvery grassroots-driven. Organizational learning
was a key part of getting people to buy into thevision and to figure out how to deliver it.”fe at u r e | be r r y, heg n g i , d a r l i n g

IFC leaders held a series of breakfasts to talk withstaff. These conversations led to large-scale training of 500 to 600 people, to help everyone understand why sustainability was important and how
to work with IFC’s clients in this area. The process
helped develop our thinking about how sustainability would help clients and build on IFC’s
comparative advantages.
As a result, experiments sprang up in IFC offices
around the globe. Jesper Kjaer recalls a key example from his own work. “In 2003, we worked
on an expansion of a large aluminum smelter inMozambique. It was our largest investment in the
country up to that time.” On top of the investment,
IFC provided a sustainability package that included
community development and small businesssupply-chain development. “We developed smaller businesses to supply this larger project. That
was considered a very successful project and arole model about how such work could be done.”The strong interest in sustainability led to the publication of a book, Developing Value, which highlighted the synergy between sustainability andfinancial performance. “Our positioning as distinct
from other multilaterals helped change our momentum in the marketplace,” explains Sheehan. “Now
we could add value to what clients were doing,
not just be someone else selling them a product.”
In 2002, IFC convened a meeting of leading
financial institutions that were facing major
criticisms from nongovernmental institutions onenvironmental issues. IFC offered to help these
institutions grapple with these issues. Within twomonths, the discussions inspired a group of banks
to come up with joint policies, and they decided
that IFC’s policies were the best available in themarket. Together, we and the banks drafted theEquator Principles.
Bill Bulmer was involved in developing thestandards. The whole global finance world wasliterally waiting for us. “It was something thatsome colleagues in the World Bank Group said we

couldn’t do. Because it was such a political issue,
they predicted that it would take eight or nine
years. But we couldn’t wait that long.” The Equator
Principles were launched in 2003 with 10 leadinginternational banks. Since then, the number has
grown to about 60 Equator financial institutions,

IFC will continue to face new
major challenges as it continues tobecome a global entity. “There isno time to sit back and say, okay,
we’ve done that. We need tokeep moving.”
including some key banks in developing countries.
IFC’s leadership on sustainability and involvementin the Equator Principles has had a lasting, positiveeffect on employees and IFC stakeholders. This
work has raised IFC’s profile in the marketplace. “Asan institution, we’ve adopted an approach to sustainability that combines risk management – thebedrock of any successful business – with identifying market-based opportunities to improve overall business performance,” says Rachel Kyte, IFC’s
Vice President for Advisory Services. But it is clear
to everyone within IFC that the institution cannot
succeed on one good idea. The rest of the financial world has begun to embrace sustainability,
which represents a big success for IFC but also
poses a new business challenge to differentiate
ourselves. It means that we must continue tocreate the space for innovation.

IFC’s Future
Our mandate for 2008 and beyond is simple. In
2007, 37 percent of IFC’s investments were in the
81 poorest countries. The mandate is to increasethat figure to 50 percent by 2011. This will mean
investing in key sectors, such as infrastructure andmicrofinance, while supporting the integration ofregional markets. As described by Thunell, “IFC willcontinue to create opportunities for millions ofpeople to escape poverty and improve their lives.”

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Our future success, as the past nine years havedemonstrated, will depend on our staff listening
to their clients and continuing to create innovative
solutions for changing markets. This is an evenbigger challenge in an environment where many
staff can move to other, more lucrative jobs in theprivate sector. “The markets have been good,”
warns Bill Bulmer. “In the past, we have been able
to recruit high quality staff. But for the first time,
we are seeing real difficulties in recruiting people.”
The factors include stiff competition for talent inemerging markets and, most recently, the weakening of the dollar.
But our senior leaders and regional leaders are
confident that, if we stay true to our approach tochange, the whole organization can rally aroundthe challenges lying just over the horizon.
“We will be challenged for years to come,” proposes
Koskelo. “New frontiers are always emerging. But
I’m looking at a much longer historical track. If we
set our minds to do something, we can do it, because we have so many highly skilled, motivatedstaff.”

reflections.solonline.org”With the growth targets we have now,” comments
Bill Bullmer, “the ability to learn as we go along is
so crucial to the ongoing performance of theorganization.” IFC will continue to face new major
challenges as it continues to become a global
entity. “There is no time to sit back and say, okay,
we’ve done that. We need to keep moving.”
Bulmer recalls what he learned while working on
the Equator Principles. “We like to have black-andwhite answers to everything. ‘Yes, they are in compliance. No, they are not.’ But life is messier thanthat.” IFC must continue to earn its reputation in
the marketplace. “We earn our reputation byaddressing risk, not by staying away from difficult
issues. We have an expectation that we will doeverything perfectly, but we can’t. What we can
expect is that if there are problems, we willaddress them and learn as we go.”“I happen to think IFC’s glory is still to come,” observes Koskelo. “If I look back at the last 20 years,
I’m much more confident in IFC’s ability to createa difference than before. I look at the staff, at our
global coverage and the breadth of the organization, compared to what we had before. If we failnow, there’s something really wrong.” na b o u t t he a u t h o r s
Dorothy Hamachi Berry is IFC’s Vice President for human resources, communications, andadministration. She has been a practitioner of organizational learning for many years, and for the
past nine years has been helping IFC become a more people-oriented, customer-focused organization. Prior to joining IFC, Berry held senior-level positions in both the public and private sectors,
including Vice President, Human Resources for the World Bank, and Deputy Assistant Secretaryfor Management at the U.S. Department of Education. dberry@ifc.org
Yolanda Nokuri Hegngi, Ph. D. is Head of Global Learning and Development at IFC and has beena practitioner there for over six years. Prior to IFC, she led global learning projects at the World Bank
Institute, taught at Virginia Tech and Berry College, and consulted with international private andpublic sector organizations. YHegngi@ifc.org
Marilyn Darling is a partner of Signet Research & Consulting, LLC. A founding member of SoL, she
has conducted research and consulting in strategies for emergent learning in complex environments
since founding Signet in 1989. She works with organizations in private, public and philanthropic
sectors to become more adaptive by strengthening learning and know-how within and acrossteams. mdarling@signetconsulting.com

fe at u r e | s m i t h

fe a t u r e 9 . 1

The Missing Piece
to Building Great Teamsby d i a n a M c L a i n Sm i t h
In this article, adapted from Diana McLain Smith’s new book Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn
Conflict into Strength (Penguin: 2008), stories from the author’s own work and public sources allow us topeer inside the relationships that so often make or break the success of teams. Once you understand how
relationships actually work, develop, and change, you can use that understanding to build relationships
flexible and strong enough to create and sustain exceptional teams.

All teams rise and fall on the strength of their relationships. Secretaryof Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top generals; Larry Summers andthe faculty at Harvard University; Carly Fiorina and the Hewlett-Packard
board; Michael Ovitz and Michael Eisner at Disney; Steve Jobs andAfter 20 years of studying 		
John Sculley at Apple in the 1980s; Winston
and advising leaders and their
Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt during
teams, I’ve come to believe that
Diana McLain Smith
World War II; Abraham Lincoln and his
every team is only as strong as
wartime cabinet. As far back as Agamemnon and Achilles on the beaches of Troy, relationships within
its weakest relationships.
teams have determined the fate of leaders and their enterprises.
Even so, relationships go largely unnoticed. We analyze group dynamics; we size up team members; wetinker with design and redefine roles and rights; we even consider the larger context within which teams
operate. But we don’t take a close look at the relationships that turn a bunch of people into a team.
No one today would dispute the idea that relationships matter. Flatter hierarchies, tighter interdependencies, efforts to move decision-making down in organizations all depend on the quality of people’s
relationships. Yet despite their obvious importance – perhaps because of it – relationships remain largely
a mystery. We know that relationships matter, but not exactly why or how. And so despite our best efforts
to create collaborative, high-performing teams or flatter, more flexible organizations, many still look as
territorial and hierarchical as ever.
After 20 years of studying and advising leaders and their teams, I’ve come to believe that every team isonly as strong as its weakest relationships. How well and how quickly teams make decisions, inspire innovation, tackle performance problems, or learn from mistakes – all depend on the strength of relationships
within a team. Some relationships give teams the courage to face tough truths and make bold changes.
Others kill every new idea or initiative within their reach. Still others plod along somewhere in between,
causing little trouble but failing to inspire or sustain stellar performance. Without a doubt, individuals

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and group dynamics figure in all this, but all thatfiguring takes place in the context of relationships.
In retrospect, the conclusion was inescapable. On
many occasions I’ve witnessed organizations falter– not because leaders failed to grasp the need tochange or to design the right strategy or to inspire
the troops or to appreciate the importance of
culture – but because relationships within theirteams prevented them from doing what theyneeded to do to succeed.

“It’s the Relationship, Stupid”
I’d long suspected that relationships played apivotal role in a firm’s success or failure, but the
top team at “Elite Systems” convinced me. Long
touted by the press as one of America’s great
manufacturing firms, Elite’s performance firststalled, then plummeted after competitors
entered the market with knock-off products atmuch lower prices. Two years later, the team faced
choices so fundamental they challenged its mostbasic beliefs and threatened its identity as a leader
in product design. Quite understandably, theexecutives struggled.
As consultants to the team, my partner and I
figured we could best help by gathering data on
politically charged strategic questions, facilitatingteam deliberations, and developing people’sknowledge of strategy, team dynamics, andnegotiation. After a year and a half, I think it’s fairto say we failed. Despite everyone’s hard work andbest efforts, the team couldn’t move quickly
enough to turn around the firm’s performance. In
the end, the board felt they had no choice. They
had to take action, and they did, firing the CEO
and half his team. Needless to say, my partner andI went out with them, as we should have.
Afterwards, I decided to take a closer look at what
had prevented the team from moving fast enoughto improve Elite’s performance. As I pored overtranscripts from over fifty meetings, tape-recorded
over 18 months, I began to see the basic flaw in
our approach. We were so intent on building theteam, facilitating their decision-making, andreflections.solonline.org

developing individual leaders that we completely
overlooked the real sticking point: relationships
within the team.
Yet the closer I looked, the more obvious itbecame. Three sets of relationships had made it
impossible for the team to move fast or wellenough to succeed:•	The relationships among executives fromcompeting business units;•	The relationships between those most central
and those more peripheral to debates;•	The relationships between the CEO andmembers of his team.
In the first set, executives from different business
units repeatedly got caught in what they called“point-counterpoint debates” about the cause andthe cure of the firm’s deteriorating performance.
The two executives who dominated this debate,Frank Adams and Ian McAlister, couldn’t havebeen more different. One headed up the firm’s
newest and fastest-growing subsidiary, the otherthe firm’s struggling core business. One was brashand quick, the other measured and reflective. One
believed that the market should shape theproducts you make, the other that the products
you make should be strong enough to shape themarket. One appealed to facts and figures, theother to values and beliefs. Unable to resolve theirdifferences – forget about using them – they
began to accuse each other of trying to protect
their turf or to promote their own business. The
two went nowhere, fast.
In the second set of relationships, leaders peripheral to the debate watched and waited as thosecaught up in it argued back and forth, back andforth. Over time, the silence of this peripheral
majority led those embroiled in the debate todiscount their inputs any time one of them waded
in. Angered by the rebuff, those on the peripherywithdrew even further, making it impossible forthem to alter the point-counterpoint debate thatwas stalling progress.

fe at u r e | s m i t hFinally, hoping to resolve differences the team
couldn’t, the CEO periodically stepped in andimposed a solution to get things moving. But this
only strained his initially strong relationship withthe team, many of whom faulted him for violating
his espoused commitment to collaboration andautonomy. Now caught himself, the CEO grew
more distant, creating a leadership vacuum thatexacerbated the team dynamics and further
strained his relationship with the team.
In the end, these three sets of relationships killed
the team. With the first set polarizing debates, thesecond reducing them to a handful of players, andthe third destroying the CEO’s ability to exert his
leadership, the team didn’t stand a chance.

The Waiting Game: When You Win, You Lose
No one in the room was blind to these dynamics.
Everyone felt their corrosive effects, even complained about them regularly. But no one seemed
able to change them, at least not in any enduring
way. They kept bumping up against the sameproblem: They were all looking to someone elseon the team to change his or her behavior beforechanging their own.

It was the old prisoner’s dilemma. Worried thatany change they made might be misunderstoodor exploited by others, no one wanted to risk it.
What’s more, they all shared the same conventional wisdom about changing these dynamics.
Convinced the other guy was the problem, they
focused on getting him to change rather thanchanging themselves (see “Conventional Wisdom,”
page 16). With no one willing to make the first
move, they all got caught in a waiting gamethat made it hard for anyone to change.

That Trapped Feeling
From years of observing teams, I had long understood how one person’s actions – say, an accusation or a threat – could provoke reactions inanother (indignation or outrage) that would lead
him to act in ways (stonewall or counterattack)that caused the first person to react further. But
now, as I studied what happened at Elite, I could
see how these patterns, left to escalate, had madeeven the most irrational actions look downrightreasonable, even inevitable, to the person acting.
Over time, this sense of inevitability had madeeveryone on the team feel trapped in relationshipsthat were no longer of their own making. And

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Conventional Wisdom• Because your behavior upsets me, you must be the causeof my upset. Since you’re the cause, you should change.
• My telling you that you’re the cause and that you shouldchange is all you need to change.
•	If you don’t change, that must mean you don’t want tochange or that you just don’t get it. (It’s not a sign that my
behavior is part of the problem.)•	If you continue to act in ways that upset me, that mustmean that I need to try harder to make you change. (Itdoesn’t mean I’m trying the wrong things.)• Because I’m now trying harder and harder, and you’re still
not changing, you must be uninfluenceable. (It’s not a signthat I am uninfluenceable).
• Given that you’re uninfluenceable, there’s nothing else I
can do.
• Given there’s nothing else I can do, then there’s nothingelse I will do. As far as I’m concerned, the relationship isover – whether I actually leave or stay.
while no one liked the impact these relationships
were having on the team, no one had a clue how
to change them.
And there’s the rub: once patterns of interaction
take on a life of their own, relationships seem tooperate independently of anything we do or wantor intend.
If they go well, everything else goes well. If they
go poorly, everything else goes to hell. Whichhappens, most of us chalk up to a chemistry too
mysterious to decode and too difficult to change.

reflections.solonline.org

among us can pinpoint their cause; still fewer knowwhat to do about it. Like a firm’s culture, relationships are part of the informal side of organizational
life: the soft stuff that’s hard to see, grasp, or change.
My clinical research over the past two decades
sheds an important new light on old relationshipcondundrums. That research has convinced me of
two things: first, that relationships have an informal structure that can be mapped and changed,
and second, that relationships may be the single
most underutilized lever for transforming theperformance of teams and organizations.
This is especially true for relationships that operate along organizational fault lines – interfaces
where coordination is as essential as it is difficult:research and marketing at Merck; manufacturing
and design at Herman Miller; the president andthe faculty at Harvard; business units cooperating
and competing in the marketplace; executive andlegislative branches at the federal and state levels;
top management and middle management everywhere. At each interface, interests collide andconflicts erupt. Whether people can put theseconflicts to work, so they create value rather thandestroy it, depends on the nature and the qualityof their relationships.
This is where most of us find ourselves at a loss.
Even the best ideas about teams or interpersonal
dynamics fail to bring relationships into theforeground, where we can see how they work andhow they break down. As a result, we may knowthat a relationship’s in trouble, but we don’t know
how to change it, at least not in any reliable orlasting way.

It need not be that way.

To Change the Game,You Have To See the Game
Relationships are such an integral part of everyday
life they’re like the air we breathe. Until something
unpleasant or unexpected happens, we give themlittle notice; even then, we’re often at a loss as towhat to do. We can spot difficulties easily enoughand feel their effects even more easily, but few

Relationships:
A Team’s Most Basic Building Blocks
Given the right tools, it’s possible to build relationships that are flexible and strong enough to sustain
stellar performance in teams, both over time andunder pressure. Because two-person relationships
are the basic DNA that shapes how a team operates and evolves, it’s important to understand how
relationships work and develop, and how they can

fe at u r e | s m i t h

The New Yorker Collection from CartoonBank.com. All rights reserved

be transformed in ways that take practical realities
into account.

Understanding Relationships
When it comes to the formal side of a relationship– defining roles, clarifying responsibilities, allocating decision rights, calculating financial rewards –we have lots of tools. But when it comes to theinformal side – the chemistry between people, thebalance of give and take, the sense of connection
or animosity they feel – here we have only ourintuition to guide us. That’s because this side of a
relationship is hard to see and even harder tounderstand. But with the proper tools, it’s possible
to map the underlying structure of a relationship,allowing you to see how the informal side of a
relationship interacts with the formal side to
determine its fate.

Transforming Relationships
The reason most people change so slowly, or not
at all, isn’t because you can’t teach old folks new
tricks (you can), but because we expect them tochange independently of the relationships inwhich they operate. The same goes for teams,
even organizations. We expect them to change
independently of the relationships that makethem up. Trouble is, the vast majority of people
will wait for their peers to make the first, second,even the third move. And when it comes to theirsuperiors, well, then the wait will be more on theorder of a hundred moves. Meanwhile, a lot oftime is a-wasting. People and teams will change
a lot faster if you focus on changing relationships
so they are flexible and strong enough to supportchange at all levels – from the individual to theteam to the overall organization. When people

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committed him. “I would,” the guy answers, “but I
need the eggs.” The point is, as difficult as relationships sometimes are, we need what they give us,
even if it’s all in our heads. And there’s no getting
around it. While relationships give us many things,
from a much-needed sense of connection to
much-needed political support, they also takeeffort. Sometimes, lots of effort.
But not all relationships within teams require ordeserve the same amount of effort, or the samekind. To help you decide which relationships toinvest in and when, you need two tools: an Investment Matrix that tells you where to focus yourinvestments, and a Sequencing Matrix that tells
you when to invest in which ones. Together these
two tools give you a way to think strategically andpractically about developing greater resilienceat the top of your organization.

work together to turn their relationships into contexts for growth and learning, there are no morewaiting games: people help each other create a
relationship that supports growth and learning.

Making Change Practical
When the best-laid plans go awry, it’s usually because they’re disconnected from the very realities
they’re supposed to address. Sure, all of us want
better relationships in our teams, but what teamcan afford to invest the time, money, and energy
to create them? To make change practical, youneed more than a theory of change; you need atool kit for making change happen in the real world.
Among other tools, one tool in this tool kit must
help you focus and sequence your efforts so you
can create the biggest impact with the least
amount of effort.

Focus the Change Effort
At the end of Annie Hall, the classic 1977 film
about relationships, Woody Allen tells an old joke
about this guy who goes to a psychiatrist and says,“Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken.”
Horrified, the doctor asks why he hasn’t already

The Investment Matrix
In any business, people make a basic distinction
between two types of costs: operating costs andinvestments. Where the former keeps a businessgoing today, the latter keeps it going tomorrow.
The same basic distinction can be made about
relationships.
All relationships entail relatively fixed operating
costs. If you want a relationship to go well, youhave to raise sensitive topics with care; you haveto deal with your own or other’s emotional reactions; you have to repair any ruptures. All of these
activities maintain relationships, and all of themtake time, energy, and money.
In business, investments represent a different
kind of cost. On the one hand, they’re more flexible than operating costs. You can ramp them up
and down more easily. On the other hand, if you
don’t invest enough, or if you don’t invest strategically, you can’t keep up with your competitors.
New products or services don’t get introduced
fast enough, causing revenues to fall. Or increasingly inefficient systems don’t get updated fastenough, causing costs to rise.

fe at u r e | s m i t hAgain, the same basic logic holds for relationships.
All relationships require investment to keep up
with the shifting demands of any organization.
Otherwise, they tend to get in the way: an organizational redesign calling for greater cooperation
doesn’t work as intended, or a new strategy falls
flat because people don’t get the right information to the right people at the right time.1 Just as
you can reduce the costs associated with outdated
formal systems by upgrading them, so can you
reduce the costs of relationships by transforming
the informal structures underlying them.
In each case, you replace an outdated, inefficientsystem with a more effective and efficient one.
Only, in the case of relationships, you seek to redesign a relationship’s informal structure so it’sbetter able to handle even the most difficult ofrelationship tasks well – whether it’s recouping
when things go wrong, or reviving a relationshipthat’s dying.
Making investments is inherently difficult. Whether
you’re thinking about a business or a relationship,
today’s pressing demands will always clamor for
more attention, and those demands will make acompelling case: if they don’t get what they need,
there’ll be no tomorrow to invest in. So whenever
you invest, you have to make choices – sometimes,
hard choices.
In making those choices, many people’s first instinct is to focus on “problem” relationships. Butthat focus is far too broad to be practical: mostfirms would have a very long list of candidates, andno firm can afford to invest in all of them. Besides,
by focusing only on problems, you set your sights
too low.
At the same time, if you take a more ambitious
tack – aspiring to turn every good relationshipinto a high-performing one – you’ll still have far
more change on your hands than you can handle,
and not all relationships require the same levelof excellence.

To make change practical, people need a framework that can help them focus their investments.
The matrix below groups relationships in terms of
their relative importance and interdependence,
identifying four segments, each one calling fora different approach.
The basic idea behind the matrix is simple: invest
in transforming only those relationships that areboth highly important and highly interdependent.
All other relationships can be handled throughmore conventional approaches. Below I define
what I mean by importance and interdependence
and explain how you can assess relationships inthose terms.

Importance
Perhaps it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: all relationships are intrinsically important.
They make or break our sense of well-being, oureffectiveness, our self-esteem, our sense of ourselves, our connection to others, even our purposein life. So when I speak of importance here, I do soonly relative to a firm’s limited investment resources.
In this narrow sense, you can assess the importanceof a relationship along three dimensions –Figure 1 Investment Matrix
High

ManageTransform

IgnoreSeparate

Importance

Low

High
Interdependence

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tionships – not on formal mechanisms – to getthings done and to resolve conflicts along the way.4
What they don’t tell you is that the more people
rely on their relationships, the more demands they
put on the informal structures underlying them. It
is in the context of these informal structures thatpeople will resolve their differences, make decisions,learn, and so on. In assessing interdependence,and thus the demands a relationship will have tomeet, three dimensions are critical: information,
coordination, and decision-making. Each one
poses a question and implies a demand:
strategic, symbolic, and developmental – each dimension posing a question and imposing a constraint:

Strategic
To what extent are the people in the relationshipuniquely qualified to fulfill a strategically criticalrole? The more vital people’s talents, knowledge,
or experience are to a strategically critical role, theharder it is to replace them or to redefine the role.

Symbolic
To what extent do the people in the organization
look to the people in the relationship, or to therelationship itself, for meaning, guidance, or asense of purpose? The more symbolically important a relationship is, the faster events related
to that relationship will travel throughout theorganization, shaping the way people interpretthings, including the future, the firm’s strategy,
and leadership’s commitment to it.2

Developmental
To what extent does a relationship either reveal aleader’s liabilities or showcase her strengths? The
more a relationship has the potential to bring out
the best or the worst in a leader, the more impact
it will have on her development as a leader aswell as others and the firm.3

Interdependence
Any expert on the formal design of organizations
will tell you the same thing: the more interdependent people are, the more they rely on their rela-

Information
To what extent do people in a relationship need toshare information quickly and fully to accomplish
key tasks? 5 The more that people depend on one
another for information, the more their relationshipmust facilitate the flow of reliable information,
including sensitive information or “undiscussables.”Coordination
To what extent do people in a relationship needto coordinate key activities to get things done?
The more that people need to coordinate, the more
a relationship must be able to navigate situations
where the need to cooperate (to achieve joint
goals) collides with the need to compete forlimited resources.

Decision-Making
To what extent do people in a relationship need to
be involved in the same decisions? The more thatpeople need to be involved, the more their relationship must facilitate timely and wise negotiationof differences, even fundamental ones.

Segment-Specific Approaches
The matrix identifies four different ways ofapproaching relationships, depending on theirdegree of importance and interdependence:
ignoring, separating, managing, or transforming.
Below I explain what each approach entails andthe circumstances under which it’s effective (doesthe job best) and efficient (at the lowest cost):fe at u r e | s m i t hIgnoring

Sequencing Matrix

If two or more people don’t depend much on eachother and their relationships aren’t strategicallyimportant, you can ignore these relationships andany negative effects they create, at least until
circumstances suggest otherwise.6

Once you’ve identified those relationships most in
need of investment, you can use the matrix below
to sequence those investments over time (seeFigure 2). As the Sequencing Matrix implies, it’sbest to start with high-impact relationships thatstand the best chance of succeeding.

Separating
If people’s roles are highly interdependent but
the people aren’t uniquely qualified to fulfill thoseroles, structural separation is often the best way
to handle relationship problems, especially thosethat resist resolution. Here leaders might transfer
or promote one of the people into a new role,create a new structure that reduces interdependence, or even fire one or the other person. As
long as you view this approach as one of several,
it can be used well and fairly.7

Managing
If people are vital to their roles but the roles themselves aren’t that interdependent, you can manage
any negative effects a relationship creates, because
they should be infrequent. When applied appropriately, this approach can reduce the impact of
the occasional relationship snafu by avoiding
them, insulating people from them, or protecting
one or the other person in the relationship.8

TransformingThis approach makes sense when people arevital to strategic roles and their success cannot
be achieved without depending on one another.
When importance and interdependence are high,it’s much harder to ignore a relationship, to manage its ill effects, or to separate people structurally.
Under these conditions, it makes the most sense
to invest in making these relationships as resilient
as possible, so they accelerate rather than stall
the growth of people and their firms.
Relationships that are highly important and highly interdependent are those that operate alongorganizational fault lines – interfaces where coordination is as essential as it is difficult. It’s on these
critical few relationships that a firm’s leadershipshould focus its limited resources.

Impact of SuccessIn terms of impact, you can assess any relationshipalong two dimensions:

Impact on People
To what extent will changes in the relationshipfree people up to do their jobs more easily andeffectively? The more the relationship prevents
people from doing key jobs well, the sooner
changes should be made. To what extent will thepeople in the relationship be more effective andfulfilled? The more people’s relationships areundercutting their effectiveness or their wellbeing, the sooner changes should be made.

Impact on the Business
To what extent will changes in the relationshipmake it easier for people to make decisions andFigure 2 Sequencing Matrix
Higher3

1

Reconsider
Investing2

Odds of
Success

Lower

HigherImpact of Success

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by business crises, whether self-imposed or createdby circumstance, the more able and willing people
will be to invest their time and energy.

Difficulty
The New Yorker Collection from CartoonBank.com. All rights reserved.

take actions together more quickly and wisely?
The more people’s differences are harming criticaldecisions or the pace with which they get made,the sooner changes should be made. In terms of
success, you can assess a relationship along three
dimensions:

Motivation
To what extent do the people in the relationshipsee important benefits for themselves and thefirm? The more benefits they see, the more willingthey’ll be to change.

Readiness
To what extent are the people in the relationshipwilling and able to invest their time and energy
relative to other things? The less hampered they are

To what extent do the people in the relationshipthink it’s possible that they played some role increating circumstances they don’t like? The moreaware people are of themselves and their impact,
the more willing they will be to change.
Keep in mind that odds can and should be changed.
So while you’re focusing on relationships in thefirst cell, you might turn your attention to increasing the odds of success for those in the second cell
– for example, by pointing out the changes people
in the first cell are making. Soon after, you mightlaunch some type of programmatic intervention
for people in the third cell. Although less customized, well-designed programs can prepare people
for more significant investments later by increasing their awareness of themselves and their role inrelationships. The fourth and last cell is a bit odd.
By definition, this matrix focuses only on thoserelationships you consider worthy of investment.
So, in theory, no one should show up in this cell.
But chances are, when pressed to choose among
the chosen, some will show up here. If so, you
might reconsider whether these relationships
really are worth the investment.

Conclusion
All relationships require effort to work. But not
all relationships within teams require the sameamount or kind of effort. When it comes to relationships that operate along organizational fault
lines, people should invest in making them strong
enough to handle the tensions that will build up
and the conflicts that will erupt at each of thoseinterfaces. n

fe at u r e | s m i t h

a b o u t t he a u t h o r
Diana McLain Smith is a partner at the Monitor Group, a global management consulting firm. For
nearly three decades, she has advised hundreds of leaders while doing research on teams, leadership, negotiation, and organizational change. She has taught at Boston College’s Carroll School ofManagement, and guest lectured at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. A founding
member of SoL, she is also the coauthor (with Chris Argyris and Robert Putnam) of Action Science(Jossey-Bass, 1985). www.dianamclainsmith.com

E ndnotes
1 Michelle Conlin, “I’m a Bad Boss? Blame My Dad,” BusinessWeek, May 10, 2004: page 60. “[There’s] a new frontierin productivity: emotional inefficiency which includes all that bickering, backstabbing, and ridiculous playing
for approval that the mark of the modern workplace.”
2	At one firm, people further down in the organization looked to the head of product design and the head of sales
to assess whether the firm was really serious about becoming more commercial, as their new strategy espoused.
Every time these two executives fought, the word got out and spread like wildfire, even when their fights
occurred behind closed doors.
3	The relationship between John Sculley and Steve Jobs springs to mind. Over time, their relationship brought
out the worst in each of them. This exacerbated their liabilities as leaders and made them more evident to others.
See chapter 2 in Divide or Conquer.
4	See Henry Mintzberg’s thoughts on “mutual adjustment” in The Structuring of Organizations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1979). Also see Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (New York:
Bantam Books, 1995). Also see Conlin’s “I’m a Bad Boss?” (Note 1, above). The greater interdependence found in today’sorganizations has sparked an increased interest in emotional intelligence (Goleman) or emotional competence(Conlin).
5	In thinking through the formal design of an organization, experts have long advised managers to focus on information
as key design variable, determining the desired degree of interdependence required. See Jay Galbraith, Designing
Organizations: An Executive Guide to Strategy, Structure, and Process (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002). I’m arguingthat what formal interrelationships offer in terms of information flow, informal interrelationships can quickly takeaway if neglected.
6	Like all strategies, when misapplied, this one becomes problematic. For example, if people start ignoring the ill
effects of relationships that really are critical to a firm’s success, sooner or later it will take a toll on the firm’s
effectiveness.
7	This approach breaks down when you feel your only choice is to impose a structural separation, no matter what
the circumstances. When that happens, you end up creating whacky structural arrangements or making personnel decisions that harm a firm’s performance.
8	If you use this approach to manage the ill effects of highly interdependent relationships, you’ll soon run into
trouble, because those effects will be so frequent and so widespread that it will fast become more costly to
manage them than to change them.
Adapted from Divide or Conquer by Diana McLain Smith by arrangement with Portfolio,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., Copyright © Diana McLain Smith, 2008.

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eme r g i n g K n o w l edge f o r um 9 . 1

Building Trust and Cohesivenessin a Leadership TeamA Practitioner’s Perspective
by dee p i k a N at h
Many OD practitioners are asked to intervene with groups that exhibit unproductive team dynamics, and areoften faced with a decision of how to intervene. In this case study of a senior leadership team at a Fortune
100 company, Deepika Nath describes the application of David Kantor’s human structural dynamics model.
In seeking to address behavioral dysfunction that was hampering this team’s ability to work effectively
and further a strategic agenda, she used an approach that focused not only on addressing the behavioral
manifestation of the dysfunction in the team, but also at making visible the invisible source of this dysfunction i.e. the beliefs and mental models that contributed to the behavior. This two-pronged model wasa powerful approach that resulted in positive outcomes for the organization and for the team. We hope
this case study contributes to the shared learning of the community.

O

Background

Deepika Nathver several years, I had developed a strong relationship with theleadership team of a $3 billion division of a Fortune 100 organization.
A shuffling of portfolio and responsibilities had precipitated a 360review and new leader assimilation and coaching process for the global
senior vice president (SVP) of manufacturing, Sam Allard. As part of the coachingprocess, Sam invited me to observe a business meeting of his global manufacturing
team in which they were discussing key priorities and agreeing on the strategic
agenda for the year ahead.

It was a long day of heated discussions with little agreement or progress against a very ambitious
agenda. Sam asked how I thought it had gone. I recall saying, “It depends on your desired outcome. If
success meant getting through the agenda and getting resolution on the issues, you did not meet that
objective. If however, you wanted to get a view of the team dynamics, I believe you had a very successful
meeting.” He laughed and said, “What should I do about this situation? I need a team of VPs who canwork together to deliver against a very aggressive plan to create uniform standards of manufacturingthat are necessary for us to achieve our revenue and profitability targets. Can you help me?”One of the executives commented,“I had no idea we were so disruptivein the way we operated.”

E K F | NAT H

The team’s current state and my mandate
In the meeting I attended, I observed a team thatwas ill equipped to work in a collaborative andproductive manner. Some of the behaviors I
observed included:•	An inability to focus on an agenda andmake decisions•	A lack of willingness to engage in dialogue•	Poor capacity to listen to one another•	An apparent lack of respect for one
another’s ideas•	A tendency to personalize theconversation and get defensive
These observations led to some preliminary
hypotheses – that the group lacked trust and thewillingness to operate as a team; that they weremore focused on furthering their individual agendas and that they would be unsuccessful in creatinga standardized manufacturing platform for thecompany unless they were able to come together
and operate with mutual respect, trust and awillingness to listen to and learn from each other.
During conversations with the team members
concerning Sam’s 360-review I had developed arapport with each member of the team. I leveraged this to have open and honest discussions onwhat I’d observed during their business meeting.
One of them commented, “It was embarrassing tohave you witness that meeting. That is so typical of
the way we operate. It’s a challenge to get throughan agenda with this group.” These one-on-one conversations helped validate my hypotheses around
specific concerns, and enlisted the executives inSam’s overall objective – of creating a cohesive
team who could work well together in executing
an aggressive and critical element of the organization’s strategy.
I also used a team effectiveness questionnairefrom Schein (1988, p. 57–58) to get the team toself-assess and have a structured view of theircurrent effectiveness. When I shared the results ofthis assessment, one of the executives commented,“I had no idea we were so disruptive in the way
we operated.”

Based on the assessments, and with Sam’s agreement, my mandate for a 12-month engagement
was to create a team that:• Made sound business decisions in aconsidered and timely manner• Had the ability to work together to solve criticalproduction and quality issues• Engaged in meetings that were productive,
energetic and constructive in dialogue•	Showed evidence of listening, collaboration,and mutual respect•	Set aside personal agendas and depersonalized the conversation•	Collaborated to develop implement a 		world class manufacturing strategy

The framework that guided the designof team interventions
I saw this as an amazing opportunity to delve into
territory that is typically not explored. I based thedesign of my interventions on a model of humanstructural dynamics (Figure 1) based on the workof David Kantor, that suggests human interactions
are a function of the social context in which theinteractions are taking place, and the inner workings of the human – what goes on in their hearts
and minds (Ober, Kantor, Yanowitz, 1995). I chose
to focus on two aspects of this model – the teamor what is described as the face-to-face structure,and the deeper individual structures and how
they might influence the team’s interactions,either one-on-one or in the team.
I chose to include individual-level interventions
because they cover ground that is typically lessacknowledged and yet significantly impacts individual behavior – what we see at the face-to-facelevel. It also meshed well with my belief as an OD
practitioner, that all change starts with individualchange, and our behavior as adults is strongly
influenced by our mental models, core beliefs andstories – many of these arising from experiences in
our formative years. I had a sense that if I was able
to allow for a space for the surfacing and (at somepoint) sharing of deep imagery from each individual,
it would help this team coalesce and begin theprocess of trusting each other.

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Figure 1 The human structural dynamics model that framed interventions
Traditional Territory
BroaderSocialStructures

Business

Organization

Levels of
Structure

Face-to-Face
Structures

Doing the WorkInterpersonal Behavior

Mental Models

DeeperIndividual
Structures

Less
VisibleEnvironment

R
E
S
U
L
T
S

More
VisibleBeliefs

Critical Images & Stories

Least
VisibleLess Acknowledged Territory
Source: Ober, Kantor and Yanowitz, 1995

The intent behind the interventions
I intervened at two levels – the face-to-face or theteam and the deeper individual structures. My
work at the individual level was intertwined withthe work I did with the team. While the presentation of the interventions is separated for the purpose of this paper, much of my work with the team
was informed and shaped by what I was observing
and learning through my interactions with themas individuals, and vice versa.

The team interventions
At the team level, the interventions were designed
to help develop trust and connection, and start todevelop the capacity for listening. The following
models, beliefs and assumptions influenced the
choice of interventions:• A high performing team is characterized in partby strong personal commitments to the growthand success of each team member (Katzenbach& Smith, 1993).
• Appreciation of individual experiences andgifts is a powerful foundation for transformation and allows for creation of powerful

outcomes (Cooperrider and Whitney, 1999,
Eliott, 1999)• The ability to listen deeply allows for connection and a foundation for collaboration and“thinking together” – the essence of dialogue(Isaacs, 1999)• Dialogue fosters and maintains the high levelsof openness and trust that is present in healthy
teams.
Figure 2 demonstrates how the different elements
were integrated to guide the team’s progress
towards trust and cohesion.
There were essentially six building blocks towards
creating a team that was able to sustain behavioral
changes that enabled an environment of trust,collaboration and cohesiveness. Table 1 (page 28)
summarizes the issues that were present and theinterventions used to address them.

Establishing structural elements
There were basic housekeeping issues that Sam
wanted the team to own and follow. This set ofinterventions was aimed at establishing a process

E K F | NAT H

by which the team could focus its discussions anddeliberations and make decisions in an effective
manner. It involved clarifying roles and responsibilities, delineating decision rights and setting up
operating guidelines between Sam and his team,
as well as within the team.

Developing the capacity for deep listening
and dialogue
The more challenging aspects of this engagement
were around creating a safe container for the teamto have strong dialogue. To achieve this, I introduced
the principles and intentions of council to structure the meetings (Zimmerman and Coyle, 1996;
Baldwin, 1994). These principles included always
being seated in a circle and using a talking piecethat the team co-created. The intentions of council
are: speaking from the heart or being honest andauthentic; listening from the heart or being deeply
present and attentive when another spoke; being“lean of expression” and learning to be succinct;
and allowing for silence as well as spontaneous
expression.
To facilitate their interactions within this structure
and to help them make the distinctions that would

allow them to realize the intentions of council, I
introduced the four behaviors of dialogue (Figure3) – voicing, listening, respecting and suspending(Isaacs, 1999). At one level, the intention was tohelp the team develop a capacity for listening(without judgment and reaction) and at another it
was aimed at helping them experience how deep
listening could result in more powerful outcomes
and decisions. Above all, it was aimed at building
trust within the team.
Over the course of my engagement (and subsequently), the team adopted sitting in a circle aspart of their meeting protocol. Initially they struggled with the some of the practices of council –in particular with holding a silence. There was atendency to reach for the talking stick before theperson who was speaking had finished. Over time,as they became more comfortable with the practices, the use of the talking stick as a mechanism
to allow “one voice at a time” and to help “hold thesilence” evolved from a forced behavior to a morenatural and comfortable one. Their discussions
went from individuals fighting to say their piece,
to comments that were more indicative of listening and building on what has been said. The reac-

Figure 2 Guiding the team’s progress towards trust and cohesivenessEstablishing structural elements

ty

rsi

ve
di
ap

c
of
ies

lit

i
ab

of Becse om
lf i innr g
ela antio obn t seo s rve
ys r
te
m

g
in

iat

c
re

p
Ap

Creating sustainabilityof change

&
sk
ills

Developing capacity for new behaviors

Determine the current state27

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T a b l e 1 Summary of interventions at the team or face-to-face level

The issue I was trying to address
with the team

The intention behind the choiceof the intervention

The specifics of the intervention used

Determine the current state•

Provide both objective andqualitative data on the current
state of the team•Observation of team meetings•

One-on-one informational interviews
with the team•Create an awareness among theteam for the need to change•

Team effectiveness questionnaire(Schein, 1988)•

Provide a framework that they
could fall back on during meetings that were notformally facilitated•RASCI as a way of delineating roles
and responsibilities•

Decision rights and rules across the team•Operating guidelines between the teamleader and the team, and within the team•

Basic rules of running efficient and effective
meetings•

Appreciative inquiry to value the othermembers of the team for what they brought
to the team and the power of the team•Margerison & McCann Team Management
Profile to understand how well the team was
set up for success, and what was missing•

The Team Management Profile and DiSC as
tools to understand how different membersof the team operate and to create a sharedlanguage and understanding for how towork effectively together•

Understand the current dynamics
of the team

Establish structural elements••

Absence of a core structure guiding the team’s meetingsand decision making
A need to have an efficient andeffective process for runningmeetings and ensuring decisions
were madeIdentify & appreciate diversity•

Lack of mutual respect among
several members of the team•Some team members openly critical of the skills & experienceof others•

Not seeing the power of theteam

Develop the capacity for new
behaviors•	Poor listening skills and poor
ability to engage in a productive
conversation•	A lot of lobbying for a point ofview, a lot of opposing what was
proposed and very little genuine
inquiry or attempting to understand the other’s point of view•

Jockeying for the attention of
the leader and deferring to him toresolve differences and/or makedecisions••

Provide a mechanism whereby
the diversity of skills and experience is respected, valued anddrawn on by the whole teamCreate an environment where
there is openness to hearing
different points of view

•	Provide a framework to shift
behavior – from judgment andreaction and to one of genuine
listening, inquiry and curiosity•

Deepen the ability to listen
for what is being said and what
is not being said•	Create an environment
where each person is heard andthe diversity of opinions isrespected and valued•

Develop the capacity for trust
and reliance on one another•	Principles of dialogue and the four behaviors
of dialogue – voicing, listening, respecting
and suspending•	The practice of council including holding
meetings in a non-hierarchical structure of acircle and the use of a “talking stick”•	Core principles of council: i.e. speaking from theheart or being honest and authentic, listening
from the heart or being deeply present andattentive when another spoke, being “lean of
expression” or being succinct, and allowing forsilence as well as spontaneous expression

E K F | NAT H

T a b l e 1 Summary of interventions at the team or face-to-face level (continued)

The issue I was trying to address
with the team

The intention behind the choiceof the intervention

The specifics of the intervention used

Become an observer of the self•••	A lack of self awareness and poor
ability to “self-correct” behavior•	A need for the team to be selfsustaining in their development
post-engagement – shift thereliance on an external facilitator

Develop the ability to be
an “observer of the self”•	Identify behaviors that are
empowering vs. those thatenable unproductive dynamics
in the team•	Create an environment ofcontinuously evaluating andimproving the team’s interactions with each otheDavid Kantor’s boundary profiles and the “four player model” which describes typical roles
that occur in a conversation – mover, opposer,
follower and bystander – and how these roles
can facilitate or hinder the group’s capacity
for genuine and productive conversation•	Replay of actual meetings, analysis of “whatwas going on” and “what might be a different
approach” – becoming more aware andconscious of behavioral choices.
•

Use of a team effectiveness questionnaire
based on Schein (1988) – at different points
in the process•	The practice and discipline of a +/∆ process –what went well, what can be done differently –as a regular part of the meeting protocol
Create sustainability of change•	Shift the focus from “learning
new skills” to applying them inthe service of shared goals
and objectives•	Continue the process of becoming a “self-regulating” system•	Create a shared vision of theguiding principles and corevalues of the team•	Identify behaviors that would
govern their interactions going
forward•	Visual image storytelling process that incorporated principles of dialogue, appreciation,knowledge of self & other, and self observation,
to create a shared vision of the team and the
behaviors that would guide the achievementof the vision•	Provide reinforcement of thedifferent skills experienced andlearned over the course of theengagementtion to silence went from a rush to fill it, to actually
asking for a moment of reflection during the courseof a conversation. Although there was evidence ofprogress, it was more of an iterative process thana linear progression. The awareness and reinforcement of dialogic behaviors was one that continued throughout my 12-month engagement withthis team, and continues to be a core part of theteam’s operating model.

Appreciating diversity of skills
and capabilities
While most of Sam’s team had been at this company for many years and had deep roots in theindustry, some of the more recent additions werebrought in with very different industry experience.
They also brought strong experience in creatingworld class manufacturing organizations, which
was a crucial element of this organization’s strategy. The input of these individuals was often notconsidered and valued by their colleagues. As Sam
put it, “I hired Joel and Charisse for their expertisein Lean Manufacturing. I am concerned the rest of
the team is shutting them out. I suppose I could
be more directive by simply telling people wehave to rely on their experience, but I don’t
want to add to the resistance.”
The team needed to operate in an environmentof respect and appreciation for the diversity ofstyle, skills, experiences and contributions. They
also needed to understand how to work effectively
with this diversity and leverage the strengths ofeach other. To create this culture and capacity,

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Figure 3 Developing the capacity for new behaviors

Voicing•	Speaking the truth of one’s
own authority, what one
really is and thinks•	Asks: What needs to be said?

Suspending

Listening•	Suspension of assumptions,judgment and certainty•	Asks: How does this work?

•	Without resistanceor imposition•	Asks: How does this feel?

Respecting•	Awareness of the integrity of
another’s position and the impossibilityof fully understanding it•	Asks: How does this fit?
Source: Isaacs, 1999, p. 419

I used interventions derived from appreciative inquiry, team role preference (Margerison & McCann,
1985), and individual assessments such as DiSC as
building blocks on the foundation of dialogue.

them a snapshot of what might be missing andhow they could develop those roles as a collective.

Becoming an observer of the self

These interventions had the desired impact. For
instance, the appreciative inquiry exercise used asin the first session, allowed for a breaking of theice in the team. The team found many points ofconnection – shared experiences, interests, hopes
and desires. After that session, there was a dissipation of some of the sources of tension e.g. the resentment of the role an individual played, or thelack of industry experience. In addition, the resistance to being seen as and operating as a teamstarted to fall away as they worked through theirstories of positive team experiences.

As I worked with the team, I felt it was importantto facilitate the development of their own capacity for diagnosis and action in order to make themself-correcting and self-sustaining after I had
transitioned out of the process. I also wanted
them to have a greater awareness of how tofacilitate a dialogue by understanding the roles
they tended to (individually) gravitate to in aconversation. I introduced another element ofstructural dynamics – that of boundary profiles
and more specifically, David Kantor’s “four-player
system” (Figure 4 in Isaacs 1999, p. 192-202, andKantor & Lonstein, 1994).

In using the Team Management Profiles (for instance), the team was able to appreciate the different work preferences and styles that were present
in the room. It allowed them to identify strategies
that would be most effective in interacting withthis group of individuals, and it allowed them tovalue the different roles each member of the teamtended to prefer in a team setting. It also gave

My intention was to get this team of individuals
to “see” their patterns of interaction. I believed ifthey were conscious of their operating tendencies,
how these impacted their effectiveness, and whatroles were being played out in their team interactions, they might be able to shift the roles they
played and engage in more productive and effective dialogue. It would help them notice whether

E K F | NAT H

Figure 4 Kantor’s “four-player system”
Mover
Without movers,
there is no direction

Bystander
Without bystanders,
there is no perspective

Follower
Without followers,
there is no completion

Opposer
Without opposers,
there is no correction

Source: David Kantor in Isaacs, 1999, p. 418

their conversations were dialogic in nature or at
the level of discussion and debate. At a minimum,
it would increase their self-awareness of how they
showed up and help them develop a capacity to
become observers of their own behavior. To facilitate their learning, I videotaped some of their
meetings and had them analyze their interactions afterwards.
One of the insights that emerged was the difference in expectations of how the team should
operate. For instance, Sam expected his team tobe his equal partners in the decisions they made.
There were some members of the team who would
defer to Sam’s decisions. Another insight camefrom seeing two members of the team frequently
engaging in a move-oppose dynamic, and how
it stymied the progression of the conversation.

How the team interventions unfolded andinteracted
The emphasis of each intervention was to help
them not only become familiar with the skills but
also to practice and develop a level of masterywith that skill. Each session built on the previous
ones. The final intervention was a visual image

storytelling process (Reeve, 2005) where theteam incorporated the various building blocks(i.e. practices of dialogue, appreciation and knowledge of self and other, and observation) to cocreate their vision for their team. It required themto collaboratively create the guiding principles
and core values of the team, and the behaviors
that would govern their interactions going forward by building on the values and vision of eachindividual in the team. I chose a visual process toshift the context from verbal, left brain activities
that this team was very facile with, to a processthat would invite them to activate (in a positiveway) some of the drivers of their behavior – theirbeliefs, values and mental models. As the team
moved from sharing individual values and beliefs
to co-creating a shared set of guiding principles
and vision, there was evidence of respect for individual ideas and the diversity of opinions. There
was a remarkable absence of the heated argumentsthat had characterized the first meeting I’d attended. In its place was an energy of collaboration andpartnership, resulting in the creation of a sharedvision that each individual had contributed to,owned and had personalized through thestorytelling process.

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The individual interventions
While working with the team as an entity, I was
also coaching individual members of the team.
A core outcome for the coaching sessions was tohelp the individual become an observer of the self
and understand what drove behavior so they wereable to choose how to act, rather than acting froma place of habitual tendency. Although the ultimate goal for the model in Figure 1 is authenticity,
insight, mastery, and alignment are intermediatestages that lead to authenticity. In an effort to be
pragmatic (and recognizing the journey towardauthenticity is a lifelong one), I focused on a realistic goal of building the capacity for insight (throughself awareness and inquiry into the underlying
causes of behaviors), and varying degrees ofmastery.
Using a subset of the human structural dynamics
model (Figure 5) as a base, the intentions I held
were to help the individual become aware of his/her feelings, mental models, belief systems anddeeper stories that governed his/her behavior in
the team context. Specifically, the intent was tomake visible those factors that were invisible orless visible, and enable the individual to act inan authentic manner.
As I used this model to guide the individual
coaching sessions with each executive, my roleevolved in the following manner:
Figure 5 Making the invisible visible

Doing the WorkInterpersonal Behavior

Mental Models

Beliefs

Critical Images & Stories

Source: Ober, Yanowitz and Kantor, 1995

reflections.solonline.org• Help the individual become aware of feelings,
mental models, belief systems, and deeper
stories• Create and strengthen their capacity forembracing these deeper structures• Facilitate their understanding of how thesestructures impact their behavior and how
to recognize the shadow aspects• Help them develop the ability to reframeand choose the internal structures that
influence behavior

The interplay between individual
and team interventions
Having simultaneous interventions at the individual and team levels and playing a dual role as facilitator for the team and as personal coach allowed
me to observe shifts that occurred as an individual
gained insight into her/his behavior and changed
how s/he interacted with the team. The team meetings also provided me with insight and direction
on how to intervene at the individual level withdifferent executives.

The results of my work with the teamOver the 12-month period, there were many
visible changes at both the team level and withindividuals. For instance, the team’s interactions
were much less fractious and chaotic. Their discussions resulted in key decisions being made ina timely manner with each individual feelingheard even if their idea was not included. They
had greater appreciation and respect for what
their colleagues brought to the team – “I had no
idea Charisse had such wide ranging experience.
It is quite refreshing to have someone who
hasn’t grown up in this industry.”
They were able to appreciate silence and thequality of reflection and insight that came fromit – “I realized how much of my time is filled withdoing things – meetings, conference calls. I never
get time to think. I was actually able to think about
and find a solution to this problem.” There was agreater sense of camaraderie and trust amongst
them. In self-assessing their progress on the teameffectiveness instrument used at the beginningE K F | NAT H

Figure 6 Mapping the progress of the teamSelf Reflective

Primacyof theWhole

IV. Creativity in the Container
Flow
Generative dialogue
Silence is sacred and whole
Emergent time dominates –lose a sense of time going by
Immense sense of presence among
the group

III. Inquiry in the Container
Inquiry
Reflective dialogue
Silence is pensive, thoughtful
and reflective
Listen for meaning as it unfolds,
unaware & lose track of conversation
Time more emergent, people more present

I. Instability of the Container
Politeness(Shared) Monologues
Silence is awkward
Focus on linear time – a startand a finish, a sequence

II. Instability in the Container
BreakdownControlled discussion or Skillful discussion
Silence is tension, conflicts,
agreements vs. disagreements
Time is under pressure, frustration withhaving to speak in limited time
People not fully present – trying to say their piecePrimacyof theParts

Blaming and Non-reflective
Source: Isaacs, 1999, p. 261

of the process (Schein, 1988), on all measures,the team had moved from a “below average” score
to an “above average” rating.
When I started my work with the team, I would
have described members as exhibiting behaviors
characteristic of “breakdown” (Figure 6). Probably
one of the more profound changes I saw (and thatwas significant for me) was their ability to maintain a quality of inquiry and at rare moments, particularly in our last session together, there weremoments when their interactions had elementsof flow as described in Figure 6.
At the individual level, the changes varied depending on the individual. Certainly some of them moved
more than others. As their capacity to observe
their own behavior grew, it created greater awareness and ownership of their own issues, and led
to more courage and honesty in their communications. As they stepped in to appreciate and value
their own contributions and role on the team, theirinsecurities went down, they developed more
confidence and demonstrated a greater senseof presence as leaders. The awareness and legitimizing of their individual stories allowed them tohave respect for and appreciation of the same inothers. By practicing compassion for themselves,
they developed the capacity for compassion
towards others. This in turn allowed for a level oftrust and a commitment to each other’s success,which provided a strong basis for collaboration.

Critical success factors
I was operating at two levels of the system simultaneously and addressed not only the behaviors
that emerged in team interactions but also theunderlying triggers of these behaviors. One reason
I was able to successfully take this path was Sam’s
uncompromising sponsorship and support, as
well as the trust we had built as a result of ourlong standing relationship and my candor in theearly stages of the engagement. Over the courseof the 12 months, he allowed me tremendous
creative freedom to introduce the ideas behindcouncil practices and dialogue. He’d been exposedto the practices and was a great believer in thenotion of “going slow to go fast.”
Although some members of the team were initially resistant to the team process, because of mywork with them individually, they grew to trust

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Being a reflective practitioner
In the course of this engagement, I found myself engaging in a great deal of reflection aroundmy capacity as an OD practitioner. At various points during the engagement, I explored different questions, including:• What is my typical stance with clients?
• How am I showing up? How does it feel?
• How do my own inner stories and mental models influence me?
• How can I consciously choose to shift from my “tendency”?
• What will it take to shift my stance to what is needed?
• What is the impact if I shift my stance? What is the risk if I don’t shift my stance?
The process of being both coach and facilitator provided me with a powerful illustration of
the importance of having a strong container for individual and collective transformation. I wasconstantly stepping into a place of modeling the behaviors I introduced to the team – e.g. learning to honor silence; bringing a mindset of appreciation to the conversation; making the invisible
visible in my own context; acting with courage in situations that challenged me personally,such as not being compelled to have all the answers, or not taking their resistance to some of
the ideas I introduced as personal criticism, and being a mirror for them when situations that
contributed to the dysfunction in the team came up.
I used this engagement to expand my comfort zone. Since I was working closely with this teamover a significant period of time, I took a reflective stance for each encounter and expressly asked“What could I have done differently to make this session more effective for you?” It allowed theteam to see that it was acceptable to not be perfect, it gave me a chance to get real-time feedback that could improve my capacity as a facilitator and helped me explore my own growingedge around feedback and criticism.
Another area I consciously worked with was to develop my ability to let go of managing theoutcome. I actively practiced being present to and responding more in the moment – operatingwith a greater sense of connection to my own insight and intuition, with powerful positive outcomes. This engagement built my capacity to be an observer of my self and of the system. It has
strengthened my ability as an intervener and has contributed significantly to the developmentof my voice and my own transformation.

me with their inner stories and thus trust the process I was taking the team through. Their cynicism
and resistance started to wear down as they experienced having a voice in the conversation and being heard as a result of using council and dialogue
practices. One of the early breakthroughs in getting them engaged in dialogue was having them“create” their talking piece. “I’m having so muchfun making this, I can’t wait to use it” was a com-ment from one of the more structured individuals
in this team.
One of the other unexpected contributors to thesuccess of the engagement was my knowledge ofthe organization, its business, and the dynamics
within the industry. It allowed me to connect theinterventions aimed at strengthening team effectiveness to core business issues the team was

E K F | NAT H

dealing with, rather than have “stand-alone” teambuilding sessions. By integrating business issues
into the design of the interventions, the team had
an immediate context for applying and practicing
their new skills, which enhances the capacity for
retention and recall of new behaviors.

powerful example of how our inner story shows
up in our behavior. Over time, and with the helpof reflective practices in their individual coachingas well as in their team sessions, they started tosee the value of having silence and silent time,in their process.

Challenges encountered

Another difficulty that was more present in earlier
sessions than in later ones, was a desire to be “inaction.” This is reflected in the comment from ateam member that “we talk a lot and I enjoy our
sessions, but when do we make decisions for thebusiness.” Fortunately given Sam’s experience with
dialogue, he was able to support me and provide
a context of “we are making decisions. By talking
about and resolving the issues, our decisions are
becoming clearer.” It took them a while to realize
by being in dialogue they were “in action” arounddecisions.

There were some challenges I encountered in thecourse of this engagement. Even as they saw thevalue of the practices of council and dialogue inbeing given a voice and being heard, some aspects
were not readily embraced. It took a while for theteam members to honor silence and not jump into
the fray – “I find it so difficult to sit still and not say
something when no one is speaking. It makes me
wonder if I did something wrong,” said one of theexecutives early in our sessions. While this reflected
the challenge of holding silence, it was also a

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In creating the experience of being an observerof the self and using the four-player model, there
were some unintended consequences. During
the debrief, one of the team commented “We sure
were on our best behavior today. I suppose we
knew we were being watched.” Had I anticipatedthis better, I might have introduced a disturbanceto the system to raise the stakes, because when
the stakes are high, there is a tendency to revert
to “default” or typical behaviors especially in earlystages of behavioral change.

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Summary
The human structural dynamics model provided avaluable set of lenses to examine this team’s issues.
At the same time, it allowed for improvisation in
the choice of interventions used to address different team issues. The occasion to work with anintact team over an extended period of time helped create a robust foundation wherein the skills
introduced had a chance of taking hold. It helped
build trust with each individual and created aspace for personal growth. This systemic approachpresented a powerful learning opportunity for allof us engaged in the process. n

references
Baldwin, C. (1998). Calling the circle: The first and future culture. New York: Bantam
Cooperrider, D. L. and D. Whitney. (1999). Appreciative inquiry. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Elliott, C. (1999). Locating the energy for change: An introduction to appreciative inquiry. Winnipeg, Canada:International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue and the art of thinking together. New York: Currency Doubleday.
Kantor, D. and N. H. Lonstein. (1994). Reframing team relationships: How the principles of “structural dynamics”
can help teams come to terms with their dark side. in P.M. Senge, A. Kleiner, C. Roberts, R. B. Ross and B. J. Smith(eds) The fifth discipline fieldbook. New York: Currency Doubleday
Katzenbach, J. R, and D. K. Smith (1993): The wisdom of teams: Creating the high performance organization.
New York: Harper Business
Margerison, C.J., and McCann, D.J. (1985). Team management profiles: Their use in managerial development,
Journal of Management Development, Vol 4, No 2, pp 34-37.
Ober, S.P, D. Kantor and J. Yanowitz (1995). Creating business results through team learning, The Systems Thinker,
Vol 6, No 5, June/July, pp.1-5
Reeve, A. (2005). Creating a catalyst for change via collage-inspired conversations. Unpublished Master’s thesis,
Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA.
Schein, E. H. (1988). Process consultation: Its role in organization development, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
Zimmerman, J. M. and V. Coyle (1996). The way of council, Ojai, CA, Bramble Booksa b o u t t he a u t h o r
Deepika Nath is the founder and principal of Indica Consulting, where her focus is on bridging
strategy and organizational development to bring about growth and lasting transformation. She isa trusted advisor and coach to senior executives seeking to define an authentic and effective leadership style. Her experience spans 15 years of strategy and organizational consulting, with leading
firms such as the Boston Consulting Group and Ernst & Young. A member of SoL, she holds a Ph.D.
in Management and an MA in Organizational Development. dnath@indicaconsulting.com

personal perspective | manga

personal perspective 9.1

Love, Language and Working Relationships
by m a n ue l m a n g aI

n order to create more harmonious societies, humans desperately need to discover
better ways to relate to each other. Doing so will foster more loving relationships, andthe creativity, dialogue, and learning we need to create a sustainable and prosperous
environment for future generations.
This may sound utopian to some, given the current state of our world. But despite all its
problems and unintended consequences, the scientific knowledge of our modern world
Manuel Manga
can also provide us with a new base of understanding. Scientists and thinkers such as
Humberto Maturana, Ximena Davila, Ashley Montagu, Riane Eisler, Daniel Goleman, Thomas
Lewis and others have created a body of knowledge that can impact how we construct working relationships,
teams, and organizations. Together, these thinkers examine the often-forgotten dimensions of human love.
Their analyses help us to see that when these important dimensions are not incorporated into our work situations
or communicated to others, we are often left feeling incomplete and unable to bring forth our full human potential
in our work and lives.
In The Biological and Cultural Matrix of Human Understanding, Maturana and Davila depart from the standard
Cartesian-mechanistic ontology, in which mind and body are separate, rationality and emotions are seen as antagonistic, and a subjective and objective fragmented view of reality prevails. Maturana and Davila offer a different
perspective from which we can expand our understanding of the range of human possibilities. Their work invites
us to consider ourselves as multidimensional beings, playing varying roles as:•	Living systems• Emotional – Loving animals•	Linguistic and rational beings•	Relational and social animals•	Part of the whole human family
Each of these dimensions has implications for how we want to interact with other individuals, teams, organizations, and cultures.
If we begin to understand ourselves as living systems, then our sense of self begins to expand, revealing our interconnectedness with all living systems, including the planet’s biosphere. From this we can also begin to imagine ourorganizations and institutions evolving from machine-like systems to living institutions, as Peter Senge and others
have proposed.
If we examine our relationships from the perspective of ourselves as emotion-loving animals, then the pull of ouremotions strongly impacts our relationships, teams, and organizational culture. Dr. Edwards Deming claimed that

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the organizations in which we spend most of our time working are ruled by the emotion of fear, which impedes
learning and productivity. In order to improve working relationships (and, consequently, productivity) he asked
that managers work to build positive relationships that reduce fear in the workplace, and replace fear with morenurturing aspects of human interactions.
Humberto Maturana offers an abstraction of love that can help guide us in creating loving relationships. In his
article, “The Biology of Business: Love Expands Intelligence,” written with Pille Bunnell, he notes, “Love is thedomain of those relational behaviors through which another (a person, being, or thing) arises as a legitimate otherin coexistence with oneself.” In addition, Maturana states that love is visionary and expands our intelligence. As
such, incorporating love in our relationships not only improves them, but also expands the dimension of the self.
Author Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence and Thomas Lewis in A General Theory of Love also
encourage us to integrate love into our daily lives. They invite us as leaders, managers, and parents to pay attention
to how our emotions shape our conversations, our behavior, and our interactions with others. And they also invite
us to transform our negative emotions, such as anger, into more constructive interactions with other people.
Another important dimension of being human is language. Language has been used primarily as a descriptive
tool, or a tool for communication of words and symbols. The full power of language in its capacity to be generative,
and to have generative conversations, has been underutilized. The prevailing conversation in meetings tends to be
one of debate and confrontation, or abdication to the leader or person in authority. Generative dialogue among
the team members that challenges the existing mental models or brings forth breakthrough thinking is the
exception.
Language and conversations are the foundation of all human relationships. The quality of our conversations
determines the quality of our relationships, and the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our work.
This systemic nature of language and human beings is how we construct our relationships and our societies. Given
that conversations are so important to successful interactions, how can we use them to help us construct loving
and productive relationships?
The following types of conversation can bring about better and more productive human relationships, used individually or all together.
• The Relationship Builder The most important conversation to have is a conversation for building a relationship based on mutual understanding, trust, and some sense of shared concerns. The relationship is thefoundation to all types of human conversations and activities. These are the conversations that are often
taken for granted in professional or project teams and organizations.
• The New World-opener This conversation allows people to explore new ideas, new possibilities and new
visions. Human beings are uniquely equipped with the capacity to use our imaginations to expand ourhorizons. But because humans find it comforting to stay within the bounds of familiarity, often people settle
into repetitive conversations that keep them stuck in the same reality. Having the “new world-opener” typeof conversation helps to nurture creative relationships, expanding intelligence and creating possibilities.

personal perspective | manga• The Making Things Happen Conversation This conversation encourages action. Most of our institutions
are driven by people committed to some kind of action or project. This conversation is perhaps the mostcommon conversation in daily life. However, while we all engage in this type of conversation, we often leaveout certain key elements that diminish its effectiveness, such as the specific time when something is to bedone or completed or the conditions of satisfaction attached to the action. For example, if I ask someone fora cup of coffee and I forget to say my conditions of satisfaction (i.e, decaf coffee, skim milk, and no sugar),then my request for this action will not produce the desired result. Given that most of our working relationships are based on conversations for action, becoming effective in this conversation could produce greater
amount of satisfaction and results.
• The “I-Thou” Conversation Our culture does not give us many examples of people engaging in dialogue, athorough, two- (or more) sided conversation that facilitates the fluid exchange of ideas. Most of our TV shows
are designed for debate and most of our public leaders engage in monologues. Our educational system fails
us in teaching us the importance of dialogue, instead focusing on how to construct one side of a debate. This
creates polarity: winners and losers only. Instead, the “I-Thou” conversation is based on a foundation of love,in which the other person is perceived as a legitimate other. Without this foundation of love, we listen to thewords but not the other person’s goals and aspirations. Based on the capacity to see the other as a legitimate
other we can listen deeper to the other persons’ concerns and together build or generate a new reality and/or relationship.
• The Mirror Conversation This conversation encourages feedback and learning. Everyone talks about theimportance of giving and receiving feedback, but in reality this conversation seldom takes place, because of
the emotion of fear in our workplaces, and our lack of emotional intelligence. The stronger the relationship’s
foundation (based on conversations of relationships) the greater the capacity to listen to feedback and tolearn from each other. Knowing that the feedback is being offered on a foundation of love improves the
chances for accepting the feedback and for reflecting on its potential for learning and development.
These conversations are the foundations for building effective and productive relationships, and can provide adeeper understanding of where emotions and conversations come from. Thomas Lewis and his colleagues (in A
General Theory of Love) have given us a map of our limbic brain, and its direct influence in the operation of our daily
lives and its implications for our relationships. Without this emotional understanding, we will continue to misunderstand ourselves and misunderstand others, creating suffering in the world.
The biology of cognition developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in their book The Tree of Knowledge offers a new way for each of us to understand how we perceive and bring forth our human worlds. According
to Maturana, each of us is a unique observer that perceives our own world, but not necessarily the whole world. It
is this understanding of human cognition and its implications for our relationships that are needed in order for us
to construct positive working relationships. Take the case of receiving feedback from another person. If we understand that the person giving us feedback is sharing their perspective of a situation and that this is not necessarily
the truth of the situation, in the context of a loving relationship, chances are both of us are going to be more open
to giving and receiving feedback, as well as engaging in more generative conversations.

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This is the essence of what it means to be human. We are loving animals, but often don’t use our emotional intelligence. We are linguistic animals, and often we don’t take the time to listen or to converse with each other. We
are relational-social animals, yet we pretend that we are isolated individuals.
The new scientific knowledge offered by thinkers such as those mentioned above provides us with hope for the
possibility of building new organizations and new human relationships, and to imagine living institutions, loving
cultures in our organizations, and cross-cultural dialogue. The future that we can build together depends on ourability to love each other, and to have generative conversations that produce loving and productive relationships
in every aspect of our lives.
Manuel Manga is the co-author with Jaime Garcia of Relational Intelligence published in Chile 2007.
manuelobserver@gmail.com

fe at u r e | h a l lfe a t u r e 9 . 1

Inside the Theory of U

Interview with Peter M. Senge and Otto Scharmer (Part 2)by G e o r ge H a l l
In Presence, Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer and their coauthors Joseph Jaworski and Betty Sue Flowers provided
an intimate look at the development of a new theory about change and learning. The theory was further refinedin Otto Scharmer’s subsequent book Theory U (SoL: 2007). In both books, the authors seek to explain how
profound collective change occurs. Ultimately, they tackle universal and persistent questions – What are wehere for? How would the world change if we learned to access, individually and collectively, our deepest
capacity to sense and shape the future? What do we really care about? How can we serve an emerging futurethat averts environmental degradation and species destruction—including our own? In this, the second halfof an interview conducted by George Hall, Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer share their views on leadershipand being present.

George Hall: In your book you state that, “a life of wisdom consists of being constantly engaged in letting go, and letting the fragility of the self manifest itself.
When you are with someone who really has that capacity to a full-blown level, it
affects you. When you meet these kinds of people, you enter into a kind of resonancewith them. You relax – there’s something very enjoyable about that way of being.
There’s a joy in that kind of life.” Can you describe some of the people you’ve
met who are like this, and talk a little more about how they affect you?
Peter Senge

Otto Scharmer

George HallPeter Senge: I think we have all experienced that phenomenon, at least in somedegree, through the people who have inspired us by their ability to be both committed and vulnerable. W. Edwards Deming is a wonderful example of someone
with these qualities. There was a tangible force to his personality. It wasn’t thatyou had to agree with him or that he had “the” answer, but rather that he possessed a powerful life force that you could feel. It was not the kind of power tomake you do anything, it’s a transformational kind of power. For example, when
you are near people like this, you realize they have something to give and theirprimary concern is with giving. The word “charismatic” is frequently used in theleadership literature but, unfortunately, few seem to appreciate what the wordmeans. The word “charisma” is actually a Latin word that comes from the churchand means “gifts.” Someone with charisma is someone who is really in touch with
their gifts, what they have to give. Again, are you here to serve the whole? I thinkthat “charisma” in this sense taps into a certain quality of power with which weresonate. It is not a heavy thing. It is actually, ultimately, a very light phenomenon.
It can be full of humor and play. If you are not playing you are not learning; youare attached. It is a kind of paradoxical balance of deep caring, real commitment,

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and on the other hand, this playfulness. It’s a very
attractive mix. In our book, Francisco Varela, who
you quote in your question, said that when you arearound someone who is “presencing” continually,
you can actually feel this phenomenon, a powerfullife energy that both transcends and connects us.
George Hall: After reading your book, I was left
with the impression that presencing generates thetangible force of personality you just mentioned.
People don’t see enough presencing in their everyday lives and when they do see it, they are
attracted to it.
C. Otto Scharmer: That’s right. When you are faceto-face with someone like this, you realize that thisperson has tapped into a deep resource withinherself or within himself. In the presence of that
person, you begin to notice something different
about yourself. They help you bring your uniqueness into the foreground. In fact, when you are in
their presence, such an individual can make yourown sources of inspiration become much moreaccessible. For example, the Dalai Lama of Tibet is
widely recognized as someone who has this strong
presence. His unusual presencing ability can partially explain why people seek him out in such numbers. People speak of this as spiritual power or
spiritual strength. We are interested in understanding the distinctive capacities through which
it arises, this ability to tap more deeply into who
we truly are in the context of what we are here
to do, individually and collectively. Our hope isto help you take significant, lasting steps toward
developing your own capacity more methodically.
George Hall: In your book you comment that “thecultivated self is a leader’s greatest tool. This idea
is a cornerstone of traditional thinking in ancient
China and India.” Can you elaborate on the role ofthe “cultivated self” as the leader’s greatest tool?
Peter Senge: What does it mean to develop as aleader? One view is that leadership is a combination of skill, knowledge, and experience. Anotherview, which we champion in our book, is that whileskill, knowledge, and experience are indeed

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important, it is your understanding and connection
with who you are that is most important. Warren
Bennis, for example, in his writings about leadership, talks about the “management of self.” Regardless of your definition of leadership, however, thequestion - “How well do you know yourself?” iscritical. You can say you know your own personality, which you’ve lived with for decades, for example, and that is important. You need to know
your strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, however, being satisfied with that sort of behavioral
knowledge is part of the trap of materialism: wedefine who we are by what we observe. I think
there is much more.
Eastern traditions use the word “cultivators” tospeak of people committed to realizing who theyare. You find similar notions in many Western
traditions. The cultivated self represents someone
on a path of deep self-development, moving
beyond the form, beyond the habit, beyond thepersonality, beyond even the thought “who is myself”? Almost all the answers that come to us arethoughts. They are thoughts about our past, ourbeliefs. They are thoughts about people who areclose to us, because in some sense this is about
relationships. What would happen if you could
go beyond all thought? What is there? Finding
answers to these questions would bring you alittle closer to understanding “the cultivated self.”
Again, the key is understanding the developmental process and how to access it and the disciplines
it requires, and to relate it to our efforts collectively
to create a better world. This is no longer the time
when cultivators go off into caves or seek a life ofwithdrawal. I believe the new cultivation traditionsof this era will center around deep engagementin the forces shaping the practical world.
George Hall: “Moving up the U involves bringing
something new into reality that comes from asource that is deeper than the rational mind. The
magic of it all involves the capacity to sense something new and to act instantaneously in accordancewith what that ‘felt’ knowledge dictates. Operatingfrom this larger intention brings into play forces
one could never tap from just trying to impose ourfe at u r e | h a l lwill on a situation.” Could you talk about people’s
tendency to impose their will on situations or toover-control an outcome? Is luck, fate, or serendipity involved?
Peter Senge: This is, in many ways, one of the
primary motivations for writing our book: to try totalk about this mysteriousness in some coherent
way and to promote a lively discussion of subtle
processes that often escape our attention. Manyof us have had the experience of synchronicity.
There are many traditional, religious ways of talking about synchronicity but I think the phenomenon is simply a phenomenon. As such, I think thefirst thing to do is to try to appreciate it just as aphenomenon. Synchronicities occur. We often findourselves guided by “helping hands” and you lookback after something has been accomplished andshake your head and say, “Gee, I can’t believe allthese different things came together to allow
this to have occurred.”

43

Synchronicity is a strange phenomenon. It may not
be what we experience every day, although there
is no reason in principle that it couldn’t be. Synchronicity is something that most of us have experi-

The cultivated self represents
someone on a path of deep selfdevelopment, moving beyond theform, beyond the habit, beyond
the personality, beyond even 		the thought “who is my self?”
enced at some point in our lives. Some of us may
have had many experiences. I think that we needto talk about synchronicity in a way that doesn’t
depend solely on traditional religious interpretations or language, and thereby make it more
universally accessible. We also need to talk about
synchronicity in a way that does not trivialize orF i gu r e 1 The Theory of the U

DOWNLOADING
patterns of the past

ACCESS
YOUR...

SUSPENDING

SEEING
with fresh eyes

EMBODYING

OPEN
MIND

REDIRECTINGSENSING
from the field

LETTING GOPERFORMING
achieve results throughpractices, infrastructures

OPEN
HEART
OPEN
WILL
PRESENCING

connecting to Source

WHO IS MY SELF?
WHAT IS MY WORK?

PROTOTYPING
co-create strategic microcosms

ENACTING

CRYSTALLIZING
vision and intention

LETTING COME

Figure from Otto
Scharmer, Theory U:
Leading from theEmerging Future,
SoL, 2007.

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reduce it. The universe is mysterious. Einstein once
said that, “the most beautiful experience is the experience of the mysterious; it is the source of allart and science.” In our present day culture, wehave done much to destroy this sense of mysteryand the capacity in each of us as individuals toconnect and work with that mystery. When we
destroy this awe of the universe and our place init, we reduce ourselves to self-centered objects
trying desperately to manipulate things toward
our desired ends. This is where the over-controlling comes from.
George Hall: I get the impression that once you
have gone through all of the steps of the U Theory,
it gets easier to do it again and again. Over time,it seems that you can build up a capacity to movethrough the U-process naturally and to do soskillfully.
Peter Senge: Yes. This is one of our core assumptions. In our book, we talk about researching the
U-process to build some appreciation for what ishappening. There are ways in which we can be unconsciously competent, but to gain any sense of
mastery, you have to become consciously competent. You have to have some idea of the underlying principles and processes that are in play to
become consciously competent. That is one of thefeatures of having mastery; the relevant principles
and the process are not just unconscious anymore.
George Hall: In your book you comment, “At thebottom of the U lies a sort of inner gate, which
requires us to drop the baggage we’ve acquired on
our journey. As we move through it we begin to seefrom within the source of what is emerging, letting
it come into being through us.” Why is it so difficult
to let the emerging come into being through us?
What is the challenge here?
C. Otto Scharmer: To use the words of Brian Arthur,when you approach that threshold, everything that
isn’t essential must go. That threshold is, I believe,very much related to the essence of leadership.
The definition of leadership can be traced back to
the word’s root – the Indo-European word root ofreflections.solonline.org

leadership is “Leith.” The literal translation of thatword is “to go forth across the threshold” or, in adifferent translation, “to die.” In this context, “to die,”means that you let go of the world that is known
to you and go forth into another world that you
may not be sure exists. This other world only comes
into being after you step forth into this nothingness. Leadership is the ability to cross that threshold. The challenge you meet in the process is thechallenge of fear, the fear to let your old self, yourold identities, your old context, die in order to moveinto that which is wanting to emerge through you.
Consequently, the heart of this challenge is reallythe essence of leadership. We believe that thispotential is available to each and every humanbeing and community. Education, socialization,and other factors can obscure this process by downloading “layers” that we need to remove if or when
we want to further develop and cultivate thiscapacity.
George Hall: Most of us imagine an ideal futurethat we would like to see unfold in our life. We daydream and make plans. It is easy to become attached
to our imaginary future – just as you might be to apossession like a house or boat. In your book, youwrote that such attachment “takes us out of thepresent moment. Developing the capacity to let goallows us to be open to what is emerging and topractice what Buddhism and other meditative
traditions call ‘non-attachment.’ ” What happens
when we get too wrapped up in our attachments?
Would such attachments block “real” opportunities from manifesting themselves?
Peter Senge: Yes, that is what the point ofdeveloping and cultivating non-attachment is allabout. Non-attachment is a never-ending practice,a mental discipline: it is not an optimum state of
inner peace that one achieves. We will always become attached. Consequently, it is more a questionof, do we understand this and are we working at it.
In Buddhism, for example, there is an ideal of nothought. But only a block of wood has no thoughts.
Human beings have active minds, which continually generate thoughts. As such, there is no suchthing as a permanent state of no thought. The

fe at u r e | h a l lfurther developed you are in your practice of nonattachment, the more aware of your thoughts
you are, the more able you are to distinguish thethoughts in your mind from what is going onaround you or from your larger awareness. In thatspirit, you are simply cultivating the discipline ofletting go. It is that simple – just let go. Whatever
you have in your life, ask yourself, “Are you willingto let it go? “ If you are unwilling to let the thingsin your life go, then there are only two gods toserve here: (1) the god of your ego and (2) the godof what is trying to occur that serves the world.
Ultimately, the choice is yours to make.
George Hall: How does one avoid becoming too
attached to things, such as your past or a projected
future? Could you live your entire life having madea series of poor choices, and never reach the levelof awareness you describe?
Peter Senge: Yes. A series of poor choices caneasily block other more meaningful, better fitting
alternatives from emerging. To avoid falling into
the trap of becoming too attached to things, you
should realize a few key issues about the natureof attachment. To the degree that we are attachedto things, we are focused on the past. We are notreally here in the present moment. Rather, we arestill attached to something from our history, something from our habits of mind, our habits of thought.
Attachments are, of course, merely habits ofthought. The strength of an attachment can vary:
to whatever degree we are attached to something,
we are in the past to that extent. As such, we are
not fully available to serve what might need tooccur now.
C. Otto Scharmer: That’s right. It is one’s attachment to the past or to a projected future thatcauses us to be distracted, not fully available toserve what needs to occur now. When we interviewed various business leaders, for example, we
asked them to tell us, “What was it like when you
were operating at your highest point, when you
did your most effective work”? We found that one
characteristic (usually but not always) tended toshow up: a sense of non-attachment to the final

outcome. Many people would share, “When I was
operating at my highest potential, when I was fully
focused on the now, I had no attachment to theoutcome. That is when I became much more effective, when real outcomes were much more power-

The challenge you meet in theprocess is the challenge of fear,
the fear to let your old self, yourold identities, your old context,
die in order to move into thatwhich is wanting to emerge
through you.
ful.” As such, if you are neither stuck in the past nor
stuck in a projected future to which you are thena slave, then you can be fully present.
Peter Senge: Non-attachment is a paradoxicalstate. It’s not an “I don’t give a damn” attitude.
You give a considerable “damn,” yet you also realizethat whatever image or, as Otto said, projection
you have about the future is at best approximate.
It is important to appreciate that we are notdescribing an idealistic state, a perfect state of“non-attachment.” The underlying theme here issimple: the more we are able to not be attached,
the more we will allow something to emerge. But
it doesn’t mean we don’t care. We can easily test
our state by asking, “Am I happy?” So often people
strive mightily towards something they care agreat deal about. They are trying to save the world;
they are trying to save their company; they aretrying to save their children. But they are not very
happy. I think that their unhappiness is actually
the weight of being attached. This state of mind
is not unlike carrying around a heavy backpack
because you feel that life has got to work out acertain way for you. But this is not about indifference. You can’t be engaged in any of the things inyour life if you don’t care deeply about them. Yet,
non-attachment is embedded in the realizationthat larger forces than my ego are at work, and as
we said a minute ago, the willingness to let go.

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GH: Do you imagine that there is another process
or level of mental development beyond the Theoryof the U? Do thought leaders like Dr. Brian Arthuror renowned pioneers like you see other levels toaspire to?
Peter Senge: Absolutely. I see the U Theory moreas a big connector block, like a Lego. There are lotsof other mental “Legos” out there. The U Theory isan effort to synthesize a variety of different, important areas around this, at least for us, transcendent
question, “How are we going to understand theworld we live in and act productively in service of
the whole?” Now, insofar as the world we live in isdominated not by individuals but by institutions,
all kinds of complex systems and networks of systems and networks of institutions, it is far beyond
the influence of any individual. With that in mind,
how do we gain a greater ability to really influence
fundamental change at the systemic level, locally,
and globally?

reflections.solonline.org

The bottom of the U is also treated by many
spiritual traditions, but going up the U is muchless so:•	What does it mean to act in the serviceof the whole?
•	What does it mean to act creatively
together?
I think the deepest knowledge, in my judgment, ofthe right side of the U is found in the creative arts,
where people have experience working in groups
that are collectively creating. These groups are able
to act in very innovative ways because somehow
they have connected, come together. In summary,
I see the U theory as a big connector trying topoint in all kinds of different directions, and notin any way a substitute for deeper knowledge of
personal and collective development. In the very
challenging times in which we live, hopefully, it
will help people with the question: How do wecreate the world anew? nGoing “down the U” is the territory of all the major
spiritual traditions, East and West, contemporary
and native, and addresses questions such as:• How do you come to control the mind?
• How do you stop the flow of thought?
• How do you suspend your habitual wayof viewing the world to actually be present?

a b o u t t he a u t h o r
George Hall is the Field Editor for Management Development with The American Society for
Training and Development (ASTD) and an active SoL member. He teaches in the College of Business
Administration at Strayer University and the University of Phoenix. georgechall@comcast.net

p e r s o n a l p e r s p e c t i v e | b at e s o n

personal perspective 9.1

Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn
by M a r y C at he r i n e b at e s o nAdults are being taught by their children in a time of breathtaking change. High-techgear is obvious, but there are subtler shifts, too. When my daughter was ten, shetook me to a video arcade to learn Pacman. More recently, her son (age three) introduced me to a prehistoric creature I had never heard of called Platybelodon (dinosaurs area bit like technologies and diseases; they keep discovering new ones). Meanwhile, I need ateenager to adjust my Wi-Fi and show me how to edit digital photos.
But in addition to teaching their parents how to deal with new technologies, kids today also
are teaching them profound ethical lessons about protecting the natural world and respecting themselves and others. Here are some of the examples I have heard from schoolchildren that go beyond
technology or popular culture: A girl: “I taught my mom to recycle.” A boy: “I taught my dad to enjoy rap.” A boy:
“I taught my mom to be independent.” A girl: “I taught my dad not to interrupt me.” A boy: “I taught my dad not
to make cracks about gays.”
Mary Catherine
Bateson

It used to be that older people knew more than young people did. In a relatively stable culture, this was the basisof their authority. So when Junior argued, parents could say, “I know better because I’ve lived longer.” That doesn’tnecessarily follow these days.
The relationship between who learns and who teaches has been fairly constant in human cultures for millennia;
you looked to the previous generation to learn how to live. Of course parents and teachers still do a huge amountof teaching, from life skills to grammar, but today children increasingly are teaching their elders, as well. To thrive
under conditions of accelerating change, you have to be learning all the time.
A whole series of relationships are becoming two-way streets: The boss has to listen to the employee, the manufacturer has to listen to the customer, the professor has to listen to the student, and the political leader who doesn’tlisten is likely to be out of a job. Change means that the nature of authority also is changing all over the world.
At the same time, more and more young people are growing up in homes where their parents are used to adapting
to change and used to being helped by their children in that process. This was always true of immigrants, who havesometimes needed lessons in riding escalators, and often, in dealing with bureaucracy through multiple-choiceautomatic phone systems. More and more corporate leaders are realizing the necessity of agility and innovation, so
there are people at the top who value their own capacity to learn and to listen rather than assuming they are there
to lay down the law.
The truth is that parents don’t know all the answers, and now are less likely to pretend they do. So when their sonsand daughter become adults, they will assume that they can learn from their children, as well.

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reflections.solonline.org

The transition I’m talking about takes a couple of generations and is moving unevenly through society, but it isalready well under way. I think we are now, in this country, beginning to have a college population whose parents
already understood that they didn’t know all the answers and were curious and ready to learn from their children,
so that the kids grew up in a kind of dialogue. That’s not to say that it’s true of everybody, but there’s a shift in ethos.
I can see this process working itself out in my colleagues and students. I rarely encounter a student now who
doesn’t take for granted that it’s appropriate to question authority. The ethos on campus is that classrooms should
be more interactive. There should be more discussion; there should be more room for divergent opinions.
Not surprisingly, there is a backlash, where people are trying to stop this pattern and reestablish traditional hierarchical models of authority. One of the elements that underlies fundamentalism around the globe is the insistencethat the only valid knowledge is the knowledge that the older generation still controls. A lot of what’s happening
in American schools through high-stakes testing has the effect of limiting the attention to time-tested certainties
rather than encouraging questioning. New technologies, foreign customs, changing moral standards – all of theseare disturbing to those whose hold on authority rests on learning that is not constantly renewed.
At the same time, young people also may resist learning. Those who have grown up with dogmatism are likely to
become dogmatic about new ideas as well as old ones, true believers of either the right or the left. The intoxicationof new certainties can lead to arrogance, whether in the form of political correctness or born-again dogmatism.
If we as a society adopt values related to change and adaptability, listening and responsiveness, we’re goingto need to look for the constants that underlie them. Listening and learning carry with them a respect for otherpeople – my conviction that you may tell me something worth knowing. That applies to the Parisian or the Laotian
who moves into the building next door, the Sufi or the Seventh-day Adventist down the street, or a grandchild in
kindergarten. If I see myself as a lifelong learner, I need to be able to listen respectfully to all of the above.
The slogan I use is, “You are not what you know but what you are willing to learn.” Willingness to learn demands
respect for others across difference. Puzzling and even disturbing ideas are invitations to curiosity, and the greater
the difference the more there may be to be learned. The world is a rain forest of variety full of promise that is at
risk of being lost. If one teenager could give his father an appreciation of rap, another may be interestingly articulate about body piercing and baggy clothes. I have argued that the willingness to learn is a form of spirituality. It
is a stance of humility, because there is so much to be learned.
Even as parents are learning from their children, they also need to teach them to listen with respect and to be
curious – but the best way to do that is by setting a good example. So when my daughter said to me, “Stop using
the VCR as your pet example, it’s totally old,” I figured it might be time to face up to an iPod. n
This and additional essays can be found on the author’s blog at www.marycatherinebateson.com.
a b o u t t he a u t h o r
Mary Catherine Bateson is a cultural anthropologist who has long been fascinated by how humans understand,create and adapt to the world in which they live. In her most recent book, Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal
Discovery, she chronicles her enduring quest for such knowledge dividing her rigorous inquiries into sections
such as “Age and Gender”, “Culture and Conviction,” and “Ways of Knowing.” mcatb@attglobal.net

b o o k e x c e r p t | M c G ee - C o o p e r , L o o p e r , T r a mme l49Book Excerpt 9.1

The Power of LUV:An Inside Peek at the Innovative Culture Committee of Southwest Airlines
Seven years ago, Ann McGee-Cooper and Associates, Inc. invited nine Dallas organizations to form a learning
community to share the successes and challenges in creating servant-led organizations. In this excerpt from Being
the Change, which profiles many of those organizations, the authors focus on the role of servant leadership in the
success of Southwest Airlines.

S

outhwest Airlines (SWA)
has long been known for
setting and achieving incredible records of performancein their industry. Recognized as#1 and #2 by Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to
Ann McGee-Cooper
Work for in America,” Southwest
has been consistently profitable every quarter for 34 years.
The Company’s net income for2006 was $499 million, with
96.4 million Customers and over
32,000 Employees. Southwest is
the only airline to win the Triple
Crown (#1 in most on-time flights,
Duane Trammell
least lost baggage, and fewest
Customer complaints) for five
years in a row. How is Southwest
able to sustain its unmatchedrecord? Southwest would tell
you it’s the magic of its People.
“If the greatness of a Company
is measured by the hearts andGary Loopersouls of its People, then we areindeed the richest Company in the world,” says Colleen
Barrett, President of SWA. Colleen’s own servant leadership can clearly be seen inside the amazing Culture
Committee of Southwest Airlines, one of her many innovations that nurtures hearts and minds and keeps
SOUTHWEST SPIRIT thriving.

Being the Change:
Profiles from Our Servant
Leadership Learning
Community
Ann McGee-Cooper,
Gary Looper, Duane Trammel
AMCA Books, 2007

So what is the secret, the DNA, of this legendary company so well-known for Positively Outrageous Service,
the industry’s best record of profitability, and ranked
by its Employees as one of the best places to work in
America? Many would credit its culture, which theCompany defines as:• Warrior Spirit• Leading with a Servant’s Heart• and a Fun-LUVing Attitude!
These are the hallmarks SWA works hard to keep alivein the hearts, minds, and daily actions of every
Employee.

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reflections.solonline.org

But there’s more to the story. Herb Kelleher, the chairman of the board, and Colleen Barrett, president, areboth important catalysts. Yet with 32,000 people, theculture has to go beyond two Leaders, and they would
be the first to insist that it does. Indeed, there are countless noteworthy contributors, but one – the Culture
Committee – is the foundation from which so muchoriginates.

what needs to be done and takes ownership. But she
also brings humility and a big heart to her work. Early inthe history of SWA when the Company was struggling
to stay alive financially, Colleen brought up the futureof the People, and Herb gave her responsibility for the
People Department and Customers. She has contributed remarkable vision, innovation and servant leadership to both.

The Queen of Culture

One hallmark of Colleen’s genius is finding creative
ways to honor People on a very sparse budget. Colleen
is known internally for her “Bible,” a growing list ofwords, terms, and writing guidelines approved by Colleen for internal and external documents. This includes
correct spelling, punctuation, and words to capitalize,
such as People, Employee, Customer, Leader, and Company when referring to SWA. She discovered this was agreat way to show respect while not costing a penny.

You can’t really understand the Culture Committee
without understanding Colleen Barrett, often referred
to as “Corporate Mom.” Colleen inspires the vision,
empowers Employees at every level to become afamily, models the way of servant leadership, andgives abundant recognition to others, encouraging
the hearts of 32,000 Southwest Employees.
Colleen joined Herb as his legal
secretary in 1967. She discoveredthat Herb worked out of two offices, one to meet with clients andthe other a room piled high withpapers. Herb went on vacation
shortly after hiring Colleen, andshe went to work organizing all his
loose papers into labeled folders. A Senior Partner in
Herb’s law firm walked by the office as she worked andwas aghast. “Who are you and what are you doing?” heasked with alarm. “I’m Herb’s new secretary and I’m organizing his papers,” Colleen replied. “You can’t do that!
He won’t be able to find a thing. Why, he’ll fire you!” heexclaimed. “He can’t if he wants to be able to findthings!” she replied confidently. And she was right.
Herb took Colleen everywhere after that and she has
been his partner and understudy ever since.
Colleen earned a two-year associate’s degree and thendemonstrated the capacity to keep learning from all
those around her, integrating their knowledge with her
own remarkable qualities. First, she always looks for

As the Company kept doubling in size, Colleen, thenExecutive VP of Customers, formed the Culture Committee. At first, it was made up of approximately 38
opinion leaders from all levels and departments of
SWA, each of whom was handpicked as exemplifying

Southwest Airlines’ Halloween Celebration

b o o k e x c e r p t | M c G ee - C o o p e r , L o o p e r , T r a mme l

SOUTHWEST SPIRIT. I (Ann) was lucky enough to be invited to join this group, the result of a letter I wrote suggesting ways to improve Southwest’s image from a
Customer’s perspective. I asked to come inside theCompany to learn all I could about what makes it so
unique. Today, the Culture Committee is a vibrant teamof 120 dedicated Employees – the lifeblood and heartbeat of the Spirit of Southwest Airlines.

A few
Fun-LUVing
2006 Culture
Committee
Members

The Culture Committee’s Mission
To help create the SOUTHWEST SPIRIT and Culture
where needed; to enrich it and make it better where 		it already exists; and to liven it up in places where it
might be floundering. In short, this group’s goal is to
do “WHATEVER IT TAKES” to create, enhance, and enrich
the special SOUTHWEST SPIRIT and Culture that has
made this such a wonderful Company/Family.
Each member who serves on the Culture Committee
does so as a volunteer. We all commit to four all-day
meetings once a quarter. For most, this also includes
the time required to travel to and from the Dallas Headquarters, so it is no small effort. In addition, we commit
to participate in at least three Spirit events each year,
and most members pitch in to help with many more.
From the beginning, I was tremendously impressedthat attendance was 100 percent, and everyone delivered on their promises. I had never served on a committee with such high accountability.
I soon learned that holding people accountable is another of Colleen’s unique traits. A member who fails toattend without a valid reason is politely replaced, nohard feelings. When the first members rotated off after
three years of service, they collectively declared themselves Alumni Members and stayed active in support ofCulture Committee initiatives. This has been the tradition ever since. I find this extraordinary, and yet this is
the fabric that keeps SWA so strong – another exampleof leading with a servant’s heart!

None of these initiatives came from MBA graduates orother traditional sources. An important aspect of SWA
is that it grew out of the instincts of its Leaders, approximately 40 percent female and 30 percent minority. Below are some of the qualities Colleen has woven into
the Culture Committee that have produced incredible
results. Note that all of these qualities are also characteristics of servant leadership.

Qualities of SWA Culture
Leading with a servant’s heart. Colleen, known as themother of Southwest, works passionately to lift up others and grow their skills. She holds herself and othersaccountable, and she’s there in the hour of need. In
short, Colleen has always strived to model the selflessspirit of service that she believes so fervently grows astrong, unmatched culture of service. She encourages
all others to care for their station or department Employees with the same loving spirit.
Be the change you want to see in others. Colleen
cites the Golden Rule, “Treat others as you want to betreated.” “It is so simple,” she says. From the beginning,
Herb and Colleen knew that for Employees to deliver
what they describe as Positively Outrageous Customer
Service, Employees had to experience this same loving
spirit and generous support from their leaders andtheir colleagues.

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Customers come second. From the beginning, thisprinciple has been an important part of the uniquenessof SWA. Herb and Colleen were clear that Employees
could only serve their Customers with exemplary andmemorable Customer service if Employees were confident they were supported in the same way. They reasoned that the Customer is not always right. In somecases, a Customer can be abusive. In those situations,
Leaders have politely but firmly stood behind their Employees, asking abusive Customers to take their business elsewhere. Colleen sees this as applying theGolden Rule. If Employees know they will be supported
if they err and are leaning toward the Customer, they
are more likely to make on-the-spot creative decisions
to solve problems and delight their Customers.
Case in point: A Gate Agent told the story of a Customer breaking her leg when she slipped on the ramp
while boarding a flight. It was late at night and the Gate
Agent leased a private plane to fly the Customer toemergency medical care. This Employee was supported
and honored by her Leaders for exemplary Customer
service!
Another inspiring example is the story of the Customer
Service Agent in Baltimore/Washington who was still in
her probationary period. When a late flight from BWI toLong Island, New York, was cancelled due to weather,
the agent hired three buses to get her Customers safely
to their destination that evening. She was commended
by her Leaders.
These examples illustrate the trust Leaders have in their
Employees to do the right thing, and the authority theygive Employees to act. This is a hallmark of servant leadership in action.
Deep listening with no agenda. When I asked Joyce
Rogge, retired Senior VP of Marketing, why Colleen and
the Culture Committee have been so successful, she
cited Colleen’s unique gift to listen very intently withreflections.solonline.org

no agenda. So much of each Culture Committee meeting is about listening to the members (now grown to
120 People, plus many alumni). “What problems do weneed to address this year?” Might be an opening topic.
With representatives from all 63 stations and all parts of
the airline present, Colleen can quickly take the pulseof the business. Top Leaders always participate, so thishas been an extremely effective way to identify challenges early and get at them proactively before theygain momentum.
Follow up. Don’t ask if you are not going to act onwhat you learn. Joyce Rogge shared another observation about her mentor, Colleen. Colleen has earnedhuge trust from being reliably consistent in her followthrough. She can be surprisingly generous in her support for what may seem like small ideas. Equally, she
can be tenacious, listening to get to the root of complex problems. Recently Southwest conducted a thorough Employee Satisfaction Survey. With support fromher leadership team, Colleen formed cross-functional
teams to address and report back on each issue. The results of the survey are shared monthly in LUV LINES, theinternal Company newsletter, with Colleen addressing
each major issue, point by point. Her bottom-up strategy is to address every concern with such integrity thatwhen the next survey comes along in two years, thepercentage of responses will be even higher. More Employees will trust that this is a safe way to provide honest feedback and all will know if the solutions are working. Colleen is endeavoring to ensure it is safe to be 100
percent open and honest when responding to the Employee Survey. She believes that trust must be earned
on a daily basis. This is another tenet of Southwest Culture and Leadership.
Seeing things whole. Gathering people on all sidesof an issue to explore solutions. Some years ago,
Flight Attendants, Pilots, and Crew Schedulers were polarized. It’s not fun to be the person calling others backto work when someone is ill and needs a substitute.

b o o k e x c e r p t | M c G ee - C o o p e r , L o o p e r , T r a mme l

TAKE AWAYS T O P O N D E RThis Southwest Airlines jet
Is dedicated on Valentine’s Day 2007 to
Colleen C. Barrett,
There from the Beginning:
Corporate Secretary 1978 – Present,
Vice President Administration 1986 – 1990
Executive Vice President Customers 1990 – 2001,
First Woman President 2001 – Present
Member Board of Directors,
Member Executive Planning Committee,And
Our Heroine of the Heart Forever

Nor is it welcomed to have your personal plans suddenly interrupted if you are crew. Rancor was brewing.
Colleen quickly formed a team of people on all sides
and charged them with coming up with solutions. A
big part of the team’s solution was to bring empathy
and appreciation to each other’s positions by changing
places. With some creative education and leading witha servant’s heart, this problem became an opportunity
to go the extra mile for a colleague needing help!
Constantly teaching the complexities of the business. There is no better champion of this than Tonda
Montague, Senior Director, Employee Communications, whose team creates LUV LINES, the award-winning internal newsletter. Tonda and her team create
games, charts, and endless ways to draw readers into
understanding the complex facts of their business. This

1.	Who might you pull together in yourorganization to begin to define, model, andnurture the spirit of servant leadership?
2.	Where and how can you practice “seeing
things whole” by gathering People from all
sides of a concern to listen respectfully toeach other and generate win/win solutions?
3. How can you bring a spirit of fun andappreciation to your work and to those 		
you work with?
4. How can you create fun ways to teach thecomplexities of your business so that every
Employee can learn to think and act like 		an owner?
5.	Southwest created the Triple Crown Challenge, to make it a spirited game to become
first in three important metrics in their industry: most on-time flights, least lost baggage, and fewest Customer complaints. How
could you create a similar challenge to focus
your Employees on critical business goals ina way that highlights fun and teamwork?
6.	Southwest looks for ways to make holidays
special for their Employees and Customers.
Who could help you brainstorm ideas fortransforming holidays into creative Employee- or Customer-appreciation events?

includes a mock scandal sheet called “Plane Tales,” and“Coloring Outside the Lines,” a fun directory of Leaders
pictured as little kids, providing lots of fun, personal
facts such as nicknames in grade school. Some years
ago they worked to raise awareness of how small acts
contribute to very large results. For example, they
showed the interior of one of Southwest’s planes filledwith bags of peanuts, with the caption, “We could buy

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2.2 million bags of peanuts with what we pay for one
day of health care. The plane fact: health care costs areattacking Southwest.” That same year they changed
their policy to trust their Employee’s word when he or
she took sick days rather than requiring a doctor’s note.
This simple decision has saved huge amounts of money
each year since.
On Valentine’s Day 2007, Southwest celebrated their
16th annual Heroes of the Heart event. Yet another innovation from the Culture Committee, this is a timeeach year when a group of unsung heroes, those whowork hard behind the scenes, are surprised and honored as the Heroes of our Heart. This year, the Internal
Customer Care Department was chosen, a group ofseven women who make sure that every special eventin the lives of 32,000 Employees is appropriately honored and recognized. Among other things, this grouphas sent special care packages to all those in the military serving our country abroad. The Customer Care
Department name flies on a special SWA plane for one
year in the group’s honor.
This year Herb Kelleher made a surprise tribute naming
Colleen Heroine of the Heart, with her special insignia
painted on a Southwest Airlines jet to fly in her honor
for a year. The tribute reads:

reflections.solonline.org

Over the years many skeptics have doubted that Southwest Airlines could keep such a warm, big-hearted, personal culture alive while the Company blossomed like a
Texas bluebonnet in springtime, doubling in size again
and again. But Colleen and Herb teamed with everyone to make every challenge an opportunity for a new
creative solution. Not long after the Culture Committee
began, the members expanded this idea to each location and started 63 local Culture Committees built on
the same concepts. So now there is a vibrant network
teaming to keep work fun, identify and solve emerging
problems, ask for help, offer support, and keep alive that
unmatched spirit that sets Southwest Airlines apart.
Servant leadership is about developing and encouraging others to lead. Colleen Barrett has an enormous
task to keep a Company of 32,000 Employees motivated and 96.4 million Customers happy. How does
she do it? She grows, inspires, and supports others
to become the Warrior Spirit, lead with a Servant’s
Heart, and do all of this with a Fun-LUVing Attitude.
That’s servant leadership in action. That’s the Spirit ofSouthwest! nb o o k e x c e r p t | M c G ee - C o o p e r , L o o p e r , T r a mme la b o u t t he a u t h o r s
Ann McGee-Cooper, Ed.D., is a founding partner of Ann McGee-Cooper & Associates (AMCA), a team of
futurists and consultants. She is an international leader in researching and applying servant-leadership in
the workplace, having served on the Culture Committee of Southwest Airlines since 1990 and with TDIndustries since 1976. She has counseled national business leaders, governmental officials and college presidents
on servant-leadership, team-building, life/work balance, time management and creative problem solving
and is author of several AMCA books including You Don’t Have To Go Home From Work Exhausted and The
Essentials of Servant-Leadership: Principles in Practice. ann@amca.com
Duane Trammell, founding partner and executive Vice President of AMCA, has been working with Ann
since 1982. He manages the operations and finances of the company. Duane has a special interest in writing,researching, and developing materials in servant leadership. Trammell led the development of 14 modules
designed with an interactive approach to teaching servant leadership. He has co-authored several books
including Time Management for Unmanageable People and You Don’t Have To Go Home from Work Exhausted!
duane@amca.com
Gary Looper serves as Director of Client Services and Publications at AMCA. He is project leader of thepacesetting Servant-Leadership Learning Community, a consortium of 11 organizations that meet together
during the year to develop unique leadership cultures incorporating the learning organization disciplines.  	
He co-authored The Essentials of Servant-Leadership: Principles in Practice. gary@amca.com

55

Reflections
The SoL Journal

on Knowledge, Learning, and Change
Volume 9, Number 1

E dito r ial T eam
Managing Editor
Nina Kruschwitz
Publisher
C. Sherry Immediato
Publications Assistant
Chris Doyon
S ubsc r iptio n O ptio n s
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ISSN 1524-1734
EISSN 1536-0148© 2008 by the Society for Organizational Learning.
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