March 2007

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THE GREAT 'DO-BE' DEBATE

One of the most pronounced dividing lines in leadership and management practice is what I have termed the 'do-be' debate. It is a critical conundrum that if worked through can give us tremendous insight and impetus in our own leadership development efforts.

The best way to understand the points of view on either side of the dividing line is to find some exemplary voices. I've picked two I deeply respect and who have inspired kudos and affirmations from the world's top thought leaders.

The first is Marshall Goldsmith, arguably the world's most famous executive coach for global CEO's and highly successful people. His approach has to do with behavioral change and revolves around highly focused and specifically measurable growth relative to 1-2 key behaviors that are selected -- behaviors that are essentially blunting the cutting edge of someone's excellence.

On the other side, I have taken the Arbinger Institute. In a series of best-selling books they have offered a profound alternative paradigm that has had everyone from Steven Covey to leading CEO's cheering from the rafters. Their essential view is that the problem is not what we 'do', but who we are being as we do it. For them, our intention towards other people, based fundamentally on the way we see ourselves and others, is the crucial fulcrum for leadership and interactive effectiveness.

So let's take a deeper look at these two highly substantive and credible viewpoints and see where the dividing line actually is. Moreover, let's explore how they can perhaps even jointly guide us to strengthen our own leadership aptitudes and success.

WE ARE OUR BEHAVIORS

This approach is frankly very compelling. How do we know anyone's character (often defined as 'action consistently taken over time'), much less real intention (as opposed to pipe dreams or wishful thinking) except by how they behave? That spiriting voice of 19th century self-empowerment, Ralph Waldo Emerson said it so powerfully: 'Who you are shouts so loudly I can't hear what you say.' How does it shout? Surely through our behaviors.

In our global consulting practice, we ask leaders who interact together regularly to do what Marshall would call a 'feedforward' exercise. Essentially, we ask them to make a request of each other, to offer suggestions for improvement in the future -- rather than railing and wailing about the past. We have them imagine it's six months hence, and the other person has positively surprised them, 'Wowed' them. We ask them to consider what would allow that to be true. We then support them in following up with each other and seeking to support each other's success.

I had two leaders face each other just the other week as part of this exercise. They had up to now, alienated and estranged each other. One of them said, 'You would Wow me if you would hear the complete idea before you concluded whether you agreed with it or not.' When the other one's turn came, they said, 'You would Wow me if I heard more than just critique, if you could also let me hear what I do right.'

In other words, they were telling each other what would constitute evidence of real growth and commitment. Behavior is finally how we prove ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

Another supportive perspective here is that as we go higher up the seniority ladder, the problems we have, the barriers to greater effectiveness, the bricks and mortar of our current plateau, are almost always behavioral. At such altitudes, technical deficiencies have almost always been already weeded out. People who have scaled such organizational heights aren't hindered by lack of technical capability or aptitude.

Hence it is their expression of their expertise, the way they collaborate (or not), the way they mobilize and develop their teams (or not), they way they foster an optimal results culture (or not), that make or break their progress from that point on.

If that is so, why attempt to remake an entire personality? To do so, requires extraordinary will from the person themselves, and probably a concerted dosage of counseling, coaching, and perhaps a raft of other interventions that may be so invasive and time-consuming that the person's life would grind to a halt. That isn't to argue that such journeys of redemption or evolution aren't worth it. Far from it. But they can hardly be the mainstay of mainstream leadership development -- we are running companies not monasteries -- at least primarily.

And anyway, it may be argued that a personality is a lattice-work of impulses, priorities, emotions...and the read-out is our consistent behaviors. Change the behavior and you anyway will shake up the overall system. How far then the person wants to pursue this 'shake up' is up to them.

But for practical, results-oriented leadership effectiveness, if we can find the limiting, inhibiting, counter-productive behaviors, and shift them, we can get the most efficient and perhaps most effective ROI. And as success breeds success...the ripple effects of this growth can be remarkably far-reaching.

But how to produce this shift? In this approach, the primary levers are: feedback from credible viewers and constituents (people who interact with and are impacted by this person's leadership and team behavior); prioritizing from the feedback the most critical behaviors (those that come up most consistently as barriers, handicaps and demotivators); creating a pool of people who would benefit most from the improvement and getting future-based requests from them (clear Wows, suggestions, ideas); generating an action plan and activating it (often with coaching support); following up consistently with the community of people wanting the breakthrough from us; measuring, recalibrating, getting better and more nuanced ideas for continuing improvement as we progress.

The essence of this approach is tapping other people's perception to get a description of the challenge. Then, picking the highest yield improvement as a way to drive our own motivation and commitment. With that in hand, enrolling others to support and confront. Why? Because as we know, what gets measured gets done. And then a course of consistent follow-up as the way to embed new habits until the benefits of the new habits provide their own sustenance and nourishment.

Sounds clear, compelling and do-able. So, what's the gripe of the other viewpoint? Let's see...

IT IS NOT WHAT WE DO BUT HOW WE SEE AND THEREFORE WHO WE ARE BEING

Sounds more esoteric...but as we'll see it is as important a perspective, and surprisingly pragmatic.

One of my coachees, let's call him Greg, noticed that one of his coworkers, Lin, was about to march into their common boss's office. Greg knew their boss was really incensed by what he considered to be Lin's attitude at a company-sponsored event where external partners were present.

Greg considered intercepting Lin and giving him a head's up. He also knew their boss was ready to move on and let this go if Lin accepted the feedback...but had said in the hearing of Greg and a few others that if he got any of Lin's 'tap dancing' as he called it...watch out!

Greg considered the upside of intervening. He and Lin needed a better working relationship and this would certainly contribute. Moreover, he hoped that Lin would reciprocate if Greg was on thin ice himself sometime in the future.

But Greg stopped himself from acting. Slowing Lin down, getting him to listen, took a lot of energy. Greg felt it was unlikely Lin would acknowledge the help, and would likely say later that he handled it himself without having gained any benefit from Greg's input.

Greg thought of all the times that Lin had not stepped in to help him, how difficult he was, how cantankerous, how flammable, and how he would fervently argue his own perception to the death -- often in an immature way.

Well, the anticipated 'explosion' took place. Lin walked into their boss's office with his usual perceptual blinkers on. The boss who had just gotten off a tough call with some partners, wasn't in the mood for Lin's self-justification and lost his cool. He lambasted Lin and told him to manage his attitude, his tongue, his composure...or else. Lin left the office obviously hurt, embarrassed, angry with humiliation. His eyes briefly met Greg's, and Greg tried to quickly rearrange his countenance so it wouldn't appear he was gloating. But Lin looked at him with more than customary belligerence. Did he suspect that Greg knew? Looking stiffly at Greg, he stormed past.

In a later conversation with Greg, we analyzed what had happened. We can all probably agree this wasn't Greg's shining moment of leadership. But what list of 'behaviors' would possibly showcase this? This was as much a sin of omission rather than commission. We can't really catalogue or identify what doesn't happen particularly in non-repetitive situations. When the stance we take towards others is similar to Greg's toward Lin, there are all kinds of things we DON'T do -- words we don't speak, actions we don't take, support we don't offer. Here it is what we are NOT that shouts so loudly.

Actually, as so often happens in such situations, Greg to deal with his own potential guilt for not acting, mounted an internal defense. He inflated all of Lin's failings and thereby justified his own inaction. And if Lin did find out, or correctly intuited that Greg knew and was at least tacitly complicit in what happened, and reacted angrily, Greg would very likely blame him for expecting anything else from Greg given the antagonism and acrimony that Lin had previously (in Greg's description of events) lavished upon him.

By representing himself as a mistreated colleague, and Lin as the diabolical co-worker, Greg is off the hook. In fact, if challenged by Lin, Greg would probably react self-righteously and emphatically.

Not only can behavioral polling not throw this up as a behavior to improve (after all, Greg may be just fine habitually in being helpful to select others -- those for example who mesh well with his own tempo, paradigms or habitual reactions), but what sort of 'follow-up' would we do here? And could we ever get Lin to agree to be among those polled, or Greg to go along with him as being one of his evaluators in a coaching and development process? No way!

And so this view would argue, the central problem here is that Greg betrayed his own sense of what he wanted to do. Lin may indeed be immature, a troublemaker, whatever. But Greg still had wanted to help him. That was his original impulse. And people are never as one-dimensionally bad as we paint them...we often paint them this way to justify ourselves. Lin (not his real name) is actually a brilliant marketeer, who brims with passion and insight, and yes sometimes veers towards being obnoxious and highly impatient.

The problem is that Greg ultimately saw him as an object -- a utility -- either as a potential resource or irritant. And when the immediate pain of the potential irritation of engaging him seemed easier to avoid than the longer term gain of relationship-building was to achieve, Greg abdicated.

On the other hand, had Greg continued to see Lin as a person -- with faults yes, but also with needs -- he would have acted.

When we see people AS people, then we sense what they need, what the situation needs, and how we can make our interaction more effective. By 'needs' here this model refers to what is needed in order to achieve a common objective, as well as more generally.

If organizations are in the business of producing results, then we have to see each other as people, with abilities to evoke and needs to fulfill. That is the only way that we will come to 'be' genuinely supportive and therefore 'behave' that way too.

In fact, if we are regarding someone as an object, we will essentially 'be' that way with them, no matter how we behave. For example, we may do all the right things...actively listen, offer help, even congratulate them. But if done purely as a way to get them on our side, or to defuse their resistance...our superficiality will come through. People will sense we are thinking of ourselves, not them. They may not be able to pinpoint the precise offending behavior...but they will perceive that they are a means to an end...more likely because of what DOESN'T happen, or the pro forma way we go through the superficially 'positive' motions.

Leaders have to operate 'out of the box' as Arbinger would say. When we see a person as a person and that's how we relate to them, we are 'out of the box' in this sense. Only then will behaviors really matter, or lead to what they should.

DO-BE-DO

The above is then my suggested resolution. Start, with doing, as many faults simply are behavioral blind spots. Particularly start with doing where the need is remedial -- when there is something to fix. Done properly behavioral change moves us in the direction of being and seeing in a larger way as well.

The reason for this is that two sides of a paradox operate here. One is quite evident. We know we act the way we feel very often. Hence, the Arbinger point of first shifting the way you feel about a person, by shifting how you see them. Our behavior will then evolve naturally and meaningfully.

Fair enough, but the other side of the paradox also obtains. Namely, many times, as William James the father of clinical psychology pointed out so long ago, we also feel the way we act. So act a certain way long enough and feeling tends to follow suit -- and as the feeling stockpiles, a certain 'tipping point' in terms of our being is achieved. Even as venerable and successful a self-help movement as AA says, 'fake it till you make it'. More accurately, 'act it until you become it'.

So for example I coach several very high powered leaders, who run enterprises or business units worth several billion dollars, and they do NOT see others as objects, they don't dehumanize people. Yet they still have behavioral challenges. The two I'm particularly thinking about are deeply caring people. Yet the behavioral blind spots remained in place. One is far too spartan with appreciation and far too lavish with hard-hitting challenges. The other is too cerebral and cross-examines people, rather than engaging them often enough in dialogues of greater creativity or possibility.

Happily, both of them have made substantial progress with these challenges, precisely because they weren't overly defensive once this was objectively pointed out, and once they realized this was undermining the very results they were dedicated to achieving and the very team they were trying to build.

Where it is remedial, go with behaviors. And a good place to start our evolution is with the habitual actions that need remedying. That said, please note leaders are far from replicas of each other, nor need they be. My first client will probably never be world-class in sharing appreciation. That's fine. Given his other strengths, and his commitment to his people, just some tangible improvement here, and the evidence of his genuine effort to improve, has gone a long way. My second client has a formidable intellect, and it will doubtless remain an important part of his arsenal. But he's smart enough to realize that there is more than one communication mode -- and when he mellows his relentless rationality, and lets his latent humor and warmth out, people can better hear the sense he's making, and better offer their own ideas too.

On the other hand, when the need is generative -- when we have to create new options and we have no idea which specific behavior will be needed, because we are facing a suite of different situations...then work on seeing and thereby being in a more expansive way.

So, Greg who I spent some coaching time with, sought out Lin. He was determined to see him as a person -- likely someone who was hurting, humiliated, and would find it hard to ask for help. So he decided to make it easy for him.

'Lin, I'm really sorry,' said Greg.

Lin looked up. 'For what?' he asked brusquely.

'I could see John (the boss) about to boil over. I should have stopped you and let you know. I'm sorry I didn't.'

Lin looked up a bit less testily, with a look of curiosity (I'm reporting what was reported to me in the aftermath). He doubtless wondered what was going on.

'Actually you and I have had several run ins, and I just didn't think you'd take me seriously. Actually if I'm being totally honest, I used that as an excuse not to try. I should have made the effort. Again, I'm sorry.'

Lin replied, 'It's okay Greg, we haven't really made it easy for each other. But John! What a jerk to respond like that!

Now, Greg had a choice. He didn't really agree with what Lin was saying. Should he jeopardize their fragile armistice? Greg realized however that NOT speaking up, would again be to see Lin as an object -- as a convenience to manage or manipulate. As a person he had to try to give him what he needed. And it seemed that honestly what he needed was another perspective.

Seeking to continue to communicate to a person, Greg went with something he and I had discussed. Whereas coming out of a testy or tentative Greg it may not have worked, coming from his genuine concern and desire to help Lin, it came through with the evident compassion and desire to help that was present.

'Lin I know he blew up. You looked really upset at the event though.'

'It was a waste of our time Greg, you must have seen that.'

'Well, it may have been. But you know whose idea it was...John's. And in front of everybody, our partners and more, how do you think he felt, when one of his top people -- you know he trumpets you and rightly as one of his top stars -- was clearly showing everyone he didn't support the effort?

And Lin stopped. He took a deep breath and just said, 'Shit.'

That led to a dialogue and a chance for Lin to take accountability himself, to apologize to John, and then be invited to discuss why he was upset and why he felt there should have been more consultation before putting on something so important to which external partners and allies were invited.

Greg had been a powerful change agent. Did he benefit himself? Well his relationships did -- even John heard from Lin about Greg's role. More to the point, this team of which he was a part, was currently engaged in several critical projects. And these dialogues cleared the air, and cleared the way for the team to really come together, rather than tearing itself apart.

Greg's new behavior was credible because it was inspired by a genuine desire to stay 'out of the box' with Lin. Yes some coaching as to possible approaches helped, but only with that backdrop.

So let's do what we can to remedy shortcomings. But then, let's also work on 'being' to generate new options with relationships when it's about creating fresh possibilities. However, thereafter, we have to once more continue to monitor and get feedback on our behaviors (the ultimate custodians of our attitudes) to make sure the new intent is being felt and received as intended. DO-BE-DO, in other words.

Leadership is a multi-faceted art, it is a set of practices. Some of the practices emanate from the behaviors we have to remedy or improve, or which others tangibly miss in their interactions with us. There, feedback, application, and ongoing follow-up is the approach par excellence.

Other practices however have to do with intuiting what is needed, coming across credibly, manifesting our deepest intent ongoingly in and through our presence -- and here we have to enlarge how we see others. That is the best launch pad for the generative leadership behaviors we have to be a conduit for. That is how we will come through in situations we cannot predict or poll for.

So these two approaches need each other in a sense. 'Doing' that is never confirmed by 'being', becomes a mechanistic act of stimulus-response cuckoldry. 'Being' that doesn't generate 'doing', particularly doing that is open to 'feedforward' from the intended audience, can become delusional and even narcissistic nonsense.

Great leaders will seek for real synergy between these options and seek to express 'both/and' not 'either/or'.

Let's make a passionate peace with the need for that exquisite and liberating balancing act and begin to become real leaders...who invest in a truly human vision of others as well as in the productive behaviors that will fortify the vision and make it real.

Omar Khan,
Senior Partner, Sensei International
Phone: 1 (212) 295 2191, Fax: 1 (212) 295 2121
e mail: omar@sensei-international.com

Omar Khan is a globally acknowledged leadership development innovator and success coach. He is a sought after change catalyst and a pioneer in transformational learning. He is the author of the acclaimed book SYNERGY as well as the newly released and much awaited, TIMELESS LEADERSHIP.

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