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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.

Related posts:

1. Inquiry is The Heart of Persuasion
2. Context, Purpose, Drama and Conflict: The Secret Sauce of Great Meetings
3. Constructive conflict is essential for creating commitment to decisions

“You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?” – Jim Rohn

We are profoundly affected by those in their inner circle. Leaders are no exception and therefore must to surround themselves with others that complement them - that is people who are strong in areas that they may be weak. Who you have in your inner-circle will determine your effectiveness. Selecting people to fulfil a leadership role is a difficult task. John Maxwell provides some help, he asks the following questions before bring new people into his team:

• Character — who they are.
• Relationships — who they know.
• Knowledge — what they know.
• Passion — how strongly they feel.
• Experience — where they’ve been.
• Past successes — what they’ve done.
• Ability — what they can do.

Great leaders aren’t afraid to surround themselves with great people….

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“A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.” – John Le Caré

The Leadership Insight

One of the dangers faced by leaders is isolation from the people they lead. Too busy to take the time to really listen, too distracted to notice what’s happening around them and too rushed to reflect on what really matters, this quickly escalates to create the trap of isolation. You cannot lead people without getting involved. When leaders fail to spend sufficient time their people, they loose touch with the key issues of the day. When leaders remain behind their desks they loose touch with reality, unable to articulate what’s on the hearts and minds of their people. This results in slow decision making and delayed action. Unless leaders have insight into their people’s hearts and minds they will……

• Fail to create a shared vision….
• Fail to communicate effectively….
• Fail to bring about change……
• Fail to take effective action….

Ultimately they will fail to lead!

How much time are you spending with the people you lead? Do you know what’s on their heart and minds?

Technorati Tags: Quote, Communication, Management, Reality, Leadership

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The MIT Leadership Center has a great leadership framework, discussed in the article “Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty” by Deborah Ancona, the Director of the MIT Leadership Center. The framework was developed by four MIT Sloan faculty members, Deborah Ancona, Wanda Orlikowski, Peter Senge and Tom Malone and is underpinned by the following four core assumptions:

• Leadership is Distributed. That is, leadership is not solely the purview of the CEO, but can and should permeate all levels of the firm.
• Leadership is Personal and Developmental. There is no single way to lead. The best way to create change is to work with the particular capabilities that you have, while constantly working to improve and expand those capabilities.
• Leadership is a Process to Create Change. Leadership is about making things happen, contingent on a context. Leaders may create change by playing a central role in the actual change process, or by creating an environment in which others are empowered to act.
• Leadership Develops Over Time. It is through practice, reflection, following role models, feedback, and theory that we learn leadership.

 SENSEMAKING

Sensemaking is about “making sense of the world around us”. The act of Sensemaking is discovering the new terrain as you are inventing it. In the very process of mapping the new terrain, you are creating it.

Tips for Sensemaking:

• Seek many types and sources of data.
• Involve others in your sensemaking.
• Do not simply apply your existing frameworks and overlay them on the situation.
• Move beyond stereotypes.
• Learn from small experiments.
• Use images, metaphors, or stories to try to capture and communicate critical elements of your map.

RELATING

Relating is about “developing key relationships within and across organisations” and consists of the following three primary components:

1. Inquiry which is the ability to listen and understand what others are thinking and feeling. It also involves trying to understand how the other person has moved from data to interpretation to assessment, rather than simply reacting to the assessment itself.
2. Advocacy which involves taking a stand and trying to influence others of its merits while also being open to alternative views.
3. Connecting which is the ability to build collaborative relationships with others and to create coalitions for change.

Tips for effective connecting are:

• Understand the perspective of others within the organization and withhold judgment while listening to them.
• Encourage others to voice their opinions.
• Be clear about your stand and how you reached it.
• Think about how others might react to your idea and how you might best explain it to them.
• Think about your connections.

VISIONING

While sensemaking creates a map of what is, visioning is a map of what could be. Visions are important because they provide the motivation for people to give up their current views and ways of working in order to change. Perhaps most importantly, visioning provides people with a sense of meaning about their work. It answers the question “why am I doing this?” Thus good leaders are able to frame visions in a way that emphasizes their importance along some key value dimensions.

Tips for effective Visioning are:

• Develop a vision about something that excites you or that you think is important.
• Frame the vision with an ideological goal.
• Use stories, metaphors and analogies to paint a vivid picture of what the vision will accomplish.
• Practice creating a vision in many arenas.
• Enable co-workers by pointing out that they have the skills and capabilities needed to realize the vision.
• Embody the key values and ideas contained in the vision – “walk the talk.”

INVENTING

Creating is about the creation of new ways of woking together. Inventing entails creating the processes and structures needed to make the vision a reality. It involves implementing the steps needed to achieve our vision of the future.

Tips for effective inventing include:

• Maintain focus on improving the ways that people work together in your team and organization.
• When a new task or change effort emerges, think through how it will get done—who will do what, by when, and in what configuration.
• Play with new and different ways of organizing work—examine alternative ways of grouping people together, organizing their internal interaction, and linking across different groups.
• Blend sensemaking and inventing.

An interesting point mentioned in the article is the role that polarity or paradox plays in leadership, which the author refers to as tensions:

These capabilities can also create tensions that need to be managed. It is difficult to hold an image of the future and the present simultaneously. Balancing people and processes, action and understanding, individual and collective aspirations, can be challenging. Yet it is inherent in the framework that managing these very tensions is the essence of leadership.

Signature Style

The last component in the framework is the individual leader’s “signature style” which is “It is the change signature that determines how and what the tool is used for. While the capabilities focus on what leaders do, the change signature is about who a leader is. It develops slowly based on experience and skills. It is a key part of the leadership model because it represents who we are as leaders.”

I share this as I think this is a great leadership framework which we can use to shape our thinking and approach to leadership.

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1. The Army’s Leadership Framework and Philosophy

“We all need warm, deep, personal relationships to thrive, but modern life seems to place such a small value on them compared with the high value placed on money and prestige and pleasure. It is so easy to be distracted and to fritter our attention away in countless ways, until we find we have nothing left for family and friends. By simplifying our lives, dropping less important activities, we allow more time for what matters most. But it is also essential to slow down our pace of living, so that we can free ourselves from the grip of time-driven thinking and behavior.” — From Eknath Easwaran, “Words to Live By”

Technorati Tags: Relationships, Reflection, Quote, Focus, Personal Leadership

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