Leadership curiousity and organizational excellence

Why are we not more curious about what is happening in our organizations? I suspect we often resist good questions because they can make us uncomfortable.

In her excellent book Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown suggests that “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.”

This is a profound statement when it comes to understanding our organization. It is those discoveries that lead to discomfort that cause us to learn, grow, and get better.

Comfort is not what causes us to get better. Discomfort is.

The best leaders are not those who choose comfort but those who are willing to be uncomfortable and, in that discomfort, discover and dialogue about things they would otherwise not discuss.

Organizations tend to gravitate toward comfort and predictability. It is why they become institutional over time, losing their missional bent. The rule becomes, “don’t rock the boat, and those who do rock the boat can be labeled as troublemakers and irritants. Yet, these individuals may be the most valuable staff you have.

The best leaders create discomfort. They create waves without sinking the ship to discover new answers and confront the uncomfortable. They always look beneath the hood to see what is there. They are sleuths seeking to understand what is happening beneath the surface. For them, “bad or problematic” findings are “good news” because they have found something that can be made better. They are not afraid of candid evaluation of the organization but embrace it. The truth of what is there does not create defensiveness but rather instills hope and promise that things can become better.

My goal is to change our mindset about looking candidly at our organizations. Rather than seeing such an evaluation as a threat, we should view it as an opportunity to grow and improve, and everyone benefits. When we react defensively, everyone loses because nothing gets better.

Leaders, whether staff or board members, often fail to ask the right questions and instead guard the status quo, rather than embracing the vulnerability of curiosity and the discomfort that comes with it. If you want to break the ice, do a whiteboard session where everyone is invited to ask the hardest questions they can about the organization. Not to criticize but to challenge the status quo, create discomfort all around, and see if we are satisfied with our answers.

I once worked with a non-profit where the interviews with constituents raised significant questions around common themes. The discomfort of the senior leader and certain members of the board caused the results to be put on ice, and the conversation stopped. There was a lack of curiosity and honest discussions at the senior level. There was only defensiveness and a desire to keep the status quo. Yet the vast majority of those below them saw that the organization needed to make significant changes. Leadership, however, was either unwilling to examine the culture map or to consider reevaluating the outdated and ineffective leadership paradigms that were present.

It is in choosing to be curious, as Brene Brown says, that we make discoveries that lead to discomfort. And it is there that we can get better. But we must be open to curiosity and challenging questions to get there.

Peter Drucker, the renowned management guru, had a deep understanding of what was happening in industry and business. How did he know? Every morning for many years, he would call “line operators” in various companies and ask probing questions. He didn’t call the presidents, vice presidents, or leadership team, but those who directed the work. And then he listened and asked a lot of questions.

One of the most strategic things any leader can do is invest time in talking to staff at all levels. In those conversations, ask questions, listen carefully, and follow the trails that emerge.

Understanding your organizational culture may be one of the most challenging tasks for a leader. Not because it is hard to do, but because it can reveal truths that can be hard to accept. This discipline requires living out the commitments: “Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and nothing to hide.”

Understanding your current culture is a humble undertaking. Beneath the shiny exterior, there will always be some rust and corrosion you don’t want to find. You may find pockets of dysfunction, people in the wrong seats, leaders who don’t empower and release, a lack of alignment, and systems that are broken.

If you can shift your mindset from viewing these discoveries as negative to seeing them as opportunities for growth and improvement, and if you can embrace discoveries that lead to discomfort, as Brené Brown suggests, you will be on your way toward a healthier culture and a better organization. But it always starts with the willingness to be uncomfortable… in order to become better!

Stop the blame game and play the learnng game

A key difference between selfish and unselfish leadership is our posture when things go wrong. And they will! Few things strike fear in the hearts of staff more than knowing that they made a significant error. Selfish leaders can be quick to blame those whom they hold responsible for failures. In fact, selfish leaders love to take credit for success and blame others for failure. As Jim Collins points out, Level 5 leaders give credit to others for success and take responsibility for failure—a major difference in posture.

How we deal with failure in our feedback with staff says much about our leadership. When I led a large organization, I popularized a concept called SDR. Now, bear in mind that I led a global religious organization. I remember the meeting where I laid out the SDR concept. It was a large gathering of leaders, and I wanted to get their attention. When I told them what the words meant, there was a moment of silence, shock, and then laughter. They never forget what it meant.

SDR stood for the Shit Disclosure Rule. Stuff hits the fan. Bad things happen! So this is what we meant by the rule. When things are going wrong, or have gone wrong, you must tell us. We know bad stuff happens. We know people make mistakes. We don’t want surprises, so when bad stuff happens, tell us. No surprises!

Our responsibility as leaders,  I told them, was twofold. First, we will help you fix whatever needs to be fixed. We are here to help you determine what needs to be done. Not to blame, but to help you solve the problem.

Second, one of our guiding principles was “Autopsy without blame.” This was a commitment to figure out what went wrong and why. And then to learn from the situation so that we don’t experience it again. We would do an autopsy, but it was not designed to assign blame. It was designed to help us learn. SDR allowed staff to engage leaders when stuff went south, and an autopsy without blame gave staff the confidence that we viewed failure as a learning exercise and not a blame game.

This kind of relationship with staff allows supervisors and leaders to provide valuable feedback and collaborate with them rather than simply being their boss and supervisor. It is a major trust builder. Of course, if staff violated the values and commitments of the organization, we would hold them accountable, and on some occasions, that resulted in their dismissal. But that is a very different situation from staff who make mistakes or try something new with unintended consequences. 

No organization can encourage new ideas and innovation if it then blames staff for failures. Without failures, we are not trying hard enough to do things better!

 

Moving your organization from mom and pop to mature

According to Google statistics, “Approximately 20-24% of small businesses fail in their first year. After five years, that number rises to about 50%; by the tenth year, nearly 65% have failed.” Why? In my experience, it has much to do with a lack of a culture of discipline, accountability, and results.

It is not that those who start these businesses are not bright and smart. In fact, entrepreneurs are individuals whom I admire greatly. They find niches, take risks that others would not take, and often, through sheer energy, grit, and willpower, manage to get things off the ground and see significant profits in the short to medium term, only to see the business fail in the long term.

Why does that happen? Often, they never transitioned from the mom-and-pop, seat-of-your-pants, unorganized, and unfocused start-up phase to a more mature organization with clarity, discipline, and scalable internal structures and culture, which could allow it to grow with stability.

New businesses are often run in a hub-and-spoke management style. The hub is the entrepreneur, and the spokes are everyone else. Frequently, in this management style, the owner makes major decisions and directs their staff to perform various tasks. Decision making is centralized in one person, and because they got the business up and running, they often find it challenging to share decision-making responsibility with others. They are the experts, and they know what needs to happen…or so they think!

In that environment, there is often no team culture where people can strategize, plan, and make corporate decisions together. The founder finds it challenging to give up control, so he/she is bound by what he/she knows how to do. They are also bound by the hub and spoke system, which limits their growth to the size they can personally control. In other words, scalable systems are not developed, people are not truly empowered, and there is a delegation of responsibility but not authority, which remains with the owner.

This is what happened with one organization I worked with. They grew to a $25 million operation over several years and contracted to a $15 million operation in one year. The lack of internal discipline, team processes, clarity of roles and responsibilities, and reliance on the owner who always had the final say meant that the business had a functioning structure but not internal stability, and it collapsed quickly when it did. The owner had worked in the business, but not properly on the business, and it had never moved from a mom-and-pop management style to a mature organizational style. It worked until it didn’t! And you can imagine the pain of losing 10 million in revenue in one year. The business almost did not survive.

Perhaps you recognize some of these challenges in your business or organization. If you do, I encourage you to get the help you need to move to a more mature organization with a healthier culture. These principles apply equally to not-for-profit as well as for-profit organizations. 

How does this go unnoticed? First, because there are sales and momentum, we assume that all is ok. It is no small thing for a business to be doing 25 million a year in sales. Further, we get used to doing things a certain way, and are comfortable. However, the management needs of an enterprise when it is new differ significantly from those when it is growing in staff and revenue. Third, the skill set of the leader who, through grit and determination, made things happen is critical in a start-up, but not all that the organization needs long term. Finally, the ego of the founder is often a barrier to learning new skills and ways of doing work. 

What are some of the differences between mom and pop and mature organizations?

In a mom-and-pop structures:

• One leader often calls the shots in a hub and spoke system
• There is often not great clarity around processes and procedures
• Things change rapidly
• There is not a well defined organizational culture
• There is often loose accountability because of the lack of organizational clarity
• Not a great deal of attention is paid to the internal structures
• Staff training and development is an afterthought if it happens at all

Remember that in a start-up phase, these are to be expected. What works in that phase, however, hurts the organization if it is not modified long-term. Unfortunately many organizations languish in the mom and pop far longer than they need to and leave tremendous opportunity on the table as a result. 

In mature organizations:

• There is a defined senior team that makes collaborative decisions under good leadership
• Mission,  vision, and direction are clear to all, and while methodology may change, the philosophical boundaries of the organization are constant
• There is great clarity at all levels
• There is a high degree of accountability, and promises are kept
• There are regular, carefully crafted management meetings for alignment and accountability
• A clear and healthy organizational culture is in place and adhered to
• Internal structures, processes, and procedures are clear and consistent

Moving from mom and pop to mature usually takes a coach, as the skills and behaviors are very different. A mature organization that is healthy is far stronger than mom and pop stuctures. The sooner you can move from the one to the other, the stronger you will be. 

How Emotional Intelligence training can change your organization

Many organizations have a significant commitment to training and staff development. Often, however, the issue of emotional intelligence training is not on the radar. Yet, the implications of healthy or unhealthy EQ impact everything the organization does and affect every relationship and interaction.

In Daniel Goleman’s words, the cost of emotional intelligence illiteracy is high. It can include unresolved conflicts, lack of cooperation, silos, politics within the organization, turf wars, competition for power, and a range of dysfunctional and toxic behaviors that can hinder our desired outcomes.

Take a moment and consider the financial cost of toxic behaviors: unresolved conflict, turf wars, lack of alignment, lack of cooperation and organizational silos. EQ deficiencies and immature EQ behaviors can be like an aircraft carrier anchor dragging behind a 36-foot sailboat. All deficient EQ behaviors impede, slow down, and cost the organization money. In the case of not-for-profit enterprises, it costs in terms of Return on Mission.

This is a powerful reason to help leaders grow in their EQ as they set the pace for the organization and provide ongoing training to raise the staff's EQ literacy. Here is something to consider. Most behaviors that hold an organization back from being all it can be are EQ in nature. Grow your EQ, and you grow yourself, your organization, and your return on mission.

What would you do as a leader to see the following changes in your business, church, or non-profit?

• Getting everyone on the same page
• Eliminating ego-driven dysfunction for humble leadership
• Moving from competition to cooperation
• Creating an open culture where candid dialogue can take place around any issue
• Building a culture of promises kept and excellent execution of work
• Seeing conflict resolved quickly and cleanly
• Eliminating the politics and turf wars that get in the way of cooperation and a common mission· 
• Creating scalable and clear systems for your processes and workflow
• Eliminating defensiveness and replacing it with a desire for the best solutions possible throughout the organization
• Growing the EQ maturity of all staff all the time
• Seeing toxic behaviors replaced with healthy ones
• Creating a culture that supports all that you do and eliminates all that holds you back
• Rather than settling for what is, create a commitment to what could and should be
• Moving from emotional illiteracy to emotional literacy

·   Each transition or commitment is possible if you commit to continuous EQ training. Each improvement in these areas enhances your ability to generate profits, achieve a better return on mission, retain top talent, and foster innovation and improved solutions.

You can train in all kinds of skills and should. However, without training in emotional intelligence, you cannot address the primary issues hindering your organization: unhealthy EQ and its implications. And all of these are directly related to culture, so you improve your organization’s culture in direct proportion to an improvement in its emotional intelligence.

What it takes is for senior leaders to make this a priority for themselves and then for their entire organization. It can and should be done. 

 

Healthy leaders create a climate of psychological safety in their organization

A climate of psychological safety is where it is safe to be vulnerable, speak up about issues that bother us, challenge a leader or strategy without fear of retribution, and ask for help when needed. Creating such a climate is one of a leader's most important responsibilities—and often one of the most neglected!

My guess is that everyone reading this can remember times in their career when they said or expressed something that a leader did not welcome. Many leaders' defensiveness makes candid conversation around essential issues unsafe. The net result is that staff cannot express themselves with candor, and the organization leaves great potential on the table.

It takes healthy emotional intelligence to permit, welcome, and invite open dialogue about issues that impact the organization. This only happens when there is a culture that embraces this. I call this a culture of robust dialogue, where any issue can be discussed with the exception of a hidden agenda or personal attack.

The senior leader is responsible for creating such a culture, which is then followed by other leaders throughout the organization. If I ask staff in any organization if there are subjects, topics, or areas where they know they cannot speak freely, and they say yes, they are acknowledging that there is not adequate psychological safety in the organization. And that goes to senior leaders and the culture they create. Healthy leaders insist on an open culture where it is safe to speak candidly. It is the only way to a healthy culture. If it is not safe to speak up, the culture is unhealthy!

Here is the thing. Organizations that ask the best questions become the best organizations. No organization gets better without the probing questions of good people who want the best for the organization. Yet, in many instances, the pride of the group or the leader shuts down the questions because they are irritating. Great questions are a means of getting to the truth and better practices.

Good questions should not be seen as threats but as a means of honing strategies, practices, and assumptions that may need reconsidering. This does not mean the current practices are ineffective, but that there may be more effective ways. You get there with questions. Good questions are disruptive to the organization in a significant way. Your culture will either celebrate great questions or shut them down. The result will either be a better organization or one that resists actual progress. Proud organizations and leaders with egos resist good questions and those who challenge the status quo. Humble organizations and humble leaders welcome them because it is not about them but the mission.

Six steps that church boards can take to address issues that threaten the health of their church.

It happens way too often, especially in the not-for-profit arena and especially on church boards. Obvious issues within the ministry are ignored, minimized or allowed to fester because the board is unwilling to confront a senior leader, or a powerful individual in the church who is creating issues or a staff culture that is toxic. 

It is not that the issue is hard to see. In fact, in many cases, congregants see the issue clearly and in many cases leave the church. Yet on the board, there is reluctance to even name and discuss the issue. It is a classic case of burying one's head in the sand and pretending that the issue is not there or will go away by itself. If we ignore it, maybe it will dissapear. In fact, what usually happens is that the issue gets worse, not better. 

The negligence of church boards is at the root of many toxic church cultures. They did not create the toxicity but knowing that it it there they have done nothing to deal with it.

This week I spoke with an individual who had a concern around some issues in his church that could literally blow the church apart. He is on the board but the board does not want to deal with the issues. I asked if there were congregants who were aware of the situation and he said yes. So it is an "open secret" I said and he said yes. It is also the kind of issue that if it became more public could create a great deal of legitimate concern. Yet the board is dragging its feet and has not made it a priority. As I listened I thought to myself, "This is not going to end well."

In another church I am familiar with, there has been a great deal of toxicity on the staff - the result of a senior pastor who can be described as narcisistic, abusive toward staff, prone to outbursts of anger and attack, causing both elders to resign as well as key staff. Even though the board was fully appraised of the issues, it took them over two years to deal with the toxic pastor and they have never sought to make things right with the individuals the pastor hurt, alienated, had their reputations damaged by him even as he polished his own reputation with spin and subtrafuge. 

The board knew but chose to do nothing for two years while staff were being hurt and the bodies on the side of the road proliferated. Even when key staff appealed to the board there was absolute silence - no response. In one case a staff member recorded her last meeting with the pastor who berated her causing her to walk out of the meeting and out of the church never to return. Even when the recording became known, there was no interest on the part of the board to listen to it. When she wrote a painful letter to the board about her experience, there was no response. Not even a call to the former staff member. 

As I read the New Testament I see that boards (elders) have six responsibilities Biblically. First to ensure that the congregation is taught well. Second, to keep the spiritual temperature of the church high. Third, to ensure that the congregation is led well and missionally, Fourth to protect the flock from the wolves of aggregious unrepentant sin, division and heresy. Fifth, to ensure that the flock is cared for. And, sixth, to ensure that people are developed, empowered and released into meaningful ministry. Certainly, the kinds of behaviors I have enumerated here violate number two, three, and five. My book, High Impact Church Boards enumerates these responsibilities. 

Too many boards are wrapped up in doing all the wrong things. Policies and procedures while ignoring toxic behaviors, conflict, people who are being abused and hurt, leaders who are not leading, and the absence of spiritual ferver in the church.

I am convinced that many boards are utterly untaught in the Biblical responsibilities of elders (regardless of the name of the senior leadership group in your polity). The result is a great deal of damage to the church as unadressed issues continue to grow until they blow up and in some cases destroy the church altogether. It is as if these boards have never had a serious discussion about the clear passages in the New Testament that speak to their role. There is no excuse for this. It is Biblical ignorance of the highest order. 

There are many very public examples of large churches who chose to ignore known issues until the issues literally blew the church up with broken bodies left all over the map.

I believe that boards ought to have a standing agreement that when there are credible issues that arise within their church that they will do these six things.

One, they will have a full discussion so that whatever the issues are they have been verbalized and everyone is aware of the situation.

Two, they ask the question as to what follow up is needed and who will be responsible for that follow up. This includes regular updates to the board until the issues are resolved. That follow up should include candid converstation with those who may know something or asking uncomfortable questions that will help them understand the truth.

Three, they ask the question as to their responsibility as church leaders in this situation. They put their responsibility front and center rather than evading their own responsibility. They measure their responsibility against the six responsibilities of leaders enumerated above from the Scriptures. 

Four, they commit to doing the right thing even when it is hard, inconvenient or uncomfortable. It takes courage to be a church leader and if one is unwilling to do the above, they should not serve in leadership.

Five, where the board cannot decide what to do they agree that they will seek outside counsel from individuals who are wise, who are not personally impacted and who can give unbiased counsel. 

Six, they will not leave known issues unadressed. Period. 

Any board that is unwilling to take these six steps ought to reconsider their leadership in light of their Biblical mandate.