The Practice of Leadership » Meetings

Good Leaders Balance Advocacy and Inquiry to Resolve Conflict

George Ambler — Sun, 25 May 2008 19:28:19 +0000

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Striving towards a vision and bringing about successful change is one of the hallmarks of leadership. However, vision equals change and change is often accompanied by conflict and tensions within and between teams. The leaders ability to effectively resolve this conflict and get people to move forward, acting to bring the vision into today is the result of great leadership. Unless we learn to productively deal with conflict, our change efforts will result in failure. One of the best tools to help with resolving conflict is the art of balancing advocacy and inquiry. What do we mean by advocacy and inquiry?

Advocacy: is about how ideas are presented and explained. It’s primarily, one-way communication. When communication is one-way it becomes difficult for the the listener to understand the reasoning which supports the ideas being presented. This makes it unlikely, that people will commit themselves to any meaningful course of action. Before people will commit to a course of action they need to understand the reasoning behind the ideas. Advocacy is about making your point, taking a stand in an attempt to influence others, supporting your viewpoint with a relational argument, whilst remaining open to alternative views.
Inquiry: is about how questions are raised and answered. Inquiry allows people to inquire into one another’s reasoning and understand the conclusion they have reached. Inquiry help us to understand what others are thinking and the reasoning behind their viewpoints.

Advocacy alone is insufficient. Likewise, inquiry alone is insufficient. Without a balance, people do not commit to action, they remain neutral. Learning to balance advocacy and inquiry increases likelihood that others will commit to take action. To gain a better understanding of the differences between advocacy and inquiry the following matrix, illustrated below, which I have adapted from “The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” provides a great overview of the various ways of dealing with conflict.

The above matrix shows that their are dysfunctional forms of advocacy (politicking and dictating) and inquiry (withdrawing and interrogating) which we need to be careful to avoid.

How to balance advocacy and inquiry

It’s important to understand when to use advocacy and when to use inquiry. Mark Gerzon in his book “Leading Through Conflict” provides the following guidelines to help leaders in combining these two very different styles:

“The general rule is this: inquiry precedes advocacy. If you (1) are uncertain about having reliable, complete information; (2) have not yet engaged all the relevant stakeholders; and (3) doubt that you have sufficient votes, power or other support to put your plan into action, then it is time for inquiry not advocacy. However, if you (1) have access to all the necessary information, (2) have obtained input from all the necessary people, and (3) have mapped a clear road to implementing a viable plan, then go ahead. Advocate your ‘solution’ to the issue or conflict, and begin to rally everyone behind you.”

Balancing advocacy and inquiry enables constructive two-way communication and learning. “I state my views, I inquire into your views, and I invite you to state your views and I inquire into your views.”

When balancing advocacy and inquiry we expose our reasoning and encourage others to challenge and probe our argument. Having a viewpoint is important as much as being open to learning about the viewpoints of others. Some useful tips for improving advocacy and inquiry from “The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook” includes:

State your views providing the assumptions and data you used that led to your view. – “Here’s what I think and how I got there“
Always seek to make your reasoning explicit. – “I came to this conclusion because….”
Keep your viewpoint in context, what’s your purpose, who will be affected, how and why.
Provide concrete examples. – “To get a clearer picture as to what I am talking about imagine you’re…“
Encourage others to explore your thinking, assumptions and data without becoming defensive. – “What do you think about what I have just said?… What can you add?“
Ask other to explain their thought process without interrogating or making people defensive. – “How did you arrive at this view?“
Ask questions that help to gain insight into why people have the views that they do. – “Can you help me understand your thinking here?“
Explain how your questions help to clarify you concerns and assumptions.
Test what others are saying by asking or examples.
When advocating, keep listening, remaining open to different viewpoints.

Leaders often make the mistake of relying too much on advocacy to get their message across. Time pressures also make it more likely that leaders default to as means of getting commitment to their vision and to drive action. Usually leaders want to be the first to provide answers and they push their views too strongly, not leaving enough room for discussion and debate. How about you? This month why not try to balance advocacy and inquiry in your conversions, you’ll be amazed at the results.

Separating Strategy From Planning Conversations

George Ambler — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:21:28 +0000

To be effective it’s necessary for leaders to separate strategy from planning, separating the why and what from the how. This is necessary simply because strategy and planning require two different thinking styles which are not complementary. As highlighted in a post on management-Issues:

“Ever been in a strategy meeting where everybody was focusing on the how instead of the what? The main problem with that is strategy meetings are for discussing strategy (the what), not tactics (the how)…..”

Organisations need a strategy and a robust plan to support that strategy. Strategy helps to guide an organisations decision making and planning describe the details required to help navigate the journey. In the post the authors suggest the following three questions as a useful way of keeping strategic discussions productive:

What results do you want? A certain percent of market share? “X” number of dollars in sales? “X” amount of increased profits? First things first: Identify the end results you want and don’t talk about anything else until you do. Be specific. What percentage of market share? How many dollars? How much profit?
What must you do to achieve those results? You’re on a roll, keep brainstorming! Here are more examples: Need to identify demographics of widget buyers. Need to check trends and make widgets in colors that are currently fashionable. Must identify the reasons why people avoid buying widgets and find ways to address those issues. Need to explore marketing our widgets in partnership with a complementary product, etc. etc.
What knowledge, skills, or attitudes must we acquire to do those things? … This question focuses on what you need to learn or be concerned about.

Trying to discuss planning or operational issues in strategic meeting leader to poor results. Wise leaders always separate strategic conversations from planning and operations. Do you have a social architecture that effectively separate these two conversations in your organisation or teams?

Steve Jobs and his leadership

George Ambler — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 11:42:03 +0000

Fortune has a great feature on Steve Jobs, titled “Steve Jobs speaks out” that looks at some of Steve’s perspectives on business, leadership and technology. In the article Steve reveals some interesting insights into Apple and his leadership principles.

On Apple’s focus

“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.
“I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don’t put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market’s going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won’t really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn’t have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn’t have seen it coming.”

Focus is critical for effective leadership, with so many options choosing the right one can be extremely difficult. Small changes can have big results, if you focus on the key issues and execute relentlessly on those key issues. To focus on the most important issues means you have to say not to a whole range of alternative opportunities.

On finding talent

“When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They’ll want to do what’s best for Apple, not what’s best for them, what’s best for Steve, or anybody else.
“Recruiting is hard. It’s just finding the needles in the haystack. We do it ourselves and we spend a lot of time at it. I’ve participated in the hiring of maybe 5,000-plus people in my life. So I take it very seriously. You can’t know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? Why are they here? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’ The answers themselves are not what you’re looking for. It’s the meta-data.”

Passion rules! Passion is about our emotional energy and a love for what we do. Without passion it becomes difficult to fight back in the face of obstacles and difficulties. People with passion find a way to get things done and to make things happen, in spite of the obstacles and challenges that get in the way.

On his marathon Monday meetings

“When you hire really good people you have to give them a piece of the business and let them run with it. That doesn’t mean I don’t get to kibitz a lot. But the reason you’re hiring them is because you’re going to give them the reins. I want [them] making as good or better decisions than I would. So the way to do that is to have them know everything, not just in their part of the business, but in every part of the business.
“So what we do every Monday is we review the whole business. We look at what we sold the week before. We look at every single product under development, products we’re having trouble with, products where the demand is larger than we can make. All the stuff in development, we review. And we do it every single week. I put out an agenda — 80% is the same as it was the last week, and we just walk down it every single week.
“We don’t have a lot of process at Apple, but that’s one of the few things we do just to all stay on the same page.”

Social architecture, meetings and their structure (drama, purpose and conflict) keep people engaged in the organisations vision. Regular meetings ensure effective communication and that the organisation is making steady progress towards the vision.

Steve Jobs: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life”!

Context, Purpose, Drama and Conflict: The Secret Sauce of Great Meetings

George Ambler — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:43:37 +0000

Patrick Lencioni author of the numerous books including “Death by Meeting” wrote an interesting article “Avoid ‘Death by Meeting’” which provides some great insights on creating an effective meetings. Patrick describes the two primary reasons meeting are ineffective as..

Meetings lack drama. Which means they are boring.
Most meetings lack context and purpose.

Drama and Conflict

Great meetings need what Patrick calls drama he says that “The key to making meetings more engaging – and less boring – lies in identifying and nurturing the natural level of conflict that should exist.” Conflict keeps us engaged and interested, encouraging us to participate and contribute to the discussion. A leader’s role is to ask questions that matter so as to encourage engagement around the key issues.

Context and Purpose

In addition to drama meetings need context and purpose, “Unfortunately, no amount of drama will matter if leaders don’t create the right context for their meetings and make it clear to team members why the meeting is taking place, and what is expected of them. To create context, leaders must differentiate between different types of meetings. Too often, however, they throw every possible conversation into one long staff meeting. This creates confusion and frustration among team members who struggle to shift back and forth between tactical and strategic conversations, with little or no resolution of issues.”

Effective leaders take a four pronged approach to effectively address context and purpose, they create and sustain the following four meetings.

The Daily Check-in: is a schedule-oriented, administrative meeting that should last no more than five or 10 minutes. The purpose is simply to keep team members aligned and to provide a daily forum for activity updates and scheduling.
The Weekly Tactical: is what most people have come to know as staff meetings. These should be approximately an hour in length, give or take 20 minutes, and should focus on the discussion and resolution of issues which effect near term objectives. Ironically, these work best if there is no pre-set agenda. Instead, the team should quickly review one another’s priorities and the team’s overall scorecard, and then decide on what to discuss during the remainder of the meeting.
The Monthly Strategic: is the most interesting kind of meeting for leaders, and the most important indicator of a company’s strategic aptitude. It is the appropriate place for big topics, those that will have a long-term impact on the business.
The Quarterly Off-Site Review: is an opportunity for team members to step away from the business, literally and figuratively, to reassess a variety of issues: the interpersonal performance of the team, the company’s strategy, the performance of top-tier and bottom-tier employees, morale, competitive threats and industry trends. These can last anywhere from the better part of a day to two full days each quarter.

Creating the right meeting eco-system or “social architecture” is critical to effective leadership. Ensuring that we have the appropriate levels of conflict and that each meeting has the right focus, the right conflict and purpose, is essential for great performance. How are your meetings? Do they have the right amount of conflict and drama? Do you have an eco-system where you have daily check-ins, tactical and strategic meetings?

Leading through conversation

George Ambler — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 16:02:40 +0000

Leaders shape the world through the conversations they initiate and engage in. The amazing thing is how often we forget the power of conversation in shaping how we see the world. Organisations consist of conversations, conversations with teams, employees and customers. Conversation affects how we think, which in turn affects how we act.

“…its through language that we create the world, because it is nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it, we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way, we do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe. – Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity: the Inner Path of Leadership

Organisations consist of human beings, not only structures, processes, systems and resources. As such, they require open, honest and effective communication to become successful. This means that communication is an important leadership practice. Unless people are aware of what’s going on around them they’re unable to engage in driving the organisations’ strategy.

Given the powerful role that conversations play in guiding and directing an organisation, it’s amazing how often conversation is overlooked as a leadership tool. Successful leaders recognize the importance of shaping an organisation’s conversation.

“A leader’s job is to engineer epiphanies one conversation at a time.” – Susan Scott

The purpose of strategic conversation is to focus and inspire a team and an organisation. When leaders talk about the right issues, in the right way - extraordinary things begin to happen. But if you get the conversation wrong, people become passive, unmotivated, negative and cynical.

“What gets talked about in a company and how it gets talked about determines what will happen. Or won’t happen. Conversations provide clarity or confusion. Invite cross-boundary collaboration and cooperation or add concertina wire to the walls between well-defended fiefdoms. Inspire us to tackle our toughest challenges or stop us dead in our tracks wondering why we bothered to get out of bed this morning.” – Susan Scott

Conversation is the begining of change…. It’s through conversation that our thinking begins to change, and changed thinking results in changed behaviour. Conversation, when carefully crafted and managed is a powerful means of influencing the heart and minds of others……. as in the end only people can change.

Groups don’t change……
Teams don’t change……
Organisations don’t change………

Organisations change, when people change…. and … people change one conversation at a time…..

It’s the role of leadership to focus an organisation’s conversation…

How conscious have your been in shaping your “system of conversation”?
Do you have a straegic agenda describing the critical concversations you need to be hosting?