Developing boardroom dynamics: live the values; don't laminate them
Beverley Stone is principal consultant with Roffey Park, a centre for executive education. She explains to John Warner her views on leadership, why executives should live the organisation's values and why competencies are needed to handle the social dynamics of the boardroom.
John Warner: Tell me your thoughts on leadership and the role you believe leaders should play in organisations.
Beverley Stone: Leadership is an incredibly complex area, but trying to define what a leader is, and defining the process of leadership really comes down to "people who influence people". Influence is a word that can be used about anybody at any level, living or dead, for good or evil - it makes leadership a very broad concept. To be more specific and to help organisations become more effective, I'm particularly interested in looking at board dynamics and the way all leadership teams work together - be they executive, management or groups further down the organisation. The way leadership teams operate, I believe, has a huge effect on the performance of the organisation.
Modelling boardroom dynamics
John Warner: You mention several different leadership teams. Which of these do you work with and what types of behaviour do you look for among the teams' members?
Beverley Stone: I usually work with boards of directors and executive teams, and observe their group dynamics. As I watch, I find that there are several broad forms of behaviour that are evident. Some people are very cooperative, others are not. From this, it's clear that people usually fall into one of four groups.There are individuals in leadership teams who assert their own opinions, but don't listen to others - the "hijackers". They're often described as bullies and dictators, who are autocratic and egocentric. They're into winning and you losing, and they're competitive in terms of a conflict-handling model.
On the other hand, there are people who don't assert their own opinions and go along with everybody else's views - like "lambs" (as in "led to the slaughter"). They're helpful and accommodating, but I find that many of them feel like doormats because they're used and abused. Not only do they not like themselves, but they dislike working with some of their colleagues and they no longer want to go to work. Now, there're also what I call "shadows" (of their former selves). They're the passive aggressive people, who don't tell you what they're thinking in the team meeting, neither do they try to understand you. They can be manipulative and they avoid conflict. They just look at you with a facial expression that says "Yeah! Like hell I will". You realise as the meeting ends, that you don't have a consensus decision because they didn't agree with you and they didn't tell you what they think, but they intend to go off and do it their own way, anyway.
Finally, there are the people who do assert their opinions, but also try to listen and understand everybody else's point of view, too. This is a collaborative mode of behaviour, it's a win-win situation and it's the actions of a team leader. I call such people "warriors".
John Warner: Do you anticipate that people will actually use the names "hijackers", "warriors", "shadows" and "lambs"?
Beverley Stone: In some ways, I prefer that people use expressions like "we're being competitive", or "you seem to be being evasive", and we've been using the language of conflict handling by Thomas and Kilmann1. At the moment, we're developing a questionnaire that focuses more on "courage" and "compassion". However, many people I work with like the original five categories of "competing", "collaborating", "compromising", "accommodating" and "avoiding", and find it an attractive and memorable model.
John Warner: I recognise many of the characteristics of the people you've identified. I've even worked in teams with similar individuals in the past, but, from your observations, how do these groups of people interact with one another?
Beverley Stone: You often find one or two hijackers in any boardroom; possibly, one is the CEO, but not necessarily. There may also be one person who is collaborative, looking for win-win; in other words, my "warrior". The rest of the board are just sitting there waiting for the meeting to end, so that when they break and they're in the corridor, or at the coffee machine, or in the toilets, they actually say, "Can you believe it? He did it again. I'm not doing that; I don't agree with it. Do you?" So the real meeting happens outside the boardroom.
In view of this, no authentic decisions have been made in the real meeting. It creates a dynamic in which people return to their own divisions, assumptions and businesses, and say to their teams "You won't believe what we've decided now". "Siloism" (functions working in isolation) sets in that gives permission for the next tier of leader to be uncooperative with other functions of the business. By not buying into decisions made in the boardroom and conveying this subtly, or not so subtly to others, I've found that the unintended culture becomes such that staff almost have permission not to be collaborative.
John Warner: At the risk of asking the obvious, what in your view is the danger of not encouraging collaborative working either in the boardroom or in the aftermath of a board meeting?
Beverley Stone: Inappropriate, unethical, or even illegal decisions can be made by leaders. (We can all think of some recent spectacular failings by companies with household names.) This is because people who have a lot of intuition and make decisions from the heart and, who, in terms of emotional intelligence are the most compassionate and attentive to others, are the ones most likely to indulge the boardroom hijacker.
On my hijackers, warriors, shadows and lambs quadrant diagrams (see the accompanying diagrams), such a situation is characterised by a triangle of people who will compromise - a group right in the middle of the four quadrants and those in the bottom two who are shadows or lambs, eg three groups, made up of those who avoid conflict, accommodate it or compromise.
Using emotional intelligence
John Warner: On the positive side, what behaviours are you looking for in leadership teams?
Beverley Stone: Before answering that, I need to make reference to the work of Myers and Briggs2. Most leaders pick up data with their five senses; they make their decisions with their heads and then they stick to them. A few pick up data through intuition - a gut feeling that allows them to sense the group dynamic - and then they make their decisions from the heart. They'll say to themselves of the hijacker, "Okay, he wants his say, he's like a child, but I'll indulge him". These people are also flexible, so they can change their minds easily. In my experience, there are relatively few people like this in leadership teams. But the few that we have tend not to force their opinions because they're compassionate.
What I'm looking for, is that these people have the courage of their convictions, to be more assertive and to insist that they get their opinion on the table. I'm also looking for the hijackers to be more compassionate in letting these people be heard. Even hijackers are emotionally intelligent, but they need to reassess it. Let me give you an example. If I walk up to a reception desk and the receptionist can see, feel and know that I'm in a hurry, she knows her own emotions - and she feels threatened. I look more important than her and I've got more urgent things to do. She thinks about what she can do to diminish me. As a result, she picks up the telephone and avoids eye contact with me. This is a sign of huge emotional intelligence.
This is very exciting! It's much easier to develop positive use in people with emotional intelligence who currently use it negatively - than to develop it more or less from scratch. We need to start seeing emotional intelligence without making value judgments - for example, only limiting our view to "You're empathic and you do the right thing by the other person".
Delusions of consensus
John Warner: What in practice are the indicators in the boardroom of "emotionally intelligent saboteurs"?
Beverley Stone: Decisions are made that are implemented slowly, badly, or not at all. If silence is taken as agreement at a meeting, the hijackers and warriors at the top of the triangle think they have a consensus. Whereas, in reality, the other board members have said to themselves "I don't agree with that" and, over coffee, comments were made along the lines of "Did you see that? He did it again", or "I'm not doing that". As a consequence, in the following meeting, they say "I didn't think you meant that", or "Last time, I couldn't get a word in edgeways". This results in a revenge cycle, in which one person is peeved that the other didn't do what was asked and, in response, they don't do what's required this time. This creates a downward spiral of social dynamics in boardroom decision-making or, for that matter, in any leadership team.
However collaborative and democratic executives believe themselves to be, they don't respond as well as they could because they know that the rest of the team is not democratic or collaborative. As a result, they don't feel obliged to go along with the implementation of decisions that are made. This means that even the good leaders in the company are not leading as appropriately or effectively as they could be, and this disenchantment cascades between and throughout the silos. After all, the culture of any organisation is only as good as that in the leadership team.
Developing conflict management skills, studying leadership behaviours and considering issues about emotional intelligence, compassion and courage can have an impact on the way companies feel about themselves. Tackling these elements can make a positive difference to morale, and, therefore, to performance and productivity.
Changing the approach
John Warner: What in your view are the benefits of individuals developing different behaviours in the boardroom?
Beverley Stone: Where I see we can be doing a great deal of good work in management boards and leadership teams is in pointing out to people that they're in the bottom triangle. This is the reason that they don't feel good about themselves and why they dislike working with one another and are disappointed with the organisation. They're not being authentic, and they're not ensuring decisions are being made in their boards or teams that they would wish - so people are not proud of themselves or their company.
If people want to have ethical leadership and ethical companies of which they can be proud, then they have to work out of the top triangle. This means that on some occasions they've got to be aggressive and into win-lose and, more times than not, to be collaborative and sometimes come to a compromise. The fact is that we cannot have decisions made in the boardroom that are from a vocal minority - in which the only people who make a decision are those who speak out. This is not acceptable, there have to be consensus decisions made. If you have "apparent" consensus decisions that people are not committed to, then they're implemented slowly, badly, or not at all.
Developing new behaviours
John Warner: What's the first course of action you take to ensure the leadership becomes more effective?
Beverley Stone: I'm not a sound bite person, so I can't give you a "five things you can do about this situation" solution. However, I negotiate with clients the most appropriate way to work with their leadership team (executive or management). Events take the form of a meeting to discuss the overall strategy of the organisation. For example, I'm about to arrange a two-and-a-quarter-day meeting off-site with the executive team of an organisation based in London. Prior to an intervention, a questionnaire is given to members of the leadership team for them to complete candidly. This helps in diagnosing the social dynamics of boardroom meetings and identifies the "bottom-triangle lambs and shadows" that we've already talked about and the hijackers who unwittingly put these people in that position.
Responses are diagnosed and data is prepared in a visual matrix format ready for presentation during the first afternoon of an off-site leadership meeting. When I show them the model (hijacker, warrior, shadow and lambs), and how their data reinforces the bottom-triangle position, people usually sit there in silence "gob-smacked". Invariably, this occurs with every team with which I work, because it strongly represents what is happening in the boardroom.
John Warner: Once you've stunned people into silence, what's the next stage?
Beverley Stone: We acknowledge that to lead effectively, they need to be in the top triangle (compromise, hijackers and warriors). This involves people processing the way they work together against ground rules that they set for themselves. For example, during the duration of the event, they may wish to raise issues as and when they arise, share in the decision-making, be punctual to sessions, show respect and listen to one another. They choose to make these resolutions because, back at work, certain members invariably arrive late for boardroom meetings and they don't listen to one another. This means there is little respect shown for other people's views and, as a result, they've not been making consensus decisions.
I watch them working against the ground rules they set. After an hour or so of attempting to abide by the rules, I stop them and we review how it's progressing. They usually find that it's not been so great. At this point, I introduce my strap line: "Developing boardroom dynamics - values lived, not laminated."
What happens is that the group have "laminated" the values ("motherhood" statements) by which they intend to work together, but that's as far as it goes. This is exactly what they also do with their organisational values. Values are printed out on card, laminated and slipped into the pocket to be carried around, or framed and displayed on the wall. What they're not doing is living them from the top of the organisation down.
We all have habitual forms of behaviour to which we revert under stress - particularly in conflict situations. These are unconscious ways of responding to stress that were developed as a child, such as running upstairs, shutting the door and reading a book until a crisis blows over. People who did this tend to avoid or accommodate, but if someone found that screaming, shouting, stamping their feet and slamming doors always worked, then they're likely to respond in a similar way as an adult.
The thing that adults don't always ask themselves is whether what worked as a child is the most appropriate way in their current position. Often it is not. Those people in the bottom triangle are always losing and never winning. They don't get out of life what they want because they're not asking for it; they don't assert themselves. On the other hand, hijackers who think that they're winning, are only winning in the short term, because leaders who abuse others or make colleagues look incompetent do not gain their cooperation. Neither group wins in the end. So, we're looking to develop warriors who have compassion and can indulge others, and shadows and lambs who have courage - then it's possible to achieve win-win.
What to look for
John Warner: You mentioned that you observe how people work as a leadership team. Are there particular things that you're looking out for?
Beverley Stone: I've a seven-point-scale questionnaire that looks at nine different aspects of group behaviour. These are:
1. how well people are listening to one another;
2. to what degree individuals are participating;
3. sensitivity to other people's feelings;
4. the degree to which conflict is handled and used;
5. how well objectives are set;
6. the amount of innovation shown by individuals;
7. quality of decision-making;
8. how they manage their time; and
9. whether they build and develop other people's contributions.
In addition to me observing behaviours and as one of the first interventions, I ask people to score the previous hour's conversation using the same questionnaire. At first, because many people are unaware of their own social dynamics, and scores of six and seven are given for "listening to one another". But then somebody who is a "lamb" will score a two. On being asked why the low score, they'll say "Well, I don't think we do listen very well". From my observation, I know why this person holds this view: after five minutes, they tried to make a point, but nobody listened, so they left the meeting psychologically for a while. The rest of the group had no idea that this person had not been involved and will even score "sensitivity to other people's feelings" with a high score!
When I ask for scores about handling conflict, most, again, will give high scores, but then the person who is a warrior will give a two. On questioning, they've done this because they've noticed how the lamb had been left out from discussion and decision-making.
Suddenly, right from the beginning, people realise that they're not so good at working as a team as they'd thought they were. I then follow this up with another hour's worth of discussion that is again reviewed to see what changes have occurred, now that they're more aware of their own group dynamics. They may say that they'd listened better and they'd brought in the quiet ones, but they might recognise that they'd not handled conflict as well as they should. In further sessions, they try to develop the areas where weakness has been identified and gradually come to understand how they can move from the bottom-triangle position to the upper-triangle approach. Suddenly, they have a common language, and they begin to understand their own group dynamics and processes. However, overnight, someone may still wake up in the early hours thinking that they don't want to go the way they had the previous day and that their view still had not been listened to. This is the time when I call for some to be more courageous and others to be more compassionate in their dealings with their colleagues.
Breaking old habits
When the event comes to an end, the board members have the tools, the language and a growing ability to change the social dynamics of decision-making, but it doesn't stop there. Afterwards, my fellow facilitators and I begin a programme of individual coaching because people all have different needs and competencies, strengths and weaknesses. Within four months, they're back in an off-site review and examine what they've done well, celebrate successes and consider how the group can work together better still. It's part of an upward spiral of development of the competencies needed to stay in the top triangle, in the quest to become a truly effective leadership team.
References
1. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) was developed by Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann; it is one of the most widely used assessment tools in conflict resolution.
2. Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers developed a model of different personality types based on Jungian theory; the model provides the basis for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a personality assessment questionnaire that continues to be widely used.
|
Beverley joined Roffey Park in October 2004 as a principal consultant. Prior to this, she ran her own company providing leadership, personal and team development at board and senior executive level. In her previous roles, she worked as a management consultant at Price Waterhouse, a tutor at the Electricity Council Management College and began her career in staff management with Marks & Spencer. A chartered business psychologist, she holds a degree in occupational psychology and a masters in human relations. She is a visiting lecturer at London Metropolitan University and an associate at London Business School. Beverley is a non-executive director of SCDT, a charitable housing association, and a media spokesperson for the British Psychological Society. She has a specific brief to further develop Roffey Park's leadership programmes. Books written by Beverley Stone: Confronting company politics, Macmillian, 1997. The inner warrior: developing courage for personal and organisational change, Palgrave Macmillian, 2004. Roffey Park website: www.roffeypark.com
. |
