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Many people who are going through or have gone through the journey of becoming a coach or a counsellor will find this very familiar - we want so much to see our client succeed and we want them to have an amazing experience working with us, so much so that sometimes we find ourselves carrying the burden of our clients. We want to solve their problems, we want them to do their daily practices, we want them to have that mindset shift. That is precisely what being responsible for somebody feels like.

Interestingly, that is also the attitude of many people managers and leaders - that it is their job to be responsible for their team and their employees. The intention is really noble and there could be some short term gains, but unfortunately this approach creates an unhealthy relationship driven by dependency, hinders the growth of the individuals and possibly dampens motivation.

In transactional analysis, we refer to this as a parent-child relationship, where the person in power, be it a coach, a counsellor or a manager, acts like the parent in the relationship. This is our ingrained voice of authority, conditioned in us from young, where we experienced our parents, teachers and other authoritative figures telling us what we need to do. As an adult and professional, the parent ego state sometimes unconsciously surface when we are dealing with different people, as a projection of our mindset and beliefs - that we are better than them, or I'm OK, but they are not OK, so its my duty to be responsible for them. In a best case scenario, the parent ego state presents itself as a nurturing parent, with real care and concern, but still judgemental in what is the best for the other person. A worst case scenario is when it presents itself as a critical parent, when everything the person does is wrong.

On the receiving end, the client or the team member do get pressured to move into a child ego state, and that can trigger a defence mechanism of fight, flight or freeze, or eventually vegetate into passivity. One of the department in an organization I've worked for was extremely prevalent with this parent-child culture and when you look around the office or attend a town hall session, its like walking among zombies. Nobody speaks up, nobody shares any initiatives, nobody cares.

In the coaching or counselling profession, one of the basic principle is that the relationship is a partnership. We believe and accept the client as a whole person with their unique strengths, talents, and resourcefulness. In other words, we are responsible to create the environment for them to uncover these assets they possess to achieve the outcome they want. In a similar fashion, that is precisely what a manager or a leader should be doing. This will create an adult-adult relationship or an I'm OK, You're OK situation which empower and motivate these individuals and allow them to hold accountabilities for their own actions and outcomes.

In order for this mindset to shift, the leader, coach or counsellor would have to understand their current beliefs. Do they see themselves as superior, more knowledgeable, or better, because they are in a more senior position or have "done their time"? How does that belief serves them? What does it take for that belief to shift?

How we interact with one another is the basis of social human relationships. In order to create the environment where everyone can bring in their best, all of us, do have the responsiblity to others to create an inclusive space where we treat each other with respect and dignity.

I was recently given some feedback about my strengths, and one of it is my ability to make things simpler. I wondered about that because I wasn't really intentional about trying to make things simpler. The conclusion I reached, was that I just get annoyed with doing meaningless activities. Seriously, there's more than enough work for everyone.

My pet peeve, is the empress syndrome - a culture where any proposal goes through multiple levels of reviews and approvals, everyone worrying about satisfying their bosses, before reaching the top of house - the Empress. Often more time is spent preparing the PowerPoint slides than the actual project itself. There's multiple stakeholders to engage at multiple levels. Everyone has an opinion and expect their opinions to be incorporated into the proposal. Eventually so much compromise is made and the proposal is so inclusive that it make no sense, and gets thrown out, or just another check-box activity that sounds good but has little impact.

What is missing here is the understanding or practice of accountability, which is probably one of the most difficult things to get right in an organization. Whose opinions and decisions really matter?

The RACI matrix is a good solution, if executed well. A simple enough model - the person leading the project is Responsible. The person who's ultimately answerable for the outcome is Accountable. The main interactions should be happening between the 2 of them. Other people are sought for their views, but the decision whether to incorporate those views, should lie with the Responsible. That's oversimplification, obviously. Everyone has to play their part well, and a robust discussion would always yield a better outcome. The most common area where non-value work is created is when people confused their roles between Accountable and Consulted, especially in hierarchical organizations.

In the ideal scenario, the person responsible for the project does the due diligence (including soliciting stakeholders views), and presents the proposal to the final person accountable. Generally speaking this would be the person whose KPI is impacted by the outcome of the proposal, and is willing to put themselves on the line to support the proposal (this relates to another issue of leadership courage, which we can cover in another article). By doing so, we accelerate delivery of performance by reducing non-value added activities, drive a strong sense of ownership, motivate employees to step up and take risks and accountability for their actions and outcomes.

Many organizations have tried to implement RACI or similar processes to simplify decision making. The Agile and Scrum methodologies are great examples of putting accountability where it belongs. However, the efforts have not yield the desired results because the emphasis is wrong. The foundational challenge is about clarifying leadership responsibilities. A leader's responsibility lies primarily in creating the environment where team members can do their best work, rather than trying to be responsible for the work that is being done. The difference may be subtle, but the mindset and beliefs driving those behaviors is important. How much trust do you have of your team to deliver? How much trust do you have in yourself that you have developed the right capabilities in your team to deliver? What can you do to increase the level of trust?

I truly believe my laziness is the reason why I spend most of my time developing my team, because when they are capable, my workload reduces. Yes, I think I'm quite happy being lazy….. And for those who need more persuading:

https://thriveglobal.com/stories/being-lazy-might-actually-be-better-for-your-health/

Organization Development is not a field that can be clearly explained because it covers such a wide spectrum of applicability from organization design and workforce planning, designing of KPIs and performance framework, organization change management, integration of culture, values and behaviors, employee engagement and inclusion and diversity strategies, team facilitation and individual engagement. It is not surprising that there are multiple definitions and interpretations for it. It feels like the fable of the blind men touching the elephant - each describing OD based on what they have experienced from it. And it really doesn’t matter. My personal summation of OD is it focus on building healthy organizations and communities. By that definition, you could argue that many people are involved in those work, consciously or unconsciously. And that's totally correct. Every time we foster better relationships, improve how things work, influence other people, we are practicing OD. OD is not a role, but a mindset.

There's many tools that OD practitioners utilize, but there are three areas I feel are the absolute essentials and acts as a foundation in which all other tools are built on: Systemic Thinking, the Use of Self and Natural Human Processes.

Systems Thinking:

Every single situation we find ourselves in is operating as a system, or more accurately, as a collection of systems. In an organization, you have the visible systems like different functions and departments, but also the invisible systems like social networks and shared beliefs. Even looking at ourselves individually you can describe systems at play - your interpersonal system looks at how you interact with the environment, and your intrapersonal system, which resides all your values, beliefs, assumptions and experiences.

Systemic thinking is critical for our work because the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. Every system is interconnected, interrelated and interdependent. However, we often only pay attention to the parts of the system that interest us. We see systems through our own lens, shaped by our inner beliefs and narratives, and we make interpretations based on our subjective reality. This phenomenon can be explained with Gestalt Theory in psychology which we will explore in a future article. There's many ways of differentiating systems, by space (location), environment, time (short term, long term, past, present, future), demographics, activity (social, work, communications), function, intention and so on. We can define them based on what is most applicable for our purpose at that moment, although a good practice is to define them in a few different ways to broaden our thinking. The following resource provide some further examples of what systems thinking encompass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory).

One important feature of systems thinking is that every action introduced into the system creates both intended and unintended consequences. We need to be mindful of the butterfly effect created, but also the fact that we are never fully in control. The better we accept that, the easier it is for us to be adaptable and agile to respond in the moment. A common concept called Figure and Ground offers that: We often have something we're paying attention to (the Figure), while there are much more happening at the same time (the Ground). Its important to be aware of what are our figures and grounds, so that we can create synergistic connections within the system to support our intended outcomes. A simple example is when two person are talking. Person A may be feeling powerless. That is the figure for him and it causes him to respond in a certain way. What he may not be aware of is the ground (which may comprise of what Person B is feeling, or the circumstances that brought them to this conversation.

Another key feature anchors on interdependency. Since every systems is interconnected in one way or another, any problems we are trying to solve is often not a siloed occurrence, but influenced by other systems. By the same measure, the resources we have at our disposal is also not limited to what is available in the immediate system but perhaps at the larger system level or even in adjacent systems. This is commonly found in stakeholder management considerations.

Use of Self:

This is a very easy concept to understand, but takes a lifelong practice to master. The use of self contains both the inner and outer dimensions of who we are. The outer dimensions being our visible identity, our knowledge, techniques, and how we interact with the system. Our inner dimensions are our values, beliefs, experiences, and the stories we tell ourselves.

When we enter any system, we become part of that system. Anything we say or do, any interaction that we make has an impact to the system. And if we are not a permanent part of that system, we need to recognize that too, and consider how would we exit the system when our work is done. We are the most important tool in our trade performing in that system. How we show up, our presence, the language we use, the body language we exhibit, our conscious and unconscious biases, the projection of our inner narratives will affect the outcome of our involvement. These are above and beyond the mastery of the techniques and skills that we are utilizing.

The Use of Self manifest itself in how we make contact with the system and make sense of what is happening. Being human with our own inner dimensions at play, we respond to these interactions in different ways. In psychology, these are classified as our defense mechanisms - how we deal with anxieties or a sense of threat from internal or external sources. A poor mastery of self results in us adapting immature defenses such as devaluation of ourselves or others, denial and aggression, whereas a healthy mature response would be altruism, affiliation or sublimation. Understanding of ourselves, our triggers, our strengths and pride, our motivation and fear, are necessary part of our journey towards self-development, so that we are able to operate as our authentic self to make a difference with our presence.

Natural Human Processes:

Natural human processes examines the behavioral science of people. How we learn, what are our motivations and needs, what triggers us and how do we respond to these triggers, how we make decisions, and how we make connections with people. Much of OD work is about changing people's behaviors. Just like how we need to understand our own defense mechanism, this applies to how we observe the defense mechanisms within others.

This is an extensive field to explore as it ranges from cognitive development, moral development, ego states, resistance inventory, learning inventory, cultural inventory, personality profiles, group dynamics, transactional analysis, and these are just starting to scratch the surface. Essentially, this allows you to understand and explain behaviors and what we observe in the system. Unless you're training to be a psychologist, there's no need to learn it all, just a few common ones that serves your needs. The resources are all out there in case you need new explanations to rationalize what you're seeing.

Having a science behind what we do is important because the work we do in organization development is often fuzzy. We think, we feel, we sense and we intuit. The outcomes of the work we do is often unmeasurable - how do you measure trust, love, positivity and well-being? Other than providing credibility in the work that we do, natural human processes also allow us to provide reassurance that the challenges and emotions we are feeling are perfectly normal, there is no shame in it, and all of us are unique individuals with our own strengths and resources to be able to get past them.

With all the uncertainty being experienced in the world today, companies need to be agile and adaptable to survive. The ability to build change agility in the organization, and have leaders well versed in the practice of leading change are never more important than they are now.

There is no shortage on research and development of change management methodologies. The ADKAR model, Kotter's 8 -Step, McKinsey 7-S are some of the more respected tools that change managers rely on. However, even with highly trained professional change managers and all these sophisticated tools, most change initiatives still fail, or in the best case scenario, achieve a passive state of acceptance - the tick-the-check-box mentality we are all familiar with. The two most common mistakes that change experts and leaders make are the lack of focus on behavioral and mindset changes, and the false belief that you can change someone.

Mindsets & Behaviours

I've worked in many different companies in many different roles across many different industries. One of the most important lessons I've learned, is that every single job in the world is about trying to influence others to change their behavior. A supplier of goods or services tries to influence others to buy; a buyer tries to influence a supplier for the best proposal; leaders and employees influence each other to get things done or to accept the things that are done. All the tasks and activities we do are means to this end. Only when we are able to change mindsets and behaviors, would we be able to achieve the end results we want. And if you really reflect upon it, the technical parts of our jobs is easy. It is the interaction and the influence bits that presents the biggest challenges and yet often determine whether we are successful or not.

External facing roles tend to be better in changing behaviors better because there is a more direct causal relationship between mindset shift and results. Product designers, retail shelving specialist, sales & marketing people are all trained to deal with consumer psychology. Internally is where we see failures and the check-box mentality - implementing a new performance assessment system, agile methodology, developing the culture, driving inclusion. The objectives of these internal initiatives are often task-focused and mechanistic, defined as a completion of activities: the implementation of the system, or the completion of training or briefing sessions, logically so as these are easily measurable. Unfortunately, often we find that nothing really has shifted and employees see these as just another task adding to their already busy work-life. When you enjoy doing something, it doesn’t feel like work anymore, and you find yourself visibly demonstrating those behaviors. That is what most change experts missed out on - the behavioral and mindset shift that matters. Always ask yourself, what would success look like or feel like? Sometimes the answers doesn't come out immediately, so keep asking until you know what it is. Be comfortable that certain things are qualitative rather than quantitative. In Creating Contagious Commitment, Dr Andrea Shapiro uses Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point model to create a change framework based on the number of advocates - the theory being that once you have developed a certain number of true advocates who believes and visibly demonstrate those behaviors, they will cause the organization to tip towards the outcome we want.

Controlling Change

A common misconception leaders have about change management is that they see it as a tool to control and manipulate. In implementing an initiative or strategy, the most important thing to focus on is the outcome we want to achieve - what would success look like, and letting the system lead itself to that objective instead of forcing the system to conform. The brutal truth is, there is no way you can control another person's behavior. The best you can achieve with control and manipulation is blind compliance, and often the reality is resistance and disregard.

Of course there are many different scenarios where different change approaches might be more suitable. Company policies, laws, and certain processes are non-negotiable and do not really require change management - do it, or leave. What concerns us are the changes we want to make because we believe this will lead to a better outcome for everyone. There are many definitions of change approaches, but it boils down to whether the change is Planned or Emergent. In a Planned Change, we assume that change will follow the playbook that was developed. Whereas in Emergent Change, change happens the way it wants to happen, as an outcome of the different dynamics at play within the system. Those who have watched Jurassic Park will remember this tagline - "Life will find a way".

With the right conditions in place, Planned Change could happen. Having an inspiring CEO, a compelling narrative, fantastic leaders and managers, a positive and collaborative culture, highly engaged and motivated employees are all conditions to allow changes to be more successful. Obviously not all organizations are so lucky to have all these conditions present, so we do need to think about how else are we able to enable successful changes.

Employing an Emergent Change effectively start with having a clear end goal in mind. The clarity of the end goal help to set a guard rail and direction, but allow the system to find its own solution to reach the goal, supported by sufficient expertise and resources it needs. Using an example of improving innovation in an organization: A Planned approach would entail setting up a standard curriculum and requiring every employee to go through the training, with the measure of success as the percentage of employees completing the training. If we employ an Emergent approach, the executives would discuss and agreed on what an innovative culture really mean, with lead measures on what would they see differently, and lag measures like the number of new project proposals or proportion of business growth from new initiatives. The individual executives are then free to work with their own teams to develop any approaches that helps them achieve it. Some leaders might focus on communities of learning (about innovation), some might use an ideas competition to make things more fun and exciting, or some might simply share the goals with their teams, and get the teams to develop the strategy themselves. At the end of the day, what matters is meeting the outcomes and results, rather than how we got it done.

The hindrance to adopting an Emergent approach is the perceived loss of control and the beliefs we hold against others. When we view our teams as capable and responsible, we can set the objectives and empower them to design their own solutions, while we reposition ourselves to be supportive leaders instead. This applies to line management leaders or leaders from central functions whose job is to roll out enterprise-wide initiatives - we have the resources and expertise to support the organization in implementing their solutions, helping them improve the ideas and overcome hurdles. This allows for a much more collaborative approach, improve engagement and frankly, makes work more fun for everyone.

The Oxford dictionary's definition of leadership is "the action of leading a group of people or an organization". Kevin Kruse has a nice article about what leadership is and is not - leadership is not about title or seniority; leadership is not management (you could be a manager, but not a leader, or you could be a leader, but not a manager) (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/04/09/what-is-leadership/?sh=2ce5eca45b90). IMD referenced 5 different leadership styles: Authoritarian, Participative, Delegative, Transactional, and Transformational. (https://www.imd.org/imd-reflections/reflection-page/leadership-styles/) It is never about which is the better leadership style, because it will always be contextual, and It is always about where we are on the journey, and which leadership style would be most situationally effective.

For example, Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, has always been described as an autocrat - Its his way or the highway, or for some unfortunate opponents, prison. But his style of leadership was exactly what we needed back in 1965, when Singapore was thrown into independence with no resources, no alliances, and seemingly no future. He was a brilliant and visionary dictator, who devoted his entire life to the development of Singapore. We would not be here if it wasn't for him. One generation later, after Singapore has secured our place as a successful developed nation with amongst the world's highest literacy rate and house-ownership; one of the safest and most desirable place to live; viewed globally as a favored investment and regional management hub, his style of leadership became counter-productive with the younger population and almost cost the ruling party the government.

Fortunately for most of us, what's at stake is not the livelihood of a nation. We have options, we can afford to experiment and learn from our failures.

So what is leadership? In an idealistic sense, I think leadership is about transcending personal needs and using their self as a tool to achieve a greater good. Again, the perspective is highly contextual and very individualistic. Greater good could be about delivering a goal, doing what is good for the team, maintaining a longer term view, managing stakeholders' expectations, shifting behaviors and mindset etc. The "greater" perspective would also have different levels - at the team level, function level, organization level, societal level, national level? All of us would experience different orientation of the situation and our environment, and we will need to manage conflict and make choices in order to achieve some form of harmony or vision. Whether you are a true leader goes deep into the intentions you harbour beyond your words and actions. Only you will know your own intentions, and only you can decide what choices you will make and the sacrifices you accept in order to achieve that greater good. When you think about leadership, what is important for you?

One of my favorite definition of leadership comes from the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Zi (老子). In Chapter 17 of Dao De Jing (道德经), Lao Zi discussed on the merits of different types of leadership - you are a bad leader if people despise you or do what you say because they fear you; you are a good leader if people do what you say because they love you; and you are a great leader if people do simply because they know its the right thing to do. Here, the true leader doesn't worry about status or prestige or power. They focus on creating the right environment that brings about the best in others. Whether you are a true leader goes deep into your own intentions - you don't need to change the world to be a leader, as long as you have the intention to bring out the best in the people you come into contact with, that's leadership.

When it comes to developing insights about human nature and making sense of the world, there's a ton of materials online from renowned researchers, philosophers, and experts in each field. One area which is often overlooked is pop culture. As many of the shows we watch are human drama in nature, scriptwriters do have to be quite an expert in order to decipher the inner workings of the different characters and how these characters interact with one another. Take for example the sitcom The Office. They are funny as hell because they were able to capture the essence of the different unsavory characters we do see in real life. Other than making fun of the our suffering, pop culture wisdoms also provide a lot of opportunity to learn, reflect and remind ourselves on some of the lessons in life, and our personal growth. Here's a couple that I picked up recently.

The Good Place

The Good Place from NBC starring Kirsten Bell and Ted Danson. This comedy series deals with the concept of heaven and hell, and has won acclimations for its exploration of ethics and philosophy. Some of these ideas really got me thinking for days:

• Ted's character on the show was trying to orchestrate a certain outcome, and even when he has the power to construct the environment and reset time, and he did that for thousands of times, he could never get the outcome that he wanted. This represents for me what life is about. It is unpredictable and chaotic, and impossible to be contained. In many formal organizations like companies or countries, there are always leaders who believe they can shape the organization and control & manipulate people. Its common to get short term successes, but eventually things will shift and change for better or worse. This also represents the most common movie plot twist - when things are good, someone or something will screw it up; when things are bad, somehow it will improve. Such is life, and "life will always find a way" (quoting another movie Jurassic Park!). Learn to understand the system, rather than trying to control it. You'll find that you'll get better success and more happiness if you can build that resilience.

• “Mortality offers meaning to the events of our lives, and morality helps us navigate that meaning." This is a quote from Professor Todd May, who also acted as the philosophical advisor for the show. The context of this statement is when the lead characters eventually go to heaven, they find a group of bored, zombie-like people up there. After an eternity, you have already enjoyed what you can, and being around has no meaning anymore. Bringing this down to earth for us - life only has meaning because there's death. The finite time we have on earth allows us to be guided by our morality. Morality is a huge philosophical topic, but we shall simplify it as what we think is the right thing to do. If life goes on indefinitely, nothing we do makes any difference, and there is no right or wrong. The mere act of living itself becomes a prison. For us, life holds meaning because there is a destination. The purpose for us is to accomplish what we want before our time is up. It could be a pursue of truth or righteousness, building our legacy, ensuring we are able to provide for our children, or simply just enjoyment and being happy. Morality acts as our life guide, to make sure that we are able to achieve our purpose.

Doctor Strange

The 2016 first Doctor Strange movie from Marvel Studios. I've quoted this multiple times because its such a simple, elegant and yet powerful leadership truth. In the scene where The Ancient one is dying and she has a last conversation with Benedict Cumberbatch. "Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all…………It's not about you". In my corporate roles, so many people have asked me about what it takes to be a great leader. Well, the answer is just so simple: Its not about you. Once you are able to put aside your wants and needs, and start to really care about what is the greater good, you will be a great leader. It doesn’t matter whether this is about changing the world, or are you just focusing on the greater good of your own team. You are the leader who matters to those around you. This is easier said than done, because the greater good is a subjective reality - what you see as greater good may not be viewed the same by others. You will need courage, determination and strong values system to be able to stand for what you believe in. In all the superhero movies, remember that even after they saved the world, it didn’t take a lot for people to view them as villains.

Coldplay (Fix You)

In this hit song released in 2005, the 2nd line of the song goes "When you get what you want, but not what you need". I'm taking this quote totally out of context from the song, so this is not about fixing anyone. This quote resonated with me because I noticed it as I was going through my Gestalt program. One of the exercise we have to do is to identify what we want and what we need. This is a figure and ground situation, where we typically focus on the most immediate want that's holding our attention - I'm hungry, I want to eat; I'm angry, I want to attack; I'm scared, I want to avoid etc. But identifying what we really need, requires us to be centered and grounded, so that we can see the real truth for ourselves and make the right choices. For example, looking for happiness is something many people are pursuing, and often, what we WANT is a bigger pay-check, a bigger title, a new car or a new house. But is that what we NEED? Be honest with yourself and consider - are there relationships to build or mend? Do you have time for yourself? Are you living your purpose? Have you consider the goals that are really important for yourself?

When we pay attention, we can notice inspirational wisdom from all around us. Our unconscious mind do pick up on information that we need, even when it may not be something we consciously want. Pay attention to what you're paying attention to could provide you with insights of what's important to you as well.

Stay tuned to more to come in this space….