I watched a flock of starlings swoop over the horse chestnut trees close to where I live a few days ago. The birds moved together in beautiful and intricate patterns, moving away and then sweeping back, describing a sort of figure of eight, but no pass was quite like any other. How did they do it? There were one or more birds at the front, but they were not issuing orders to the others, telling them exactly how to move so they all stayed together. The leader (if the one at the front was the leader) was different every time they passed over my head. Yet somehow they not only flew together, but also kept in formation. They could adjust in a split second to keep the pattern, but the pattern was never identical from moment to moment. How did they stay together in that marvellous formation like liquid rolling through the air? How do starlings organize themselves, keeping their individuality and yet being part of a wider coherent group? There seems to be an intelligence that emerges from the group, coming from the intelligence of each member, yet larger than that possessed by any individual.
Leaders face the organizational challenge of creating the context where that larger intelligence can emerge without diminishing the individuals in any way. The more the individuals use their own intelligence to the full for themselves, the smarter the group becomes. This is the puzzle and the challenge of how individual and organizational learning work together. So, here is the secret of organizational leadership. How do you develop each person as a leader and get them all to fly in formation?
What resources do we have to help us achieve this? Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a broad field that began in the mid-1970s modelling excellent communicators – finding out how they did what they did so well. NLP models how we do what we do. In essence it studies the structure of subjective experience – how we create our own unique internal world from what we see, hear and feel, and how in turn our mental world shapes what we allow ourselves to see, hear and feel. NLP has modelled top people in every field – managers, salespeople, teachers and trainers – in order to teach others these skills, so they do not have to reinvent the wheel. It has a wealth of material from leaders – how they think and what they believe.
NLP is made up of three parts:
‘Neuro’ is our neurology – how we think and feel.
‘Linguistic’ is the language part – what we say, how we say it and how we are influenced by what we hear.
‘Programming’ is how we act to achieve our results.
NLP helps us to understand what leaders do and how they get their results, so you can take those parts that suit you and that fit in with your values and beliefs. You don’t copy them, you learn from them to achieve your goals. Whatever skills you have, NLP can help you make more of them. It also gives practical ways of developing those skills, not an intellectual appreciation of how nice the skills would be to have or how great they are in other people. NLP is a valuable guide on the leader’s journey.
Our second guide on the journey is systemic thinking – thinking in terms of feedback and relationships, seeing patterns, not isolated events. Leaders have to understand the system they are in, and systems do not operate logically, small changes can produce large effects and these need not occur in the same place or at the same time as the cause. Straight-line cause and effect thinking does not work in business organizations, because they are complex systems. There may be many effects from just one change. Also, what you do to solve a problem may actually perpetuate it, or even make it worse in the long run. But when you think systemically, you think past the obvious to the dynamic patterns that generate a problem.
A third resource is the insights from the discipline of complexity science. Complexity is the application of systems thinking to complex systems (like business organizations) that behave in complicated ways. Recent research has given us some fascinating insights into complex systems that we can tentatively apply to business. For example, a few simple rules can generate very complex behaviour. What are the rules that hold the flock of birds together and how might those rules map over into creating a prosperous and successful organization? We can make some interesting speculations. Also, there seems to be an optimum point for a business – between the indolence of too much deadening procedure and the chaos of too much change. Too much order and the business becomes inflexible, too rigid to react quickly enough to the demands of the external market or the demands of the people within it. Too much freedom and the organization does not work either: rules change too quickly and people become disoriented and confused. People can learn best at the delicately poised point of balance between the two extremes. How can an organization get to this ‘edge of chaos’ with enough creativity to adapt to change, but within a structure stable enough to operate effectively? Getting to this edge is one of the main tasks of an organizational leader.
Finally, complex systems are not predictable. In theory they may be, but as the old saying goes, ‘In theory there shouldn’t be a difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there always is.’ Complete control is impossible, and even if it were, it would be the kiss of death. There is no book, method or consultant that can tell you how to push the river (although many claim credit that it is their pushing that causes the river to move). But that does not mean you are helpless. Quite the opposite. It is a tremendous relief to admit that you cannot predict and therefore cannot entirely control a complex organization. You can give up trying. Now you can start to see how the organization really works and allow it to organize itself in the best way. This is a leader’s work.
NLP explores how people think and the results they get. Complexity and systems thinking explore the organizations they create as they work together. These ideas are fascinating and practical – which is why I write about them. Together they are the basis of our map.
Organizations are fond of saying that the quality of the people who work in them gives them their competitive edge. At the risk of being heretical, I doubt this very much. Every organization has excellent people of high quality. The leaders make the difference. They determine the quality of the experience of working in that business, they weave that indefinable, yet very important fabric – the organizational culture. At the same time, I believe everyone in an organization can be a leader in some way. I hope this book is a step towards making this possible and real.
How to Use This Book
My goal in this book is to weave the three strands of leadership into a thread to guide you through the twists and turns of the leader’s path. There are suggestions and exercises to develop yourself as a leader, to influence others in any situation where you are called on to lead, and to learn systemic thinking skills and apply them in a professional business context.
There are seven sections:
The first begins the journey. It starts with your vision – why be a leader? What does it mean?
The second section deals with different types of leaders and styles of leadership, explaining how when, where and why they are useful.
The third section starts to move away from the present and looks at vision, values and purpose, both organizational and individual.
The fourth looks at motivation and how to build it, also the dark side of leadership, the difficulties and obstacles.
The fifth deals with resources on the journey— the maps, guides and rules of the road.
The sixth looks at the guardians you will meet on the way and how to overcome them, how to build trust and be trust-worthy.
The guardians are not only external difficulties such as resistance from other people and organizational inertia, but also your own internal resistances and blocks.
The seventh section is about the skills and responsibilities you face as a leader and how you might get a business to fly in formation.
The last section is about passing on the skills you have learned to others through coaching and mentoring. It also has a summary of the principles of leadership.
There is also a resource section at the end with a bibliography.
Use