How the coach can innovate
The third article in the five-part Masterclass series by Ashridge Consulting argues that the coach raises self-awareness of an organisation's workings.
One of the most interesting and fruitful areas of exploration in a coaching relationship is the way people think about organisations. The way managers think informs the way they act, so it is vital that any meaningful coaching intervention should explore and challenge their basic - often unconscious - assumptions. The vocabulary of management is riddled with expressions that reinforce the view of organisations as machines. Notions of 'steering' the organisation in a particular direction, 're-engineering' processes and 'fixing' problems, underpin thinking and approaches. These might be relevant in the running of production lines, but generally the machine metaphor has limited value in understanding how an organisation works and a manager's role within it.
Social processes
Ashridge Consulting holds the view that organisations can be more usefully thought of as 'social processes'. Things happen through people interacting with each other, whether by e-mail, in meetings, through face-to-face conversation and so on.
If coaches raise managers' awareness of how organisations really work, managers will perceive more clearly how decisions form, how change emerges (or fails to) and how they personally engage in the complex web of interactions.
The view of organisations as complex social processes gives rise to a more enlightened view about how innovation is fostered, how their leadership role and style might be developed and how real change occurs. The coach can then go on to support them in these processes and develop their skills. The role of the coach can be seen as fourfold for managers engaging in innovation, leadership and change. He should be:
- Challenging
- Educating
- Supporting and holding
- Developing
By its very essence, true novelty takes us by surprise and into the unknown. No matter how strongly people in an organisation recognise the need for innovation, it is impossible to prescribe, copy or control it. How then, does an organisation develop its capacity to innovate?
Complexity theory suggests that complex social processes organise themselves into patterns without the need for any blueprint or external grand design. They tend to generate repetitive patterns, thought of as cultural norms and organisational rituals - and simultaneously generate novelty. However, study of numerous organisations has demonstrated that increasing the flow of active information, the level of diversity and connectivity and reduction of power differentials, all increase the possibility of novelty.
Given Ashridge Consulting's view of organisations as social processes, the main currency in organisations is conversation or 'communicative interaction'. The degree to which an organisation can foster genuine innovation will depend upon the conversational forms we create. If diversity can be brought into conversations - by fostering communication across hierarchical lines and between different departments, the possibility of innovation increases. Such conversations will be more participative and lively when the anxiety induced by the exercise of managerial power is reduced, or the monopoly of wisdom, sometimes claimed by managers, is given up.
A coach needs to challenge any attempt to prescribe innovation, and encourage managers to consider whether their organisational culture is conducive to initiatives and experiments.
The coach can help a manager to foster conversation that will generate innovative ideas, encouraging him to see how his use of power may be inhibiting. Letting go may be uncomfortable but may also pleasantly surprise. The manager will need to be supported while he lives with the paradox of managing today's performance while fostering innovation. His emotional intelligence will need to be developed to be able to hold what may seem to be conflicting tensions.
Leadership
The traditional view of leadership arises from mythical stereotypes of the hero leading the troops into glorious battle, or in the corporate context, the charismatic leader rallying a flagging workforce around a grand vision. The prospect is onerous and daunting. It is the role of the coach to challenge these concepts and offer different perspectives about what a leader in the business context might be.
If we believe, as we do, that organisations are continually evolving social processes, we soon come to realise that the corporate leader participates in a web of interactions, characterised by diverse needs and interests, amid emerging themes and events. While a chief executive can influence these complex interactions by his intentions and actions, he cannot control or predict outcomes. On the one hand, the prospect of being in charge but not in control can be worrying, but on the other, the realisation that the burden of individual responsibility is a myth, can be liberating.
Having educated a leader in these alternative perspectives of leadership, what can a coach offer to his client who heads up an organisation? It is important to provide a holding and supporting relationship for the manager, who may experience considerable anxiety as he realises that he can anticipate but never know the future. He needs support to live with uncertainty, having the courage to act decisively without any guarantee of outcomes. He will also experience the tension between managing current performance and leading for the future.
The coach will also play an important role in the leader's development - particularly in his awareness of himself and the effects he has on others (in other words, his emotional intelligence). The coach will help the leader think through and learn to embody his own way of leadership, based on the person he is, rather than to put on the mantle of his predecessor or any stereotypical leaders.
He will need help to think through how his own way of leadership will be played out in the current organisational context. In interactions with others, the leader will be helped to balance advocacy and enquiry - being able to state clear intentions whilst being open to how others respond, and being prepared to have them influenced by others. The coach will also encourage the leader to understand the impact of his behaviour on others - by virtue of his perceived power, the effects of his words and actions may be disproportionate.
Change
It is no more possible to legislate for change than it is for innovation. If the focus of a change initiative is restructuring and redesign of an organisation, levels of commitment to change are likely to be low and the initiative could be doomed from its outset. Redesign of organisational structure entails shifts in patterns of interaction between people, and people will naturally respond emotionally, usually with some anxiety.
Coaches will help leaders understand that change for the better is not linear and programmable, but rather, emergent and unpredictable. They need to educate them in this view of change and support them in relaxing their control and working with a degree of uncertainty so that an organisation can respond positively.
Good leaders do not try to protect from, or eliminate, uncertainty, but work with people towards a shared and creative solution. Coaches can help them consider the steps in the change process and anticipate scenarios. Through regular meetings, valuable reflection can be planned that will enable real learning and provide support. It is particularly leaders and managers who are addressing the need for organisational change that in regular coaching sessions, will appreciate the benefits of coaching outlined in the first article in this Masterclass series, by Ina Smith.
On a role
