Items tagged "Leadership":
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Never Enough Time
This is the second part of a four part series on Kurt Lewin’s (1890-1947) influence on our understanding of leadership. Many consider him to be the founder of social psychology, group dynamics, and organization development. As a professor at MIT, he was the first person to coin the term “action research.”
In this 4-minute piece Early Braxton, Ph.D. continues his talk on Lewin and about how the speed of complexity and change is increasing at a rate that outpaces the capacity of our brains. He states, “So, when you hear so many people talking about how stressed out they are, how tired they are, how fatigued, and how much they keep doing…if you listen to people in organizations saying there isn’t enough time, they aren’t lying. There isn’t, there just isn’t.”
He argues that to deny this is to decrease our effectiveness and our capacity to see. To accept this means then that we need to change how we do our work. This includes 1) slowing down the pace 2) creating spaces for reflection and 3) avoid trying to fix something before understanding it.
In one analogy he gives, Earl points out that if a car is going 90mph, what you see outside that window is different than when the car is going 40mph. It is too late to see and understand the landscape once you pass it. If you keep going at that speed you will accumulate the things you don’t know that much faster.
Earl is a psychologist specializing in transformational thinking and the management of change in high risk / high stress organizations. He briefly outlines a process for leaders to assist in this world of increased complexity and change. At the top of that list is that if you are to lead others, you must first know how to lead yourself.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 6
- date:
- Mar 4, 2012 (a Sunday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Lewin’s Influence on Leadership
This recorded talk is the first of a four part series from a great evening I had a few weeks ago at a forum pulled together by the Lewin Center for Research and Social Justice. About 25 individuals came together at the home of Lennox Joseph, Ph.D. to hear a talk given by Earl Braxton, Ph.D. and facilitated by Brenda Jones, Ph.D. The food, the company, and the conversation was just what I needed as I moved into the New Year.
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, and was the first person to use the term group dynamics. His work has a wide ranging impact on everything from psychology to social justice movements. For instance, Michael Jacoby Brown, in his book points out that the field of community organizing draws heavily on Lewin’s work, “who revolutionized the theory and practices of building groups…and had a wide interest in racial and ethnic justice.”
In this first installment, you will hear Earl talking about Lewin’s interest in unions, understanding systems and systemic change approaches, and field theory. Earl then touches on organizations in trauma, an issue he has written about and says is sometimes kept “quiet.” Influenced by Lewin, Earl sees these broken systems not in terms of their fallacies and dysfunction, but rather as entities with a temporary wound.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 6
- date:
- Mar 4, 2012 (a Sunday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Polarities and Paradoxes
This is the 3rd installment of a 4 part series on Kurt Lewin’s influence on understanding leadership.
In this 3-minute piece Earl Braxton takes a look at polarities. For those of you who follow my posts and the work on this subject, you might find it interesting how he defines and addresses polarities: “What seems like two separate and opposite phenomenon, are separate manifestations of the same continuum.” Examples include love and hate, up and down, individual and group, strong and weak, hot and cold.
Earl thinks of polarities as gifts from the universe. However, one of the risks contained within this gift is that we can “…get sucked in one or the other and lose track of the other.” We might forget that we have choices that include the full range on the continuum. For example, Earl argues that when you are angry or hurt, that is a choice and there are other options sitting there, waiting for us. We might get so focused on hate, that we forget we have a choice and can embrace the other side of the polarity, which is love.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 8
- date:
- Mar 4, 2012 (a Sunday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Groups and Leaders Under Stress
Organizations and leaders under stress tend to find fixes for the moment and focus on momentary survival. This 5-minute segment is the last of a four part series. Earl Braxton, Ph.D. shares his thinking on leadership and Kurt Lewin’s influence on our understanding of it. I’m here to tell you, I think this man knows what he’s talking about.
Common characteristics of groups under stress:
- An insistence on maintaining past comfortable positions and defending against new ideas or experiences.
- Becoming overly organized and rigidly defensive of their historical position. The rigidity will prevent new data from entering the system.
Common characteristics of managers (or leaders by other names) under stress:
- Selectively perceiving information and only seeing what confirms their earlier biases.
- Becoming very intolerant of ambiguity and demanding only “right” answers.
- Fixating on a single approach to a problem.
- Overestimating how fast time is passing. Hence they often feel rushed.
- Adopting short-term perspective or crisis mentality and ceasing to consider long-term implications.
- Decreasing ability to consult with and listen to others.
- Having less ability to make fine distinctions in problems so that complexity and nuances are missed.
Earl also shares what leaders or consultants need to provide in order to support those under stress:
- Provide conditions of safety.
- Be available psychologically, emotionally, and physically to the group.
- Be neither intrusive nor abandoning.
- Be able to take criticism and use it productively.
- Have good boundary management skills.
Thank you to Earl Braxton for his thoughtful analysis, to Joseph Lennox for hosting, Brenda Jones for facilitating and to the Lewin Center for Research and Social Justice that convened this forum and is doing important work in the world.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 10
- date:
- Mar 4, 2012 (a Sunday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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Balancing Participatory and Directive Management In Community Based Organizations
One of the reasons I started studying organization structures, org psychology, and general organization development was to find more lenses that helped me explain my own experience in the groups I was a part of. Polarity Management is one of those gems that has help tremendously in that effort.This article takes up the question of whether community based organizations should use participatory or directive management practices. That has been one of the most prevailing issues in every organization I’ve belonged to from Universities to Community Organizing Groups. The article I’ve written here introduces the concept of polarity management to understand this common dilemma.
Comments from readers:
“I just finished reading for the third time, BREATHE! I am totally using it in my presentation tomorrow at the Young Women of Color and Trans Leadership Symposium. Just what I needed.” - Adriann Barboa, Young Women United, Albquerque
“Yay polarity management! I can’t wait to put this to use!” - Radha Patel, United Nations Population Fund, New York City
“I think the article hits on a great issue CBO’s face on a regular basis. Damn, if only we would have known this earlier.” - Ray Padilla, High School Teacher, Las Cruces
Over the years there have been competing trends in community based organizations, and particularly in community organizing groups. One trend has called for participatory management. This approach is in response to legitimate concerns over the downsides of directive management, which include autocratic decision-making, the inability to tap the wisdom and leadership of members and staff, and abuse of power.
The other trend has called for a “strong hand” and directive management. This has been a response to equally legitimate arguments in organizations that have become unable to manage themselves and have become immobilized…
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Mar 3, 2012 (a Saturday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Interview with Herb Stevenson: Gestalt Approaches to Leadership, Change, and New Development in the FieldThis is the first interview I did with Herb. We were in a breakout room, just outside of the library of the big ol’ Tudor home that houses the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Herb gives an introduction to Gestalt and it’s impact. Herb runs the Cleveland Consulting Group and is a lead faculty member at the Institute.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 19
- date:
- Mar 3, 2012 (a Saturday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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There are 0 notes on this item.
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Worry Isn't Work - Dan Pallotta - Harvard Business Review
This is a wonderful and quick article to read mid-day. A colleague introduced me to it and I thought it was worth sharing here.
It takes a long view, at one point looking at Puritan values in U.S. culture and how that has contributed to a sense that fun=not work and worry=work.
Here is my favorite paragraph:
“Worry isn’t work. Being stressed out isn’t work. Anxiety isn’t work. Entertaining a sense of impending doom isn’t work. Incessant internal verbal punishment isn’t work. Indulging the great unknown fear in your own mind isn’t work. Hating yourself isn’t work.”
The article reminds me of a line from Jack Jacobs, a friend and colleague that developed Real Time Strategic Change. In thinking about a major change effort that was coming up on the horizon, he asked, “if this were to actually be fun, how would you do it?”
I hope you enjoy this article as much as I did. If you have stories of struggle or tips on how to embrace the fun and pleasure in your work, please share.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Aug 26, 2010 (a Thursday)
- time:
- 10:00:00 (1 year ago)
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High-Middle-Low Performer Conversations
Recently in a conversation with someone, they pointed me to Quint Studer and a model for understanding how to have different conversations with “high, middle, and low” performers in organizations. Studer is perhaps best known for his work in hospital and health care settings.
I have to admit two things that came up for me in reading this article. First, I have a difficult time labeling someone a “low” performer. Interestingly, I don’t have any difficulty naming someone a “high” performer. I think this comes from wanting to see the best in people and wanting to understand larger system dynamics that might be impacting individuals and their ability or interest in performing at higher levels. Second, I found this article helpful, particularly in how to talk with those that are performing at a lower level.
Studer suggests that:
“In Low-performer conversations do not start the meeting out on a positive note. Use the DESK approach:
- Describe what has been observed.
- Evaluate how you feel.
- Show what needs to be done.
- Ensure that employees know the consequences of the continued poor performance.
Because low performers are so skilled at excuses, guilt, and indignation, these conversations can be difficult for managers. Be calm, objective, and clear about consequences if performance does not improve by a date you specify. Then follow through and take action.”
Not to be missed in this article is how to support those who are middle and high performers. Sometimes high performers do not get much support, or it’s an after thought, precisely because they are doing so well. Studer writes:
“In high-performer conversations re-recruit your best performers by giving specific positive feedback about what they do well, their accomplishments, and examples of positive attitude. Share information about where the organization is going, and ask if there is anything you can do for them to make their job better.”
Read the full article by clicking on one of the links above or here.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Jan 5, 2010 (a Tuesday)
- time:
- 11:46:00 (2 years ago)
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3 Common Myths in Managing Social Justice Groups
Ann Caton, partner at Potomac Group and Adriann Barboa, of Young Women United, teamed up to present “The Dream and the Drama: Ups and Downs of Alternative Organizational Structures” at the Sister Song conference here in DC.This workshop created an all too rare space for 20 women from various organizations around the country to talk about the dynamics taking place inside of their organizations. There are few places where grassroots groups are able to discuss these issues and receive support in addressing them. Ann and Adriann presented best practices from Young Women United, a polarity management model on “participatory and directive management,” and frameworks for understanding the exploration of alternative structures.
As a part of this workshop, Ann shared a new paper on three common myths in managing social justice groups. Read her paper:
3 Common Myths in Managing Social Justice Groups:
“Most social justice practitioners take on the work of organizational management not by choice but by necessity. We make our way by luck and instinct, trial and error, and seldom pause to share what we’ve learned. For our collective consideration, I offer here three myths that I often find - and that I once subscribed to fully - in the management of social justice groups.”
1. Conflict is unbearable
Organizers and activists can look like an angry bunch - interrupting meetings, blocking traffic, picketing people’s homes. In our efforts to win victories for our communities, we are apt to defy social convention and spark conflict on purpose, in public y con gusto. Outside the walls of our organizations, we are warriors. Inside those walls…eh, not so much.
It’s a given that every organization has it’s own unique culture…READ THE FULL ARTICLE.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Dec 18, 2009 (a Friday)
- time:
- 9:47:00 (2 years ago)
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