Marc Kahn talks about Coaching and Learning in Complex Adaptive Systems
USB London Showcase, 2018
Marc Kahn asks: What makes ordinary people in organizations perform extraordinarily? His answer challenges many years of management belief.
Marc is Global Head of Human Resources and Organisation Development, Investec, a psychologist, coach and Visiting Professor of People, Organization and Strategy at Middlesex University, London.
About Emerging Trends in Leadership Marc Kahn says that: ‘Ironically, telling people what to do shuts down their ability to learn.’ Leaders holding to a comfort zone move towards stability and lose being an adaptive agent - of moving towards the Edge of Chaos to maximize innovation and future growth. Collective and individual value now merge. Lose the illusion of control. Simply zoom out to see the whole system then ask: What are the conditions here that will make people perform? Then create it.
About Coaching on the Axis
At Sydney University, Marc discusses ‘Coaching on the Axis’. It offers way to use of a relational “coaching axis” to manage the complexity of an organisation and individual as dual clients. This focuses on achieving business outcomes for both his clients - the individual being coached and the sponsoring organisation. The coach is now a narrative bridge the various stories in play. "Coaching on the Axis" is prescribed at universities worldwide.
Part 1 - Working with Complexity in Business & Executive Coaching
1 Working with Complexity in Business & Executive Coaching - Interview with Marc Kahn - Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria - July 2016
Part 2 - Working with Complexity in Business & Coaching - Interview with Marc Kahn
2 Working with Complexity in Business & Executive Coaching - Interview with Marc Kahn - Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria - July 2016
Immunity to Change and How to Overcome it
- Lisa Lahey | Insights at the Edge, Mar 16, 2020
Tami Simon speaks with Lisa Lahey, EdD about the difficulty of making large personal changes, especially for advancement of your career. Lisa explains how much of our resistance to change is rooted in self-protective patterns that need to be reckoned with before we can move forward. Finally, Lisa details the three evolutionary steps for creating meaning and shares her hopes for the Inner MBA program.
Complexity toolbox 2: Complexity Check-In
•Apr 24, 2018
This simple approach—with these powerful questions—can literally transform the way your team thinks and learns together.
It also opens up great new possibilities for experimentation and creativity.
Making Sense of Complexity - an introduction to Cynefin
In this playful video, Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston let you in on three seriously powerful habits of mind that will help you thrive in complexity.
Making Sense of Complexity - an introduction to Cynefin
Jul 25, 2017 Jennifer as she succinctly introduces Cynefin.
See their book: Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders by Jennifer Garvey Berger, Keith Johnston
Asking different questions Oct 18, 2017
Seeing Systems Oct 18, 2017
Polarity Management, •Jul 18, 2018
Jennifer Garvey Berger gives a compelling example of how challenges can sometimes be a polarity to manage rather than a problem to solve - where you can get the best of both worlds.
Not Wired for Complexity May 30, 2017
Jennifer and her buddy "Brain" describe using threats as tools.
Books by Jennifer Garvey Berger with others:
Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity by Jennifer Garvey Berger
Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders by Jennifer Garvey Berger, Keith Johnston
5 Leadership Mind Traps and How to Navigate Them, by Linda Cattelan, EzineArticles
Every once in a while, you come across a book that really gets you "thinking" and maybe even "changing the way you think". "Unlocking Leadership Mind Traps: How to Thrive in Complexity" by Jennifer Garvey Berger was that book for me.
My first introduction to Jennifer was through an online course I took recently (The Art of Developmental Coaching). Jennifer was one of the instructors and I found her to be very engaging and very deep in her perspectives and facts regarding adult and leadership development. To quote Jennifer Garvey Berger:
"We are living in this strange, paradoxical time in our world where the massively increasing complexity around us could lead us to grow faster and more compassionately and more together, or it could lead us to get more defensive, closed, hard, and smaller."
There is no doubt that the world in which we work and live is complex and becoming increasingly more complex. But just as we must deal with the complexity "out there" or external to our selves, we are challenged to understand and deal with the complexity "in here" and internal to our selves.
In Jennifer's book, she refers to 5 Mind Traps. The premise is that we act as if the world is simple when in fact the world is quite complex. Recognizing these mind traps within our selves helps us to see things through a broader lens and provides us with greater resources for dealing with the actual complexity.
These are the 5 Mind Traps:
1. Simple Stories - We love our stories. Stories often have a beginning, middle and end and are filled with heroes and villains. Often, we are the hero in the story and the other person is the villain. Our problem-solving nature looks for short cuts and so the story is riddled with our beliefs and bias. But simple stories keep us small and presume a certain outcome based on the past. One way to expand beyond our story is to consider the other person in the story. How might they be considered a hero?
2. Rightness - Our sense of being "right" enables our decisiveness but on the flip side it can kill curiosity and openness. You may even confuse feeling right with being right. Ask yourself "what do I believe and how can I be wrong?" There are always 2 sides to a situation - exploring the other side is good practice. Make sure you listen carefully to learn rather than to win or fix things.
3. Agreement - We are programmed to be connected to other people. Agreement fulfills our desire for belonging and connection. Sometimes, we want so much to belong that we down play our difference of opinion. We are oriented to not be socially disconnected because the pain of being left out is experienced the same way as physical pain in the body. To release this mind trap, consider how conflict could serve to deepen a relationship. Or how disagreeing might lead to expanded thinking and ideas.
4. Control - Our sense of being in control is directly tied to our feeling of being happy. In fact, our being in control and perceived by others as being in control is often equated with good leadership. However, sometimes great leadership requires us to let go of control to enable better outcomes, especially in complexity. Ask yourself: What can I help enable instead of what can I make happen? Or what could enable me/us?
5. Ego - Our sense of who we are helps us function with purpose. The person we are now is a culmination of our thoughts, experiences, beliefs, to this point in our journey. The problem however, is that we are protective of the person we are being now vs the person we are becoming. We believe we have changed in the past but for some reason probably won't change much moving forward. This leads us to want to protect the person we think we are. For true personal growth to happen, we need to pay attention to the map of our own development and ask ourselves "who would I like to be next?"
November 8, 2019
Trapped by simple stories: When our instinct for a coherent story kills our ability to see a real one
by Jennifer Garvey Berger, November 2019
One of the things that defines us as humans is our propensity for stories. We love to tell them, to hear them, and to have them carry the answers to some of our most important and bewildering questions. We love them so much that we string together stories with a sort of once-upon-a-time feel about just about everything, with one thing leading naturally to the next. Looking back at something, we can tell a coherent story about it that makes it sound inevitable and neat. This is all beautiful—we even teach leaders to do this so that they can capture the hearts and minds of the people they lead. But it’s not without its challenges. The problem is twofold. First, we try to use that same skill looking forward (which in complexity you can’t, because you can’t tell which of the many, many possibilities will emerge until after it has emerged). Second, in reality the story wasn’t that clean or inevitable in the first place. We made it simple in our memory looking back and now we imagine an equally simple plot line going forward.
There is no way to stop experiencing the biological pulls toward simple stories. Like all of the mindtraps, these happen because mostly they have worked for us in the past—and continue to work often even in the present. They probably used to be even more effective in a simple world with fewer possibilities and interconnections. So you don’t need to stop using these stories; you just need to interrupt your belief in those times when they most seriously get in your way.
The key to unlocking the trap of simple stories is to make them more complex. One of the most powerful ways I’ve found to do this is to ask: How is this (annoying and frustrating) person a hero? When you realize that you’re carrying a simple story about a person or a group of people, it can be useful to name the role you think they’re playing and then intentionally switch the role and see what that allows. Believe that your colleague is always undermining you and trying to make you look bad in front of the boss? See if you can reframe her actions as the hero in her story rather than the villain in yours. She doesn’t go home at night and cackle over her cauldron about the ways she screwed you today. She tells herself she is doing things for the greater good, and that she is acting in a heroic way. See if you can take her perspective, even for a moment. Perhaps she sees you undermining her and she’s trying to show your boss her hard work. Or perhaps what you call undermining she calls critically examining or whatever.
The point isn’t to avoid telling stories. You can’t. The point isn’t even to avoid telling simple stories. I think that’s too hard too. The point is to notice your simple stories, remember they’re simple, believe in them less, and use this habit to multiply the options you are considering. This will weaken the jaws of the trap and give you more possibilities to consider.
How do you find yourself falling into the simple stories mindtrap? What is your favorite strategy for escaping?
See more (including the other four mindtraps and ways to escape them) in my Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity.
Introduction Dave Snowden and Sonja Blignaut - Feb 10, 2020
Rich conversation on Complexity
Sonya Blignaut says: I had the privilege to take part in a rich conversation about organisational design (OD) convened by Andrew Blain. We spoke about team typologies, scaffolding, hierarchy and identity. with Dave Snowden, Jabe Bloom, Nigel Thurlow, Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais (Team Topologies)
- GO TO: (https://lnkd.in/dQ5XMEw Password: 6i.u$is! )
Complexities of Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace by Nene Molefi
Forum held at GIBS Business School, Nov 3, 2017
Nene Molefi is author of A Journey of Diversity & Inclusion in South Africa, on the complexities of bringing diversity and inclusion into the workplace. This groundbreaking new book addresses inequality, prejudice, injustice, racism, sexism and all other forms of discrimination in society, and in particular the workplace, in a positive way.
Nene writes in an authentic voice describing stories from her own experience. Her comprehensive and warm approach to navigating this complex issue can guide organisations to achieve a more inclusive and positive working environment.